Lost in London

Lost in London I think we’re all aware of the baby bird metaphor. When the time comes, the mama bird will push her children out of the nest so they learn to fly. It’s symbolic of learning to survive on your own, making a stake in life, growing up. The baby bird must learn to get around on its own. It’s pretty simple: fly or die. I’ll admit, I’m a sheltered child. I grew up in a small town, and I can get around only because I know where everything is. My sense of direction— well, I never knew if it was any good because I never got the chance. Any new vacation was taken with an adult, one armed with a map. Whenever there was a chance I was away from home, someone else was there who knew their way around. I needed a good, healthy push out of the tree, pronto. Thankfully, this trip was that push. It was our first full day in London, and someone decided to let these dazed, recently un-jetlagged kids loose into one of the most crowded cities in the world. I was pretty relieved at first. One of my least favorite things about the trip was marching around in a group of fifty-three. We might as well carry signs that say “Tourists crossing, pickpockets welcome!” To be out in a small group of our choice was a blessing. After about twenty minutes of hunting for food, it slowly dawned on my merry group of two that we weren’t sure which path to take. Our map didn’t have the majority of local streets we were on. Come to think of it, we didn’t know even know where we were going. We were in a foreign country, and nothing we passed seemed remotely familiar. It was just about as lost as you could get. In today’s age, anyone can whip out a phone and call someone who knows the way. But funny thing about a foreign country: no phone service. I can say from experience being lost in the city is far worse than being lost anywhere else. It's because of the people! People crossing the streets, driving cars, waiting for you to get out of the way— they were everywhere. While in America there are benches you can sit on and wonder what to do, there don’t seem to be any in London. Locals would sit on the edges of the street or on the doorstep of a shop if they had to rest, but there was no designated area. Not only were we panicking about what to do, but we were caught up in the flow of human traffic. We had to get directions, and we had to do it the old-fashioned way. Asking a local for directions was something I’ve never had to do before, but I found it didn’t take much time. The British family we pulled over was happy to help, despite their lack of street knowledge. It was interesting to see how they interacted with one another, not so different from an American family. They were down to earth and friendly, unlike the stereotype of hoity-toity Englishmen you hear about. We were directed to street maps located on the corner every few blocks or so. It was pretty smart of the English to put those maps there, or a quarter of the tourists in London would still be stumbling around today. Maybe I’d still be there. But like that baby bird, I learned how to make my own way. And I did it pretty well too.