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Every new city gives me a fresh burst of energy. A completely different vista in a unique palette creates this sense of awe in me, that our great cities can be so close to each other, and yet so starkly diverse.

Arriving in London did it for me again. And I think, if money weren’t a factor, I could continue traveling forever, provided that I saw something new each day.

Thursday night I tucked in early, but not before meeting my roommates: 3 Irish girls, 2 Israeli guys, and 1 Polish guy. The way that hostels bring people together still amazes me. The Polish guy, Mikho, is actually financing his trip by busking with a drum: he uses the money he made from the previous day to pay for a hostel and food. If you think about it, this would only take about 40-50 dollars daily, which is totally reasonable for a few hours of playing music in a decently crowded area. The girls went out clubbing at nearly midnight, asking the guys in the room to come with them. I offered to join in another night, and a good thing too: two of them stayed out dancing until the sun was up and then slept the whole next day. I would have fallen asleep standing on the dance floor.

Friday, Mikho left us in search of a cheaper hostel, since the rates went up for the weekend. I went to do the touristy stuff with the one girl - Mary - who had managed to get a little sleep the night before. We saw Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, and Buckingham Palace. I was wiped out again when it was over, so I opted out of the clubbing for a second time.

But as you know, no trip is complete without New Age Canadians!

Two women in their 50’s joined our room. One was obviously used to the hostel environment, and slid comfortably into a bed. The other looked around, a little dazed, and left for the hostel’s bar. I was headed there around that time anyway, so I just followed her down.

I ended up getting this woman’s life story several times, and never got a word in edge-wise, as she seemed to both not hear anything I said and not remember what she had told me. A most excellent combination.

So, she was independent at age 16, working on a dairy farm she eventually inherited in Ontario. Got married young, had three kids. Fast-forward to 2002. Her husband in the air force has found another woman remotely, and abandons her and the kids. They all get through college and turn out well despite this. Sounds almost typical, right?

Well, then she makes a friend who convinces her that she is psychic. That she needs to go on an inward journey, manifested by a physical journey. She puts it off a bit, but starts meditating and prophesizing and researching horoscopes and lines of power on the earth. All those things I give absolutely no credence to. I zoned out a little bit, and then was startled when she gets to the part about dating a guy 20 years younger. They break up, and he promptly gets a sex change. This woman is not a lesbian, but she did use the phrase ex-girlfriend several times. Talk about confusing!

Eventually she gives in and goes on the trip. And it is clear to me at this point in the story, that despite whatever else this woman has been through, she is terrified. Turns out that she had never left her small community of a couple thousand before. The idea of roads she doesn’t know, languages she can’t speak, and strangers - just people she hasn’t known her whole life - scares her more than anything else. She is down at the bar, deliberately trying to down as many drinks as possible simply because she can’t stand the thought of sleeping in a room with strangers.

The whole point of telling you this is just that despite the fact that I have tried to put myself outside of my comfort zone and experience new things during this trip, I have never been shaking at the thought of what I’m about to do next, trying to drink myself into a stupor so I won’t have to really face it. I hope I never am.

Back to the recap.

Saturday I was off by myself. I meandered through the West End, where I wanted to experience London theater and saw Les Miserables for the first time. The technical aspects of the show were top-notch: excellent lighting, sound, set, and costume design. However, for such a popular musical I was disappointed by the show itself: weak story, blase ending, and a repetitive score mixed with simple lyrics.

I happened through Soho, which felt more lived in than a lot of other parts of the city, and reminded me a lot of New York, and then Chinatown, which felt like a poor immitation of what a Chinatown should be, after seeing the ones in NYC and SF.

Then I stumbled across the British Museum. And what is on display on the first floor? The Rosetta Stone! How climactic! How fitting that in my final destination I should see the relic that allowed us to understand the country I started in! Totally unintended. Totally awesome.

Finally, as the Irish girls were leaving the next day, I went out with them. But instead of going straight to a club, we hit up a random pub first. And ended up staying there for hours.

It’s called B@1 (pronounced “be at one”) and it is the best cocktail bar I have found in all of Western Europe. The bartenders had incredible energy and skill, and San Francisco’s Bourban and Branch is the only place to rival their menu of drink choices. On top of that, the three bartenders are the three owners of the place, so they dictate everything about it, including the playlist. At one point, they muted the volume during “Living on a Prayer” and the entire bar crowd was shouting the lyrics. They finish every night by playing Journey and then “Closing Time.” If I ever work at a bar, I want it to be a clone of B@1.

After they closed, we spent a lot of disorienting time in a taxi and then getting to a club, where we stayed all of five minutes before deciding to call it a night. By the time we got back it was somewhere around 5 AM, and the sun was threatening the horizon.

I got to see a great discovery first hand, and then stumbled across one myself (admittedly, they were discoveries of vastly varied scopes). That is a good start to my time in London, my friends.