London Rain

I had been in London for all of twenty minutes when it started raining. I wasn't exactly surprised -- London is, after all, known for its rain. It was warm that day in early July, though welcomingly cooler than the scorching afternoon I'd spent in Romania the day before, and the rain fell softly like kisses upon my hair and my nose.

I was exhausted that morning. A twelve-hour bus ride on poorly maintained Romanian roads had brought me to the Budapest airport at 1 AM, and I was working on very little sleep as a result. Anything requiring the most basic skill in concentration becomes an order of magnitude higher when I've had no sleep, and figuring out how to get to my hostel near the London Bridge by navigating the complicated Underground system, which I had never ridden before, was nearly impossible.

Carrying my over-full backpacks, I trudged to the Heathrow station and rode the Underground for nearly 45 minutes before I found the London Bridge stop. Then it was another 15 minutes of trying to find the street I was looking for, and the address on the street I was trying to find, and then waiting to check into the hostel, which was closed in the late morning, so I couldn't take a nap. I paid for my bed and stashed my heavier backpack at the hostel, keeping the smaller pack with me, since it held my digital camera and other meager valuables. Then I trudged in the rain again, finding another tube entrance, where I took the Underground to the Elephant & Castle stop and continued to a free museum located nearby.

I found out later that Elephant & Castle is known for its colorful shopping district, but I managed to miss all that, as focused as I was on getting to the Imperial War Museum. It's hard to explain (or remember, for that matter) what (other than free admission) drew me to a museum of war, but I spent hours exploring the place. The museum didn't celebrate war, though it did, unsurprisingly, present a decidedly Anglo-centric view of the subject, and though its Holocaust exhibit was the third I'd seen during my trip to Europe, repetition of the topic made it no less moving.

The majority of the rest of my time in London was spent sleeping. I couldn't really fight the exhaustion any longer, so I took a long nap, and then went to bed very early in the evening. Really, I spent just enough time in London to know that I want to spend some more time there.

My travel bug is itching.