Saturday, June 02, 2007

Tube of vomit

I always thought I was a big city kind of person. I love the energy of cities, the different faces, the anonymity, the strange and wonderful corners, the history, the scars. I felt at home in big cities, slipping easily between the crowds, finding my niche of where to shop, eat, drink, learn and marvel. Something has changed.

London was completely overwhelming, noisy, vast, ugly, beautiful and above all, filled to the brim with stuff. I felt suddenly like someone had squeezed my surroundings into a tiny little box and then piled up thousands of other boxes until there was no empty space left in my entire visual universe. Mental either, for that matter. I hated the tube, it made me want to vomit, walking around was a matter of head down, elbows out and somehow even the vast array of food left me cold. What the hell has happened to me?

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy parts of it, like hanging out with a couple of cool ladies, or visiting the (extremely overcrowded)Tate modern filled with amazingly engaged kids and their parents, and some quite cool art. I just didn't love it the way I loved visiting Budapest last year, or going to Hamburg. Either London isn't for me, or I've become a small towner. Help me.

And of course it rained.

1 comment:

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

The nice things about big cities are their little nooks, the secret places you discover by accident, and find a home in. The big, blary, public parts, though: I can take 'em or leave 'em. Preferably leave 'em. I'm sure there'd be bits of London, away from the three-cheers-for-me-I'm-a-metropolis din, that you would love.
xx