Jan. 12 – London, U.K.

Today, I put places to names in the West End. The student-populated Bloomsbury, home to London’s universities. Narrow Soho, crammed with tourists and shops. Covent Garden’s theatres, including the Savoy on the Strand. Lunch at a deli on Charing Cross Road. Through Trafalgar Square, families hoisting their toddlers up in front of the bronze lions at Nelson’s Column. Past the submachinegun-wielding guards at the gates to Downing Street.

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best. I’ve been gone for nearly three months, and being back in the anglosphere – and in London! – has dulled my desire to write much more.

Through China, Russia, and Eastern/Central Europe, blogging was easy because travel was hard. Can’t speak the language? Well, talk less, listen closely, and think more. Don’t know the area? Pay attention to the landmarks, all unfamiliar.

None of that applies in London. Sure, the English language ‘as its quirks don’t it? But now I can eavesdrop and be amused, annoyed or alarmed by what people say around me. No more ignorant bliss of babble in Mandarin, Russian and other Slavic tongues. And in a famous city stuffed with interesting things to see, you can take no wrong turn when meandering without a map. This is a place we all know. Even if you’ve never been to London, its landmarks are so renowned from books, film and television it’s hard to find something fresh and foreign to write about.

London is saturated with the English language and with worthwhile things. I think if there’s a travel blogger’s version of oxygen toxicity, I’m experiencing it now.

I leave tomorrow, ever westwards. This time however, I’ll be crossing an ocean using conventional means. You’ll hear from me next somewhere in North America (and no, not Toronto or Vancouver).