I began my European Summer with Remote Year in London after four amazing months in South America. To be honest, everyone in the program was a little skeptical about how the month would play out after we found out that we wouldn’t be spending June in Istanbul (for obvious safety concerns), due to the extremely high cost of living in London. As a result, Remote Year housed us on the outskirts of the city, where we lived in a co-work/co-living space that was only partially completed (i.e., no actual workspace, no gym, no restaurant or café for half the month). Despite these challenges, I really did enjoy London and, aside from a very touristy weekend spent with my sister and friend Courtney, who were in town visiting, got to enjoy areas of London that I otherwise would not have seen on a quick weekend visit.
My favorite of these areas is Shoreditch. My first weekend in London, we spent time hanging out at Spitafields Market and the BOXPARK Shoreditch. It was sort of like reverse culture shock after being in South America for so long – both for the general diversity and for the fact that I was not the only black person around, attracting attention for my skin color, curly hair, or both. It also took a little while to get used to speaking in English again when we went out to restaurants or got in an Uber – my natural inclination was to say “Hola” or “Gracias” during my first few days in London.
I took a midweek trip to Oxford with a couple of friends and it is every bit as charming and picturesque as you’d think it is from reading or watching Harry Potter. We rented a car and drove the hour and a half out of London and spent the morning touring around campus before parking ourselves at a café to work in the afternoon.
The next day, we visited Blenheim Palace, built in the early 18th Century to celebrate the English victory over the French in the War of the Spanish Succession. It was also the birthplace of Winston Churchill in 1874. I could have spent all day lounging in the beautiful green spaces around the palace, and touring its many rooms, but we had to get back to London to start working in the afternoon. The beauty of the last few months in Europe is that I don’t start working until my afternoon (early morning East Coast hours) and can spend my mornings exploring each new city I visit.
I had three weekends in London: one that I spent in the French countryside with my friend Roxie, another that I spent in Spain during a weeklong visit there (more on that in my next blog post), and the aforementioned touristy weekend spent riding around London on a double decker hop-on, hop-off bus.
My sister, Laila, had never been to London before, so this was the quickest and easiest way for us to cover all the highlights in a short period of time. We rented an Airbnb in the Fitzrovia neighborhood (no way was I wasting time commuting back and forth from my digs in Willesden Junction) and hit the ground running. We made stops at Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, and more.
For plenty of (obvious) reasons, London offered the greatest taste of home I’ve had since January. Despite my initial hesitations, it provided a great jumping off point to explore some other areas in Europe and even though the weather was grey and gloomy half the time, I’m glad I was able to spend more than a weekend there!
