Who said London is expensive? As I headed back west from Southeast Asia bound for Europe, getting my standard geography lesson by flying over new places, I was increasingly nervous about getting back to the western world. First, I crossed back across the Indian Ocean, Southern India, then the other side of the Indian Ocean before another layover in Oman, Muscat (fortunately less than the 12 hours of hell I spent there en route to Nepal). Later, flying north towards Europe I saw on the satellite map that I was flying smack-dab between Baghdad and Tehran, before crossing into Turkey, then finally across Europe.

When I’ve told people about my trip over the past months, the one thing I’ve kept on hearing over and over again more than anything else about London is how expensive it is. Worse, as the dollar continues to weaken, the exchange rate is now over 2 dollars to the pound—London was the one place on my trip where, to convert prices to dollars I had to use multiplication rather than division. After months of sacrificing comfort to live as cheaply as humanly possible—taking uncomfortable busses rather than more expensive sleeper trains, buying rooms with fans instead of air conditioning, always bargaining, sometimes over less than 50 cents-- I was horrified at the prospect that all my pains would be completely undone by 3 short days in London. I was wondering if it had been a mistake to not just go straight home from Bangkok—after all, in only 3 days could I really make more than just a token visit, to just be able to say that I’ve been to Europe?

24 hours later, sitting in the balcony in my front row, center stage seat for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, I couldn’t help but smile with delight. My guidebook had claimed that 30-50 British pounds was the “bare minimum” for survival in London, yet I had managed to have a wonderful day for less than 25 pounds, including a nice dinner and what was truly the best seat in the house for a professional West End show. I decided that rather than be upset about spending all my money, I would turn it into a game, a challenge, to try to see and do as much as I could in those 3 days spending as little money as possible.

After taking care of the basic essentials of accommodation (a hostel for 6 pounds a night—my bed wasn’t particularly comfortable, and the rooms were crammed like sardine cans, but I’d slept in a lot worse), food (cramming as much cornflakes and nutella-smeared toast as I could from the free breakfast at the hostel, wrapping some bread and jam in a napkin for later), and transportation (5 pounds a day for an unlimited underground subway and bus pass), I headed into Central London. My first stop was the West End, London’s version of Broadway, famous for its high quality professional shows. I was hoping to see at least one show while I was there, but was delighted to find out that theater was the one thing in London that was quite a bit more affordable than New York, and ended up seeing a different play all three nights I was there. I was able to get a youth rush ticket for that night’s production of Much Ado About Nothing for only 5 pounds! I also got a ticket to The Producers for the following night (still a good deal at 10 pounds, but not as good a seat) before walking towards the Thames River.

Walking along the river, the crisp winter air, mixture of camera clicking tourists with trendy, well dressed locals, and the distinctive smells of a modern city reminded me a lot of New York. I eventually made my way to Big Ben and Westminster Palace, home to the British Parliament. I found out that Parliament would be in session that afternoon, and was open to the public. Even better, it was free, so I decided to go back and see it. But first, I made my way towards Buckingham Palace. By that time I was in a great mood, even if a bit tired and jet lagged, and had completely overcome my anxiety about London, realizing that there was enough free things to do in the city to keep me entertained for months, let alone days. Sure, I had to be content looking in to Buckingham Palace from the outside, but I didn’t feel that I had to do the touristy things to get to know London (I’ve never been to Niagra Falls even though they’re only a few hours from my house—does that make me less American???). From there I made my way back to Westminster Palace, where I stood in line for the visitors gallery to see Parliament. It was something probably relatively few tourists do, but I found it really interesting to see the British political system in action. Just as I’d heard, they really did grumble at each other during the debate, even though it was over fairly mundane stuff. The only thing close to drama was when one MP (Member of Parliament) accused the minister of culture of giving jobs for political reasons rather than merit, and she responded by denying the claim and basically telling him he was full of crap. The discussion was actually pretty interesting, and covered a wide range of topics in the short time I was there, ranging from protection of ancient Roman ruins sites to the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Brittain, to funding for the BBC.

From there I hopped onto the Underground and headed up the river to the Tate modern art museum. All the major museums in London are free, so I spent a lot of time doing that. After crossing the beautiful millennium bridge back over the Thames, I arrived at the museum slightly after 4p.m, with 2 hours before it closed at 6. I’m not usually much of a modern art aficionado, so I figured 2 hours would be plenty of time. Nonetheless, I soon found the exhibits to be truly fascinating. The exhibits were not only very stimulating and original, but the explanations that went along with them were very thorough, giving a much better understanding of the history and context that went along with the artwork. I especially like several exhibits that combined audio visual elements, such as a room with 4 large movie screens simultaneously playing different short clips from movies which all connected to form common, ever changing themes, such as a particular type of music, or people screaming, bombs dropping, etc--It’s one of those things that sounds really dumb and boring when you explain, but is really cool to see. I guess that’s the way most art is, so I’ll finish by just saying that it was a phenomenal museum, and after 2 hours I still hadn’t finished one of the 4 or 5 floors in the museum. I decided to go back and spend more time there before leaving London but ended up not getting back.

I headed back to the theater district for the show. Not having eaten a meal since breakfast I was famished, and decided to splurge by going to a pub for dinner which, at 9 pounds, was by far my most expensive purchase of the day. From there I headed over to the Novello theater for the show. I was absolutely astounded with how good my seat was—it was such a small, intimate theater, that being in the front row of the balcony was actually better than being down below. Much Ado is also a special play for me, since I acted in it in high school years ago. The production was very well done, and brought back wonderful nostalgic memories from good times in high school. That ticket may have been the best deal I got on the entire trip, which is saying a lot. There’s nothing I like better than getting a good deal, so after the show I was in a good mood that lasted for the duration of my time in London.

After the show let out, I walked slowly through the streets, busy with other people coming from shows, to the Underground station at Picadilly Circus, and headed back to my hostel. London’s was the fifth subway I rode on during my trip (after Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Singapore; and the monorail in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), and I always love people watching on the subway. Public transportation, especially the subway, is always one of society’s levelers-- a metal box stuffed with people from just about every social strata. It’s like being able to look through a microscope to see a more or less representative sample of a culture.

The next morning my first destination was The British Museum, hailed as one of the “Great Museums” of the world, largely made up of artifacts the British empire collected (or some would say stole) from around the world. It was fascinating walking through the enormous halls, but also a bit overwhelming and even frustrating. Seeing the enormity of the world, the immense complexity of every individual society and culture, I had to ask myself whether the cultural ‘knowledge’ I had acquired over the previous months traveling was really anything more than absurd overgeneralizations, generic clichés. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but feel proud to have seen first hand many of the regions and artifacts catalogued in the museum—Inca ruins from South America, golden artifacts from Egypt, Buddha statues from Southeast Asia, and many more. I smiled with Déjà vu when I saw a group of uniformed school children taking notes in front of an Egyptian ruin. I thought back to only a few days earlier, visiting the Ayuthaya ruins in Thailand, a completely different world from here, clicking a picture of an identical group of uniformed Thai children on a school trip, writing in their notebooks about the ancient temple in front of them. Connections like that make me appreciate the trip I’ve done.

In the afternoon I spent more time walking the city. I went to St. Paul’s Cathedral which, like Westminster Abbey, I was content observing from outside (who’s ever heard of charging admission to go into a church?!? I found that very distasteful and decided to save my money). I walked up the Thames past Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, past the London Bridge and crossed over at the Tower Bridge to the Tower of London. I actually would have liked to have gone inside, but it was getting late, there was a long line, and I still wanted to get to the National Art Gallery, so I walked the perimeter and watched a documentary in the visitors center outside the tower. From there I headed to Trafalger Square and the National Art Gallery, where I spent 2 hours trying to cram in almost a 800 years of European art. In contrast to the countless Buddha images of all shapes and sizes I’d been seeing the last 2 months in Asia, the theme in European Art is definitely lots and lots of pictures of Jesus. I really enjoyed seeing the French Impressionist paintings they had, as well as a few Van Goghs, but I was pretty tired from another long day by the time the museum closed at 6.

That evening, after a fine dinner of pizza slices on the street, I saw The Producers, my second show in as many nights. I was worried because I’d bought the cheapest balcony seat available and was told I’d need to lean over the stage light to see the stage, but when I arrived I was delighted to find out that the balcony was closed for that evening, and I was being upgraded to a seat worth almost 3 times what I’d paid—another lucky break! I remember not too long ago in New York when The Producers was sold out a year in advance. Now that it’s no longer a trendy show, they can’t even sell enough tickets to fill the balcony! It was a great show, although I have to admit it was a bit hard to stay awake after another long day.


The next and final day of my trip, I started with an early morning walk through Hyde Park, where the fog was truly as thick as the proverbial pea soup. I would later find out that several hundred flights would be cancelled due to that very same fog. Nonetheless, at the time it was eerily beautiful, exactly how I’d pictured London to be, with rows of bare trees and cold statues emerging into view from the dense fog as I walked through the park. It brought to mind all the newspaper headlines speaking of the “Suffolk Strangler”, the mysterious murderer that had recently killed several prostitutes.

In the afternoon I headed over to Greenwich, outside of central London, where I did yet more walking along the Thames (it’s a very nice place to walk). I visited the Maritime Museum, as well as the Royal Observatory, where I got a picture straddling the prime meridian and set my watch to the official Atomic clock (you’ve heard of Greenwich Mean Time?) As the sun sank low in the sky, the temperature sank but the colors became dramatic, giving a brilliant golden hue to the trees, grass, buildings, and the London skyline across the Thames. As I watched the sun set between two old looking houses from a park, I thought of the symbolic sunset of a successful journey.

For my final evening, I treated myself to yet another show, my favorite musical, Les Miserables. The ticket was a bit more expensive than the other two, but well worth the price for seeing my favorite show on my last night, and once again I got an absolutely superb seat in the 10th row. After the show I took a final (and by now routine) walk around Picadilly Circus to the underground station. As I left the street and walked down the stairs, I said goodbye to London—this was truly the end of my trip, as after this all I’d have left would be the trip home.

Fortunately, despite the fog my flight got out from Heathrow the next day only about an hour and a half late (not bad since countless other flights were cancelled). I was thrilled that after 4 nights and 3 jam packed days in London, including incredible seats for 3 professional shows, I had spent only about 100 pounds ($200)—still quite a bit more than other parts of my trip, but not bad for all that I had been able to experience, and for being able to check ‘EUROPE’ off my lifetime ‘to-do’ list (that’s a joke in case the sarcasm was too subtle).

While conditions on the ground were as foggy as Hyde Park had been the day before, within 10 seconds of takeoff we climbed up into the clear blue air, leaving a beautiful layer of swirling white below. As a bonus, I was treated to yet another beautiful sunset over the clouds. In fact, given the timing and our eastbound travel, the sky was a spectacular perpetual twilight for the entire flight. I was expecting the flight to be a time for thoughtful reflection on the last several months, but that was before I realized that my Virgin Atlantic flight had personal entertainment center’s for each seat, so instead I spent the whole 8 hours watching on-demand movies, listening to music, and playing tetris, killer worm, and pong (a bit of free advertisement for Virgin Atlantic—they’re definitely the best airline I’ve flown on). The time wasn’t completely wasted—I did watch the new Al Gore documentary on global warming, which was particularly poignant because I was flying over the arctic circle at the time, and while the movie was playing I was looking down at what I think were giant icebergs off the northeast coast of Canada.

After touching down in JFK, I picked up my bag, met my dad and gave him a big hug. My world tour was over.