Wow, it’s been 3 months since my last post. Being dormant for such a long time indicates me ineptly to be called blogger, let alone writer. Afterall, I make it as a hobby (what a miserable face-saving strategy. LOL)

Anyway, I’m here not for any oral-defense explaining where I’ve been these last 3 months. I’m back with a magnified experience I just underwent. What sort of thing brought me back to civilization?

If you see the eye-catching title, does it remind you to one of a romantic movie entitled “When in Rome”? Well, yeah, all you gotta do is crossing out the Rome word and putting London instead. But, do please wipe away any depictions that this one resembles that Rome’s movie. Needles to say it was a romantic journey. Cause it’s not. Not even close to.

LET THE MAGIC BEGIN! (trying to mimic Dumbledore)

I went to London on December 1 and left that classy city on December 7. It was the furthest journey I ever take, in terms of hours and miles. It was also my very first time leaving my own footprints in Euro land. I was there for business, acting as my old campus official delegate in international conference on renewable energy, held by PPI-UK (Indonesian Student Association in UK). But I’m not gonna waste my time writing what I did on the first 3 formal days. Nor waste your time reading a lecturing text alike about the development of this eco-friendly energy in Indonesia. Who’s with me? XP

Let’s be straight up! I’m gonna enlist some facts about London that mesmerize and knock me off my feet. The list is based on my true experience.

      • The ubiquitous typical old building. They do truly occupy the whole city. But that’s what makes London attractive, the sense of classical vicinity.

    • The homeless people. Everybody knows that even a super modern and sophisticated city, like New York, have a group of poor people. But this one’s unique. These Londoners ask for money and food from pedestrians (this part is plain, huh? I know, cause we see it like every time and everywhere in Indonesia). In our beloved country, they bring kids, even babies, while execute their (im)possible  missions. Those in London don’t bring kids or babies with them. They bring dogs. Yep, doggy. They sit in some strategic areas scattered in London, for instance the subway entrance, with the dogs wagging meekly around the owners. Hmm, I’m wondering of giving a try bringing a cat with me and asking for money in the roadside. Will people throw me coins or quizzically look? Worth trying I suppose. :D
    • The cars. When I was in a car heading to Oxford, as it passed through highway, I came to realize there’s one big similarity amongst the cars. What’s that? The window. Yep, the car’s windows are transparent. What I mean by that is sometimes people attach, I don’t know what’s usually called, some kind of opaque layer sticks on the car’s windows, making it difficult for others to sneak a peek at what happened inside the car. I was told that it’s regulated in UK law and encompassing all citizens and all type of vehicles, private cars to trucks. See, so intriguing how Jakarta local government unequivocally put in order for public transportations to apply a-transparent-car’s-windows regulation to annihilate the recently mind-boggling issues of sexual harassment toward women’s passengers (hmm, what am I trying to show here? hahaha)
    • No car horn’s roar. Seven days wandering around the crowded London’s streets, I never, even once, heard a car, bus, or truck driver blew the horn. It’s hard to imagine how serene the streets in London are when we’re getting more and more familiar with boisterous where drivers become so infatuated with car horn blowing, which is formidably deleterious.
    • The subway. For countries equipped with poor-in-quality transportation system, like ours, it’s such an endowment to lively taste the very-well-established trans. system, especially subway. I experienced Singapore, KL, and Taipei MRT, but there’s something mystical about London subway. Hmm, let me think. The best candidate, perhaps, is the “mind the gap” session.
    • The red telephone box. If you see the image on the left, first thing pops out in your head must be London. Correct! This is one of London’s trademarks and not acting just as symbol, people still use them. So mournful, how our blue boxes now are standing just as boxes with no taxiphone left. It could’ve been our trademark though.
    • The Buckingham Palace and a tantamount to grandiose fairy-tale procession (read: a prince on a white horse, which in this context the prince refers to yeomany on Royal Guards changing procession). I once witnessed this very kind of royal orgy in Jogjakarta quite long time ago (I’m not sure in what term the orgy held to, but it’s not coronation-related party for that I’m sure).

    • The super one-of-a-kind taxi.

I don’t know what to tell about this phenomenon as I didn’t try it on by myself. Suffice to say, it’s totally unique just from its appearance. Anyone disagree?

  • The “KNIGHT” bus.

Another London’s genuine public transportation I failed to taste. There’s one special red “knight” bus dedicated to tourists. It costs you around 25 pounds, if I could trust my memory, to get you on a one-day London tour. As I was there with limited amount of money, a better and wiser preference was using it to buy food or souvenirs in replace. What a (still) student-oriented way of mind! :D

One word for London: AWESOME! Hoping someday I have another opportunity to come back to London, and not just as a regular visitor, but a student. AMIN.