In the United Kingdom, the means of transportation are very different from the United States. Back home in Texas, almost everyone has the luxury of driving their own air-conditioned vehicles; however, here in Great Britain it is a different story entirely. On a daily basis, there is great hustling and bustling in the streets as locals and tourists rush to the nearest tube station, or to hail a cab or bus. The tube is extremely hot and becomes uncomfortable quickly. People in this country don’t seem to care about personal space—perhaps because they are already accustomed to this way of life—but we Americans NEED our space. At first, I enjoyed taking the tube because I was in a brand new city feeling as though I was living the British life; however, now that the days have gotten hotter, it seems to have lost it’s element of novelty. At this point in the trip, quite frankly I am fed up with public transportation.

On a recent occasion, a group of us were attempting to get home from Greenwich and it turned into a complete disaster. We thought we were walking to an underground station, but ended up at a rail station. The sign clearly read, “Underground.” We were missing something apparently. After deciding to go ahead and take the above ground train considering we had no idea where the tube was located, we swiped our oyster cards to go through. Soon after doing so, we realized we probably could have used our BritRail passes so we asked the attendant for help. He was clueless. We took the train to Cannon St. (wherever that is) only to find out that we didn’t need to use our oyster cards initially. The attempt to have our money refunded was just plain ridiculous. The attendant yet again was confused and sent us to a different underground station across the street. We managed to get our money refunded, but for the life of us could not find the District/Circle line train to get us back to the dorm. We followed the signs directing us to the correct train, but there was a never-ending string of escalators that only brought us to more escalators. After spending about two hours traveling (it seemed like an eternity), we finally got on the train towards South Kensington and returned home.

Dealing with being lost constantly and sweating to death make me miss my air-conditioned car so badly! I get to a point during these long days where I am angry and have very little patience with the people around me, which is generally not the case back home. Feeling sticky and uncomfortable on top of being lost is extremely frustrating, and has revealed to me how blessed we are to have our own vehicles in America.

Traveling in London in my opinion is stressful and uncomfortable, but it has definitely been a good experience. I have learned to have patience, to figure things out for myself, and to keep my cool with people I may not be too fond of. Don’t let my negativity ruin a European vacation for you. This city is wonderful, but like most things in life, it can become frustrating at times.

The tube