The lovely thing about British Culture is that people are generally friendly even to complete strangers, and I got my taste of that even before arriving in London. Sitting beside me on the flight was this British dude, and he was chatting to me and this other woman sitting on his other side, more to the other woman than me because I basically have zero social skills so I don't have the ability to prolong conversations with complete strangers. OR I need time to adjust from frosty 'Mind-Your-Own-Business-Singapore' to 'Hello!-I-Have-No-Idea-Who-You-Are-But-Let's-Chat-Anyway-London'. Sometimes one just has to catch me in the right mood.
With about another hour or so left to the flight, I pushed up the window shade to get a peek outside and the dude [kindda forgot what he said his name was so henceforth shall be referred to as The Dude] leaned over to see and asked if I could see anything and I said "Yeah. Sky." and pushed up the shade all the way to prove my point and he said "All you can see is the big wing eh?" to which I gave an awkward sounding "Heh heh" and fell silent. Curse my lack of social skills. As land and rooftops started appearing below us, he pointed to some landmark and told me it was the Millennium Dome and commented on it for abit while I listened, in silence while trying to look interested. I was, but I wasn't feeling it then. I really need my friendly pill.
At least I started to warm up to The Dude the moment we got off the plane and we shared a laugh over the slow moving travellator in the airport. I swear it was so slow that the moment I got on, I wondered whether it was working, and The Dude apparently shared my sentiments because we took some jibes at the travellator and he turned around to complete strangers and started joking with them about it. So we were this group of about 5 laughing people and no one would ever suspect we were complete strangers to each other. This is exactly what British culture is about. I don't know about the other parts of Britain, so this is exactly what London culture is about. People are just so cordial to one another. If I ever do so much as smile at the next person in Singapore much less talk to them about say, the weather, I would be classified as a complete nutso and given a wide berth.
So feeling all happy and warm and starting to feel friendly, the London trip was shaping up to a great start until I switched my phone back on and found out Dad's flight would be delayed and I was told to go ahead to the hotel and check in first. I panicked. Naturally. After all I'm in a foreign country with only the vaguest of ideas where the hotel is and I definitely did not know how to get there and I didn't want to pay through my nose to hop onto a taxi, and curse my lack of social skills once more because I will never dare to ask someone for directions. Yet everything seemed so familiar the moment I bought my Oyster ticket and took the Tube. Pondering which line to take felt familiar, changing of trains felt familiar, crossing the roads felt familiar [even some jaywalking] and reading the London Paper on the train made me feel very much like one of the Londoners even though I had a huge backpack with me. Darn the hold this country has on me. As I journeyed to the hotel, I felt like I was returning home after being away for one year. I love London.
(Read by Max McLean. Provided by The Listener's Audio Bible.)