Chapter 56
Greta
For my first three days in London, I hate it, and on the fourth, I start to fall in love.
Sure, it’s cold and a little hostile, but once you give in and adapt, it grows on you.
You turn into just another one of the people dwelling there and moving through its streets self-assured, eyes forward, acting like you know exactly where you’re going.
Or I do, anyway. And as I fake it, I think to myself, Everyone else is probably faking it too.
I was comfortable in Amsterdam, but in London, I’ve started to break down a little bit.
I changed hostels after spending the first few nights sharing a bathroom in the hall with a group of Belgian girls apparently incapable of peeing into the toilet.
I decide to pay more for a bathroom of my own on the other end of the city and wind up in a matchbox with a carpeted floor covered in roaches that crawl all over, unbothered.
It’s their room, not mine. I cry. I get up on the bed and cry and think about calling my parents, or Grandpa, or even Will.
I would have enjoyed this with him; we could have turned it into a funny story we could tell years later.
But eventually, I get myself together. I eat hamburgers, Indian food, Lebanese food, Chinese food, Korean…
The good thing about London is you have everything.
I walk around Hyde Park and St. James’s.
The gardens are romantic and melancholy, and I love going there to write in my diary.
On the third night in that filthy room, I make a mental effort to think my way out of my irrational fear of cockroaches: They’re just innocent insects, after all; it’s not their fault that they’re ugly, and they’re scared too; they see me as an intruder.
That helps me sleep better. I visit the National Gallery.
I start hanging out in Camden. I buy a puffy coat because the cold swoops in and catches me off guard.
At night before bed, I count all the money I have left and review my plans for my trip.
I dream about Will and wake up with my eyes full of tears.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t remember what exactly it was we were doing.
I go to bunches of flea markets and buy a secondhand film camera that’s just beautiful and go to Notting Hill and think about all the times Lucy and I watched that movie with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.
I make friends with a lady in a hat who sits on the same bench every day to read.
And to put the icing on the cake, I find a skating rink to go to.
When I say goodbye to London, I’ve almost made friends with the cockroaches too.