London

"The only reason the relationship worked was because I backed down on 95% of things. But I'm a considerably better person than him, and cleverer".

I'm in London, sitting on a bench outside the Tate Gallery, listening to other people's loud and public conversations as they walk past.

"My birthday's on the Sunday so I think we'll have it on the Monday so I don't have to spend as much... fuck the effort, know what I mean?", says a man to his wife whilst pushing a pram. A man and a lady walk past me from behind, discussing fish, babies or, perhaps, a recent purchase from Amsterdam.

"I dunno, six pounds or eight?", asks the lady.
"... Double".
"Really?!"
"Yeah, you can get real heavy ones".

I have chosen this bench on the Thames Path because it is ideally placed to take in the sights and sounds of bustling London Town at lunchtime. It overlooks the Thames, lifeblood and lavatory of the people of London since Roman times. Across the Thames stands the impressive St. Paul's Cathedral. Crossing the river just to my right is the eight-year-old Millennium Bridge. A pedestrian bridge, it was highly praised in the media after its completion but turned out to be flawed in its composition, buckling under pressure and threatening to collapse at any moment, leading to rumours that it had been constructed by members of the England rugby team.

In a pedestrian underpass away to the left, the sounds of "Tequila" performed by the unlikely duo of an accordion player and tenor saxophonist can be heard wafting in my direction. Meanwhile a group of emo schoolkids are having an argument over something to do with Facebook, or some social networking site.
"'Friended' isn't even a verb!", says a 12-year-old with long straight black hair to his eye-linered peers. "'Friended is a past participle, you bellends!"
This stretch of the Thames Path is awash with bustling bodies heading in every direction. Emo schoolkids, Cajun blues musicians, American tourists with their shirts tucked into their belts, businessmen in pink shirts, French people arguing, joggers jogging, buskers busking. So this is London eh?

"This is a Picadilly Line train, terminating at Cockfosters", said the train lady at Heathrow last night. This was the first dialogue I heard upon arrival in London and was not entirely inappropriate. I had already seen the word and guessed that it had some sort of alternative, less overtly homosexual pronunciation.
"No, it's Cock-fosters", said Georgina. She was kind enough to retrieve me from Heathrow; a blessing since otherwise - considering the bunny-in-the-headlights mindstate I was in - I would probably still be standing wide-eyed in the Arrivals Hall.

I spent my first night in London on the floor of Georgina's modestly-sized dorm room. Well, not quite on the floor, but close enough to it to feel solidarity with the thousands of pioneering Kiwis before me who have arrived on these shores with a small wad of cash and nothing to sleep on. In other words, the only from here was up.

Back at my bench, I'm now witnessing a young American couple bickering over which tourist attraction they should argue at next.
"We didn't come to London to be in a park all day!", says the man in an aggressive tone. "You could do that in any city. We came here to see London".
"You're the one who wanted to come here!", she screams back.

Americans, of course, are famous for talking unnecessarily loudly in public so that everyone has to hear them but still pretend that they aren't listening. Working in the library for two years, you learned to recognise the familiar nasal twang of an approaching American at least half a minute before you saw him, penetrating the solemn silence of the building. I never minded it so much, but I did feel sorry for the unfortunate students who came to the library on a Monday night to study polymers and Greek mythology but ended up learning more about how Jay had this, like, total wipeout at Cardrona on Saturday and it was, like, totally sick, dude.

As much as I'd love to carry on enjoying the chatter, I have a city to explore; quite a large one actually. Counterintuitively - given that this is London - it is a hot, sunny day. Not quite equal to the searing heat of midtown Manhattan, but warm enough to make you skirt along the side of the walkway to stay in the shade. Perhaps an afternoon spent wandering through London's many user-friendly parks might be the ticket. With the aid of Georgina's map book - which I refer to surreptitiously inside my bag so as not to look like an amateurish tourist, which I most certainly am - I make my way past Westminster through St James's Park and towards Buckingham Palace, through a garantuan throng of tourists at the Palace Gates, and down Constitution Hill.

Largely by accident, I find myself passing by the New Zealand and Australian war memorials. Given the subject matter, I can't help but feel they could've chosen a more serene location for the memorials than the middle of one of London's busiest roundabouts, though on the plus side I suppose that means they get seen by a lot of eyes.

Our war memorial is a little unconventional - 16 cross-shaped bronze shafts scattered over a small area rising diagonally out of the ground - and it's not much liked by our English friends, it would seem. One particular art critic-cum-pompous wanker has even deemed it a "bristlingly unlovely installation" and a Frankenstein monster". He goes on to say that "it obscures certain views in that area", suggesting that in his opinion we should've opted for an invisible memorial, or perhaps no memorial at all.

You can imagine what sort of individual the above art critic is: a crusty old Hooray-Henry who eats steak and kidney pies and enjoys it, regards anyone born outside of London as an uncultured savage and believes that rogering your manservants at high tea while listening to "Land Of Hope And Glory" on the gramophone is still the truest affirmation of British values.

Well, I don't care what he gets up to with his servants - as long as they're cool with it, of course - but I don't agree with his summation of the New Zealand memorial. It may not be stunning, but it doesn't look like one of those mass wall-mounted urinals at rugby stadiums, and the Australian one sure does. If anything, it does aptly sum up the regard in which Aussies are generally viewed overseas, but whether or not it was the deliberate intention of the designer to create this effect is unknown.

London is purported to have the best parks and public areas of any city in Europe and I find it hard to disagree as I stroll around Hyde and Regent's Parks. Firstly, they are massive, so you can get lost on your own in them, along with a million other people. There are no shortages of benches and attractive lawns to rest up on, either. Nor are there any shortage of locales to visit and enjoy. In Hyde Park alone I wander past the Speakers' Corner, through Italian gardens, across Serpentine Bridge and past youngsters paddle-boating through the lake, and finally to my intended destination at the Princess Diana memorial fountain.

Unbelievably, as I'm standing looking at the fountain, the young American couple walk past, and they're still arguing. He must really hate parks by now, I think to myself. The argument appears to be going along the same lines as they stop talking to look at me for a moment, see that I'm preoccupied writing something down in a diary and so carry on arguing. The advantages of travelling alone are clear: I can choose to visit whichever places I want, don't have to buy anyone an ice cream and will never get told off for listening in on other people's conversations.

From Hyde Park I enjoy shady stroll back into town along a horse trail, past the utter tourist chaos that is Trafalgar Square and back across the Thames, where I'm joined by gathering throngs of workers making their way home for the evening.

A glorious summer day has turned into a glorious summer evening when I meet my cousin Katie at Liverpool Street Station. There are more trains at the station than there are in New Zealand currently and the main concourse is crawling with commuters moving every which way and bouncing off each other like atoms in a particle accelerator. I stand outside a French bakery thinking about what a miracle it would be if Katie actually found me, but she does in the end, my ongoing bunny-in-the-headlights expression obviously causing me to stand out amongst the commuters.

It's a Wednesday evening but every bar with an outside area is packed. We end up at The Globe, near the station, where businessmen have liberated themselves and are crowding around on the outside lawn drinking plastic cups of beer.
"This is what happens in good weather", says Katie knowingly. "People never know when they're next going to get a nice day in London, so when the sun's out, everyone drinks while they can". It seems like a commendable attitude to me.

Katie moved here from Wellington a fair while ago and is a good source of advice about London. "It's definitely scary at first, but in a few months you'll be fine. Just don't live in the stabbing areas".
How do I know if I'm in a stabbing area? Do they have signs?
"Hah, just don't go too far South. Or East".

The fact that so many Kiwis are prospering here makes me feel a lot better about my chances of survival in this big, scary place. After an enjoyable dinner, Katie pays for my beers and walks me all the way home, where Georgina is waiting out front to let me in.

There's no way I'm letting myself get stabbed on my first proper day in London, you see.