Walking takes you to places. ~ Oddities Of A Girl Finding Her Place In The World

I spent eight hours walking around London during my 14 hours layover. It takes an hour on the Tube from Heathrow Airport to the center of London and it cost £5.50 each way and it is expensive if you consider the rate of exchange between U.S. Dollars and UK pounds. I originally planned to take the Tube to a couple places I wanted to visit but seeing the fares, I decided to try to walk to specific places I wanted to see. I realized that I don't need to take the Tube to reach those specific places I wanted to visit. I end up visiting more places than I planned to and I spent only £30. Considering what I brought, I did pretty well. I brought gifts for my friends, pins for myself and food, of course.

I had my lunch there, they have a good coffee.

I didn't have any map with me but there are plenty maps around London, especially in touristy areas of London like Buckingham Palace and such. I used those maps to go to places. I have a horrible sense of directions and I just need to know the general direction to get there then I'll just walk in that direction. Sooner or later, I'll arrive. I think I did pretty well without a map.

I saw things that I didn't expect to see. There was Thames Festival on this weekend, I'll never know if I didn't walk. I saw a rowing race and it looked something like a world race. I saw rowing boats with different country flags. I just checked off something from my bucket list without trying to accomplish (on my list, I wanted to see a world competition of any kind sport, be it a World Cup, Wiblemon or swim trials for the Olympics).

Rowing competition.

Although, I wanted to see London away from touristy area and I wasn't sure where to go (no map and tips) and I didn't exactly have enough time to do that. I stuck around Thames River most of the time. I visited several major landmarks of London and it satisfied me, for now.