Parks, Parks, Parks -- London, England

I have resolved to seek my happiness by limiting my desires rather than attempting to satisfy them. 

~John Stuart Mill 

I'm starting this post from the living room of my couchsurfing Italian host in London A large, expensive looking orange, blue and cream carpet covers the majority of the glossy wooden floor. Three windows line the wall and a modern hanging lamp hovers in the up left corner. The walls are cream, the ceiling is cream, the couch is cream, the coffee table is glass and sparkly clean.

It's so... spotless. I feel like I'm in Turkey again. What is life trying to teach me by constantly throwing me under the vacuum cleaner and dust bin of super clean people?

 Francesco picked me up from Costa Coffee at about six pm last night, after making me promise to buy a SIM card for my phone so that we could communicate better the next day.

"If strangers are going to stay in my home, I like to be able to check in on them," he wrote over Skype.

Logical enough, I suppose. No other hosts have been this concerned... but everybody's different. This is a situation where it's my job to adapt. He opens the door to his home and I have to do whatever it takes to squeeze inside. Or just stay outside. 

"You can put your bag in here," he opened a coat closet and motioned my osprey inside. "Just not against the wall."

Not against the wall... that's strange. Okay. 

I leaned the bag against the cabinet filled with summer shoes.

"Do you drink tea or coffee in the morning?" Francesco asked as we moseyed into the kitchen. 

"Coffee! I love coffee."

"Here is the coffee and here is the French press. Here are some eggs and nutella and an interesting orange whiskey jam for breakfast... Now, let me show you the shower -- "

And my huffing, puffing host proceeded to introduce me to his entire apartment. As he made my acquaintance to the shower head,  I told him a little bit about the crazy land from which I'd just escaped.

"I needed to always make sure the toilet lids were down so that positive energy didn't escape through the pipes," I shook my head with bewildered, "did that really happen?" laughter.

"Yeah, I put the toilet lids down, too," my host nodded back at me. "I am afraid that snakes will come up out of the bowl. I lived in New York City for too long."

"I like your reason better."

Just as the grand tour was about to culminate, the doorbell rang.

"That is the German couchsurfers," my host explained. "They promised to make us a German dinner tonight, so I will go let them in."

"Hello," the two slender, stylish young Germans greeted me. "Where are you from?"

"Wait!" Francesco interrupted. "We have not told her the most important rule here."

"Yes," the willowy girl with long blonde hair took the baton. "Don't touch the walls."

"Don't touch anysing zat is white," the laugh-lined boy finished.

"Exactly!" Francesco surveyed his young Germans with nearly fatherly affection. "Now, where is this German dinner?"

"We didn't have time to buy the ingredients."

"But you promised!" Francesco looked stricken.

"We cooked last night!"

"Okay, okay. I will treat us all to Indian food. We leave in half an hour, yes?"

I love it when this happens. 

Francesco took us out to a nearby Indian restaurant (there's always a nearby Indian restaurant in London) and ordered beers for himself and the Germans and a saffron lassi for me.

I must go to India. 

My spicy lamb dish came out of the kitchen a few minutes later.

I really, really must go to India. 

 I spent the next morning slowly, softly, appreciatively ambling through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and Saint James  Park.

Seeing out of Michael's eyes for a month helped me to find beauty in places I would have overlooked and hurried past. 

Google maps told me it would take an hour and a half to walk to the Tate Museum.

I took three.

Must... itch... face.

When I finally reached the Tate Museum, it was 12:15. I only had 45 minutes to wander about before I needed to walk back to Hyde park to meet with Robyn -- a volunteer from Colorado who is about to head to Istanbul for a three month volunteer stint with Umit and Seher.

I hope she's good with babies. I hope she's really, really good with babies. 
 

I scampered to Albert Gate at Hyde Park to meet Robyn and noticed the enormous difference between hurrying back and meandering there.

I dislike this ever so much. Why do people walk so quickly? Why do people organize their lives so they have to be somewhere at certain times all the time? It sucks all the joy out of movement. 

Albert Gate loomed in front of me. I wandered inside, found a block of cement that kind of looked like a bench and sat down to wait.

And waited.

And waited.

And...

I don't regret planning my day around meeting this person, I thought to  myself as the cold from the cement seeped into my skin. I just wish I hadn't hurried back. 

Half an hour later, I decided to find some internet to contact my fellow volunteer. When I turned to go, I was immediately accosted by two friendly looking girls with an impressive looking video camera and microphone.

"Hello, do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"Umm... " I stalled. Last time I'd been asked for an interview, it was about some political business regarding George Bush about which I'd had NO idea and felt remarkably silly about the whole thing. "I'm not from around here," I hoped my lack of Britishness would get me off the interview hook.

"It doesn't matter," the outspoken girl with the microphone invalidated my excuse. "We're involved in an independent film festival in Bristol and we want to ask you a few questions about what freedom means to you."

"Oh. Okay, I can do that."

"So, what does the word freedom mean to you personally?" camera girl switched on the camera and mic girl thrust the mic under my chin.

"To me, freedom means non-attachment," just pretend that's a real word, Bourget. Commit to it. "I'm a long term traveler, so I don't have a house or job to be attached to, but I have my bag. I have my plans. I have my absurdly heavy electronics. If I can find a way to not care whether or not my bag makes it onto the luggage belt at the end of a flight or whether or not my plans work out the way I'd envisioned them, then I am free. I am able to live spontaneously and fully in the moment because I have no anxiety about the future. I am free to allow life to unfold itself to me instead of scrapping about wildly for what I think ought to happen."

"Is there a time you didn't feel free?"

"Yes. It was when I was saving up for my first trip. I worked 70-80 hours a week at jobs that didn't fulfill me. I was compromising my present for my future and that made me feel like my freedom had been lost. This trip is funded by my passions. By the things I love. I didn't compromise my present for my future so I kept my freedom in a place I'd felt so trapped before."

"And what do you love to do?"

"I love to teach yoga. I love to garden. I love doing the things that really make me embrace the present."

"Can you sum up freedom in one word?"

"Non-attachment. The ability to let things come and to let things go." 

After some all caps "WHERE ARE YOU?" facebook messages, I met with Robyn in Kensington Gardens. We chatted over coffee and got good and lost while I debriefed her on my experience in Istanbul.

She brought me a package from my family. Smartwool socks, my favorite tea, a beautiful card and buffalo jerky.

These are the bits of home I miss. Thank-you, mom. I will wear these socks to threads on the Camino de Santiago this August. But this jerky... is not waiting until the Camino. This jerky is getting eaten right now.

Oh, yes. I'm doing that. Walking five hundred miles and stuff. More on Camino business later.

Good luck, Robyn! Enjoy the tulips, the baklava and the coffee!

I had German dinner (which looked startlingly similar to gluten-free pasta with tomato sauce and bacon) with my fellow couchsurfers, edited my photos and called it a night.

First day in London. I saw hardly anything, but I loved everything I saw.