picky bits, marmalade sandwiches, queer literature

Goodbye Paris! We packed up this morning, and admittedly I had another peach iced tea. I didn’t realize how many of these I’d been drinking until writing out this article. But that was my only one of the day, I swear. I think I’ve gotten a lot stronger on this trip, because I had to race up the Stairs of Doom™ twice, and didn’t get very tired. Our Cotopaxis heavy with Paris souvenirs, we trek the twenty minutes to Gare du Nord. We’re quite early to our train, so we end up just sitting on the ground, lying on our backpacks. I do appreciate how the Cotopaxis are convenient for that. We considered getting up for one last romp around the area, but we’re tired from the night before.

Onto the Eurostar—we end up sitting next to a family consisting of two gentle parents and two toddlers, both with some malicious glint in their eyes. Firstly, the father must have forgotten deodorant that morning; his scent filled the carriage. The youngest daughter had the evilest glint of all—she began the train ride by loudly yelling everything she was observing. Throughout, she runs rampant through the aisles, eyeing everyone’s food. She even considers Abby’s quinoa salad—I’ve never known a toddler to adore quinoa. She also wants my chicken sandwich. Later in the ride, she takes a handful of cards her sister is playing with and tosses them in the air, laughing with glee as she watches them flutter down.

I was glad to exit that train and take in London for the first time! Abby is instantly enamored—she’s been waiting all trip for this exact moment. She points out the mundane—look, Addy, there are British cars; look, Addy, that’s a British road! I navigate the Tube, and we arrive at our Kensington AirBNB. Unfortunately, the host gave us the wrong keys, so we were stuck sneaking through the underground floor and borrowing a key from the maid. But we eventually got the right keys.

Next, we begin our trek to Marks & Spencer, a grocery store that sort of seems akin to Trader Joe’s, in the manner of it not being the best place to shop for your primary groceries, but all the fun bits to enjoy throughout the week. Our place is a shoebox and lacks a fridge, so we get items for a quick snack and later dinner. On the walk back, I notice the Jet Lag: The Game movie theater marquee and genuinely squeal. Abby and I head back into the apartment and sit on the floor, scooping garlic aioli with lightly salted pita chips, and shovelling handfuls of blueberries in our mouths.

Then it’s time to head to the number one most celebrated landmark in all of London—the Paddington Bear store at Paddington Station (apt, I like it). It’s only a short Tube ride away, so we arrive with haste. I can say I truly blacked out here—anyone who knows me slightly knows I’m utterly obsessed with this bear. It took everything in me to not march up to the cash register and tell the cashier to ring up everything in the store for me.

We stop in the train station bookstore and notice a fantastic selection of books—it really puts the United States’s collection to shame. On our walk back to the Tube, I notice the Waterstones in Kensington closes at 8 PM, rather than 9 PM as I believed. So we head back into the train station and purchase two copies of Heartstopper: Volume Six. I’m sort of giddy about this whole situation—this series truly defined how I interpreted queerness as a younger teen, both personally and societally.

Drop our stuff back off at the apartment, then off towards Kensington Gardens with our new books in hand. We end up walking down an entire row of embassies, which we’re completely captivated by. In the gardens, I end up making several jokes about Prince Henry and FSOTUS Alex Claremont-Diaz. It’s really just a queer day.

My AirPods go in, and the Heartstopper soundtrack gets turned up. The sun sets gradually, and we read till dark—a fantastic end to our first day in London.