3.65 British Pounds for Coffee to slow down my life

I know what I am feeling right now, but I am unsure how to express my thoughts. The long and short of it is that I made a short trip to London, I was alone and I wasn’t initially sure what I was going to do. You see, landscape photography and being out in nature is my thing. I know what to do when I am outdoors, which is basically, nothing. You go into the wilderness and let the scenes unfold in front of you, enjoy the silence and soak in as much peace as you can. When the time comes, you press the shutter and capture the best possible light and scene. It’s a therapeutic process.

So, when I thought of London, a city, all I thought of were building, people, and noise. From a traveller who explores, I became a tourist in the hunt for the next tourist spot. The first day was going to Big Ben. I remember walking out of the underground station and seeing it through the arches of the station building and telling myself, “ok, it looks beautiful, been there, done that, what’s next”. Please don’t judge me, I know that I made a  very shallow and ungrateful statement. 

The next day I went to Tower Bridge, thinking that it was the famous London Bridge that I learned about in a poem from my childhood. I sat there for about half an hour, and then walked a bit to realise that I was now at “London Bridge”. I walked across to the other side and ended up at this big giant long pole called, The Monument.

Monument to the Great Fire of London

This is exactly where I had a sudden realisation that there was something wrong with my processing of the city. To rescue the situation, I saw a neon sign on a glass window, “Bakery & Restaurant”.

Coffee To The Rescue

I saw a man in a suit coming out with a takeaway cup of coffee.  The restaurant was called “Le Pain Quotidien”.

If you enter here, there’s a sudden feeling of cosiness that welcomes you. The warm lights, wooden furniture, the smells of freshly baked croissants, ground coffee, people talking gently, the friendly staff and the warmth of the kitchen, everything made me feel comfortable. All of a sudden, the noise was cut off. I bought a cappuccino and choose to sit outside despite knowing that there was noisy construction happening somewhere nearby. 

Slowing Down

With my camera now put away, and a hot cup of coffee on the wooden table, I subconsciously started to observe.

“The people are coming out of the underground train station like ants coming out of their hill in search of food”.

“What’s this big giant pole anyway, what’s it about?”

“Why is this bridge called London Bridge and not the other one?”

“Wow, look at the contrast between the new and old buildings in this city”

“How well have they preserved quite a lot of buildings, and maintained them as a national treasure”

These are just a few examples, but my mind went on this journey of exploration of the city and looking at everything with a new perspective. Suddenly, there was admiration for London Bridge, The Monument, Big Ben and so many things that I had seen. By the way, Big Ben is just a nickname, it’s actually the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster. 

I guess, I became a time traveller all of a sudden, I thought about the rise and fall of great human empires, how they were formed, wars, kindness, brutality, faith, knowledge, wisdom, inventions, science, wealth, economy, race, culture and languages.

People coming out of the train station

This blog is not about sharing what I thought, maybe that’s a discussion for when we sit for a cup of coffee one day together, what I want to say is that the 3.65 British Pounds I spent, which is twice the amount of money I would have paid back in South Africa, slowed me down.

The city wasn’t a map of tourist hotspots for me any longer, been there, done that, taken a selfie and what’s next wasn’t a thought any longer and I was in no rush to see everything. I took out my main camera, admired the scenes in front of me and made an attempt to take photos of things that I am not used to having in front of my camera. Just like landscape photography, I realised that I needed to do the same i.e. walk, explore and let the scene unfold in front of me. When the moment is right, press the shutter button in appreciation of what I see, and move on, be it buildings, people, street vendors, flowers, objects or just a bird drinking from a fountain outside of a cathedral. I struggled, but I enjoyed it. I didn’t read about each and everything that I saw, but I made an effort to learn a little bit more than usual. You must try it too, it’s not difficult to travel back in time and see almost two-thirds of London burnt down because of fire, and then men building a monument to commemorate the loss, people and the city… that’s what the long pole, called The Monument is about.

(The blog is in the form of a video below as well)

regards

Muji

Imagine

This is an AI’s depiction of how The Great Fire of London must have been in 1666