Slept the whole flight to Heathrow and woke up insatiably horny. The excitement of euro travel mixed with morning wood, I’m ready to fuck the city up. This passes as we ferry circles around the tarmac for a half an hour and now I’m just nauseous.

Riding the trainington to Paddington statington. I have to go to a lockbox to get the key to my flat cause I’m not made of money, just enough to get here and rent the cheapest non-twin size bed in London. I open the lockbox and there are no keys. I call the WhatsApp number on my reservation email and a Russian woman picks up, she is panting heavily for the entirety of our conversation, I think she’s on a treadmill. She says she’ll call me back, which she does moments later, still panting. The previous tenants put the key in the wrong lockbox, so I find another lockbox and retrieve my keys.

Paddington is a ghostly, affluent area of London bordering the north of Hyde Park. Matching white Victorian five-story flats bend and arch along the empty, trash-strewn roads without a grid. Walking up to my flat, an athletic black guy around my age, maybe a bit older, sits on an empty street curb, throws his head into his hands and starts sobbing, loudly.

I get to my flat around noon and sleep until 1:30. The walls are paper thin and, lacking door knobs, everyone’s doors slam loudly. I make a list: “earplugs, plug converter, soap” and head down for food.

Before leaving for London I found a substack about “99 places to eat in London that aren’t Pret,” mostly shawarma and chicken liver sandwiches, so I head to my first spot, Al Balad Restaurant on Edgware. On the way there I’m struck by everyone’s clothes. I’m wearing sneakers, jeans, a baggy t-shirt, and a hoodie, par for the course or even elevated by Brooklyn standards, but here I feel like a slob. Everyone is dressed smartly, fitted, fashionable, but not trendy. It reminds me of how Manhattan used to dress 10 years ago, before the athleisure took over. I’m probably just in a posh area.

My chicken shawarma is as surprisingly small as it is delicious. I could definitely eat another, if not two more, and again I feel very American. But I’m not. I’m a Soho Boy. D from Bad Sip says I’m staying near all the brothels and I tell him, good, I’m here for the ladies of the night. I text H and he says he’ll be here Tuesday and he’ll hit me up “when he has time” because he’s a little bitch.

I’m too tired to do anything so I go to the gym. Maybe I’m exaggerating but I feel like British people even get fat differently, not the Flubber/Jaba the Hut fat you get from eating too much fast food, but the bowling ball/Santa Claus fat you get from drinking too much beer. I crave the grid. I’m lost without it. Nothing makes sense anymore. One moment I’m headed the correct direction and the next I’m turned around going the opposite.

The only gym near me that doesn't require a 12 month contract is Pure Gym. There is no front desk at the entrance, just these insane human tube/pod things you have to scan to get into so only one person can enter at a time. I scan a QR code on the wall to try to sign up for a month, but the website requires my “UK bank code” which I don’t have so I ring the “assistance buzzer” for like 20 minutes straight.

A big Russian man comes out and tells me “you have to ring the buzzer” and I tell him I’ve been ringing the buzzer for 20 minutes. He asks what’s wrong and I explain to him and he says “oh, I work here, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t work out here.” I laugh at him, “I’m trying to give you my money and you’re saying no,” which somehow works and he swipes me in and tells me to talk to the woman at the front desk, she might be able to help me. There is no woman at the front desk, so I stand and wait for another 20 minutes. I eventually wander back into the office area of the gym, trying to find an employee.

A surprised Russian woman finds me, or I find her, we find each other and she’s startled that I’ve wondered into the offices where I’m clearly not supposed to be. “I’m trying to talk to someone at the front desk” I tell her. “Is it important?” “No” “ok I’ll talk to you in 20 minutes.” Fine. I wait another 30 minutes. Finally, she says the same thing as him. “So if I don’t have a UK bank account I can’t go to this gym?” “That’s right” Interesting! I’m already inside so I get in a free work out.

For a chain gym with an intricately complex entrance system, the gym is small, not much equipment. I’m trying to use the leg extension but there’s an old man on the machine. He’s not really working out so I ask him if we can switch off between sets. “I just got here, I have three more sets.” Ok so can we switch off? “No.” Ok. At least it puts a fire under his ass and he rushes through the three sets at the speed of someone who has no business working out in a gym.

Across the street from the gym is a Subway. I order a 6-inch (mysteriously still listed in US customary units) ‘Notorious BMT’ which is like an Italian but with turkey instead of ham. For some reason they don’t have an Italian, which is crazy. They do have hashbrowns, though, which is interesting. I tell him I want “everything except for cucumbers” and by that I mean “everything that the menu says goes on the Notorious BMT except cucumbers” but he misinterprets that as “literally everything” and starts loading my sub up with pickles, peppers, corn, all sorts of nonsense.

Unfortunately I ask him to take it all off, absolutely destroying his spirits, this may have been his final straw. He completes the rest of my sub like he’s going to go out back and kill himself after. I feel terrible and apologize profusely but I’m not about to eat a corn pickle sandwich. I slide next door to McDonald’s for a small pineapple mango smoothie to complete my post-work out meal. The smoothie tastes like baby food but the Subway tastes like Subway, and that makes me happy.

An hour and 4-5 contacts later, I buy a half pound of weed. I only wanted a quarter pound but the guy said he wouldn’t deliver unless I bought the half and he was too far for me to travel, and online it says flying from London to Paris with weed won't be a big deal. I have to walk 15 minutes to find an ATM, as if they’re allergic to money in this city. As I pull up the dealer tells me he "has cheaper weed, but this is his best,” the information I would’ve appreciated before buying. “It’s from Cali. It will remind you of home.”

People in London love their cordialities, which for someone who has spent the last 10 years in NYC learning how to communicate without talking or even looking at someone, it comes as a surprise. Right then, cheers!

I go to breakfast at a tiny diner next to my flat and order the full English without the beans. The diner is full so I ask for it to go, which I can tell upsets them. The restaurant is tiny so I wait outside and realize they have outdoor seating. I sit down and they bring me my to-go containers. “Oh, you are staying, let us bring you a plate and silverware” the waiter insists, but I refuse, try to assure him I’m fine with tinfoil and a plastic fork, but he seems sincerely distraught. A few moments later another guy comes out and re-enacts the previous conversation again. I pay and leave and the guy behind the counter gives me my change with disdain. Perhaps I was being rude by refusing their silverware, but I was honestly just trying not to give them a hard time.

I call gyms for about an hour. I swear this city is allergic to my money. I finally find an Anytime Fitness across Hyde Park in Kensington willing to take me. While signing up they ask what I’m doing in London, I tell them I’m touring with my band, they ask me where I’m playing, “some record store, Herge? Herve?” “That’s not a very good way to advertise your show, mate” I laugh, he’s right. One of them tells me he “doesn’t like music” except for when he’s working out, and that he listens to “very aggresive rock.” I tell him my band probably isn’t for him. They ask what band I would compare our sound to, I say Bar Italia, but they’ve never heard of them. He asks if we are a Christian rock band. I say no and he says “ah, it would have been a good guess if I was right” which is something you could say anytime you guess anything.

London respects the lunch special. I go to a “bbq” for lunch, have a delicious brisket wrap, side of fries and a fancy organic soda for £9. Afterwards I head to Serpentine. On the way there I consider why London is so photogenic compared to New York. I think it’s the lack of a grid– makes things more dynamic. In the park I see a 20 story tall sculpture made of gold and then I think maybe centuries of the church robbing the poor is the true secret to the city's beauty.

Serpentine isn’t different from 10 years ago, the art is very “I used to be an outsider artist but now I have such a huge production budget I don't know what do with it,” so lots of big bright patterns printed onto anything and everything. Outside is a Richter sculpture, a tall asterisk of thin colored stripes. It makes me think about the sculpture you see when driving to JFK from my apartment, the one with the long strips of see through glass that looks like it was made at Home Depot for under $150– and now I’m here with Richter.

Last time I was in London I was impressed that most taxis were BMWs. To my surprise, they’re even fancier now. I can’t tell the brand at first but the car is shaped like an old Rolls Royce and has a logo resembling a Bentley. I google it and find the brand is called Levc and that they took over the London taxi game in 2017. I hope I get to ride in one before I leave.

I wander into a sample sale. They’re selling Moncler and another fancy brand I can’t remember for 80% off. None of the sizes go larger than large and I realize I may have been sized out of high fashion. I continue to wander down Oxford Street. It’s much cleaner and shinier than I remember, it felt a lot seedier when I was younger but it was also my first time living in a city so 10 years in New York may have lowered my standards significantly.

I see the McDonald’s outside the Tottenham Court tube stop where we used to line up like drunk cattle after a long night out. Around the corner is still the Burger King for when you weren’t willing to stand in line. I find my old study abroad campus. All the restaurants have changed. It almost makes me emotional but I sit in the same spot I used to smoke 10 years ago, light up, and get excited to re-trace the steps I used to take every time I left my dorm. I walk towards the National Gallery and everything looks extremely familiar.

Inspired by the sample sale, I try to see if I can find another one online. There seems to be one at Les 100 Ciels just off Regents Street, which I walk to, but when I arrive there’s no sample sale, just £650 sweaters (jumpers?) so I head home. On my way I stop in Primark. They’re selling NFL t-shirts– the Chiefs, Miami, the 49ers. They’re selling lots of clothes that say Los Angeles and some that say Napa Valley, San Fransisco, Copenhagen, but none that say New York. I buy a Copenhagen shirt for £3 and head home.

At this point I’ve walked 20,000 steps two days in a row and I still have to walk to dinner. I notice electric bikes parked randomly around the city that say “first 10 minutes free” and sure enough it’s 1£ to unlock and every day you get 10 free minutes. I go home and change into nicer clothes because I’m tired of being the biggest slob in the city. Tonight's dinner is at Cafe Helen, not as good as Al Balad but still very good and I’m very hungry so even though they accidentally bring me two sides, rice and fries, I eat it all. The walls are mirrors so I have the unique pleasure of watching myself eat alone from every possible angle. When I arrive home my phone says I’ve walked 25,000 steps and my feet concur.

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