My London isn't the London you're imagining. 

I've never been to the Tower of London or the London Eye. I think I might have walked past St. Paul's Cathedral or Buckingham palace once. It doesn't really matter. Not really. 

Some of my best friends in the world live in London, so my trips there are spent either in a house at St John's Wood, cuddled up with a little dog named Gaucho, or in an apartment in Camden with a couple of UCL students. It's just another town where my friends live and I love it endlessly for that. 

I showed up to London this time around deathly ill. I barely survived a harrowing overnight bus experience that involved a pretty traumatic bathroom incident (this is a reoccurring pattern in my life), a delirious ferry ride across the Channel, and slight intoxication. Not to mention I had a fever and hacking up a lung the entire time. And my voice had faded out of existence mere hours before my bus ride. My poor British seatmate clearly had no idea what the hell to do with the absolute disaster of a human sitting next to her. 

Fortunately, when I got to Camden, I found that Baya was also sick and sounding almost more phlegmy than I was. Misery loves company, they always say. We spent much of my visit curled up together on her couch, drinking massive amounts of  tea and Slovak soup while marathoning an entire season of How to Get Away with Murder. Exactly what I needed before Scotland. 

These photos are from the few times I ventured out of the apartment to follow Baya to class or to meet up with other friends that live in London.