The Browsing Way

Let’s be honest here. Do you, like me, deep down in your heart, think that the ways you think, the ways you feel things, the ways you do things, are the right way and everyone else is just wrong?! You may say out loud “Different strokes for different folks” but still think that your strokes (hmm- dubious verb here!) are the best. I think that’s just human nature. 

 

So yesterday I celebrated my particular mode of travel and today I lived it again and it is just enough to say that it suits my particular character. But that judging part of me is feeling, “Come on, people. Get on board the Doug train!”

 

Of course, I can justify it all philosophically and I do think the points are worth considering. I see how even good friends are more and more heads-down into their phones, addicted to abstract forms of getting oriented and discovering things to do while traveling, becoming obsessed with planning every detail and leaving little space for serendipity to enter. It’s like the difference between algorhythms suggesting books for you to order online and then ordering them and browsing in a bookstore and trusting that something will call out to you from the shelves. The difference between 10 people heads-down pouring over the phone’s Google maps and 1 person popping into a shop and asking someone directions. Inch by inch, we are seduced into machine life and give up a little piece of human connection. So yes, I do have a bone to pick at the end of the day. 

 

But rather than convert you, let me entice you with the story of my day. Beginning with getting the hotel clerk help us figure out what buses to take to get to Paddington Station, tracing different routes on our paper map and finally handwriting directions on a scrap piece of paper. Though we had the bus routes, we didn’t know precisely where the bus stops were, so that required some observations of various buses passing by and watching where they stopped. And we did. Then asked the bus driver to double-check that we were boarding the right bus. More human interaction. It worked and though we’ve enjoyed figuring out the London Metro system, it felt yet better to be above ground on the upper deck threading our way through the city streets. 

 

Then at Paddington Station to buy our train tickets to Oxford tomorrow. We could have done it online, but I refused. Then there were all the machines for self-service ticket-buying. Nope. Passed them by and went to human beings behind counters who answered a few questions and sold us our tickets. Another point for humanity!

 

A friend had suggested ("a friend suggested"—another point for human connection) we check out a neighborhood called Little Venice and looking at our map, noticed it was nearby the station. So off we went wandering without the Google-map GPS, found it and had a delightful stroll down the canal. Never knew about this part of London! Halfway through, we spotted a restaurant on the water’s edge and we were hungry, so looked at their menu without consulting any Yelp reviews on our phone and it was lovely, affordable and delicious!

We continued feeling our way through a couple of neighborhoods before arriving at Hyde Park and unlike yesterday’s rain, the weather was pitch-perfect and the sun was out as we explored down one pathway and then another. Back on the Metro, dinner at a Chinese place literally across the street from the hotel, seven miles of walking exercise (okay, I confess, at the end, I looked at my phone for the mileage) and hearts full from the “browsing way” of enjoying a city. Just the way I love to travel.

 

But hey, that’s just me.