I met Jonathan Safran Foer in London

Much of my time in London was spent being a tourist desperately trying not to be a tourist.

I've always asserted, "Only tourists look up," a statement I believed for the longest time to be an original saying; a reality that a quick check with Google shredded.

It seems to be as original as the idea for a tattoo a particular Joshua I once knew had. I spent days chipping away at Particular Joshua’s resolve to permanently ink into his skin "Rock Out With My Cock Out". He finally only gave it up when his week-old beer goggles cracked, and he saw that Truth was not a sexy lady but a little harlot in smelly socks willing him into getting a tramp stamp for a quick laugh. Far from having come up with that ridiculous phrase, it was a favourite saying college kids were applying freely to all things yet unsullied and unsticky. Ah, college boys, always camping out at the frontier of wisdom.

London was the most freeing week I had ever had. Long days stretched out in front me ready for tenderly wasting. I went to but one semi-touristy attraction (Tate Modern), took my time squirming out of bed, spent hours aimlessly wandering down streets, followed no schedule, and attended to no one’s needs but my own. I got lost and then I didn’t.

There was no agenda, no checklist, no function. I wanted to walk and that was all there was to it - up roads, down slopes, across parks, through a parade, to a pub, from a pub, into bookstores, out of alleyways, with friends, without friends, right smack headfirst into a quarrel, then out of a storm.

So, when I'm asked how London was and what I saw, I cannot cross off a list of what-dids. I found out what it feels like to say "It's sunny out, let's get a beer," found out why people love parks, found myself drinking beers on a rooftop with untried artists each pretending to be worldlier than the next, found myself on a bridge, chilly wind in my face, grey Thames disentangled in front of me, camera in hand desperately trying not to be a tourist. But then I looked up.

London was but, yet nothing less than, a series of feelings.