LOOK RIGHT

I'm heading to France tomorrow for a long weekend with a friend from elementary school, so before all things French take over in my brain, I wanted to blog about London once more since I haven't done much on the topic since our trip at the end of April.

Every time I go to London and stand at a street corner, my brain goes into overdrive. I try to focus on the wrong sided roads as to not kill myself unnecessarily, but it takes so much concentration that at the last minute I’ll fling myself into the street and hope for the best as a double decker bus barrels towards me.

Unlike in Paris, the streets in London are clearly labeled for pedestrians. No matter, because even if I see LOOK RIGHT, painted in bold white letters on the road in front of me, I’ll still instinctively look left anyway. This street writing even comes complete with an arrow pointing the direction the pedestrian should look, probably taking pity on the many French visitors from across the channel who refuse to learn any language but their own.

Not that the Brits can really talk when it comes to learning another language, but at least they’re trying not to kill their tourists like the drivers in Paris are. Parisians drive for no other reason and design 13-street intersections with no signage or sidewalks whatsoever in order to turn the tourist into road kill as fast as possible. Probably not the best thing to have in my head as I pack for France.