I’ll confess, I’m not much of an explorer. I’m a little too much of a worrywart to feel comfortable letting myself get lost in unfamiliar city streets, especially when those streets are an ocean away from the house I’ve spent my entire life in. At the same time, though, if I didn’t explore at least a little bit, what was the point of going overseas?
That’s what I told myself, at least, in trying to get myself out the door for once. But finding something to explore was almost more difficult than the exploring itself. I’d be hard pressed to care less about sports, music history holds no interest for me, and there are only so many museums I can stomach in a week — and that’s not even mentioning how my legs and lungs protest whenever I stretch them for too long. I’d always wanted to come to London for a while, but there was never anything I particularly wanted to do there. I just wanted to be.
Well, I thought. I used to like Doctor Who. Maybe I owed it to my younger self to visit some of the settings in person, while I was there?
Canary Wharf was on the same Tube line as our hotel, so that was a good place to start. Westminster Bridge had its own theme song as Rose ran across it to work in the first episode of the reboot — maybe I could reenact her flight? Ooh, and there was an actual TARDIS prop at Earl’s Court.
That wasn’t a trip, though. That was maybe fifteen minutes of teaboo-tourist shenanigans. But… there sure are a lot of Tube lines, huh? Wouldn’t it be a stupid little thing to boast about, if I could say I’d ridden every one?
And thus, #tubek18 was born.
(Credit to Hope for the travel plan)
Nineteen stops. Fifteen different tube lines. One epic quest.
I never actually finished the #tubek18 — my ticket got declined at Westminster, only two stops in, and there was no way I was paying for the rest of this odyssey out of pocket — but I came out of it a little richer, I think. I saw Big Ben shining through its scaffolding. I ran across Westminster Bridge with Westminster Bridge singing through my headphones. I stood in the doorway of the apartment at 221 Baker Street. I saw the charity of strangers, and the London Eye reflected in dark waters below.
The next day, I’d make it to the TARDIS at Earl’s Court, having planned out my own trip, asked my own directions, and taken my own picture (that still counts if it’s by proxy, right? I couldn’t fit both me and the box in the frame by myself!). And I’d make it back the same way I’d started: on my own.
