But without the fish and chips.

I spent the last four days in London.

Fair warning: I spent most of my time watching plays and hopping from theatre to theatre. If you don't care about theatre, hmm.

British Word of the Day: interval. Intermission.

This was my first ever trip all by myself. I thought I'd hate it. A large part of the joy of traveling, for me, is having someone with whom to share the experience, with whom to reminisce when it's over. There were definitely moments when I felt that void -- at the intervals of Phantom of the Opera and The Night of the Iguana, for example, when I so wanted someone with whom to awe over what we'd just seen. After I'd recovered from that, though, I really enjoyed being on my own.

I'll still take a travel buddy, but there's something to be said for not having to make any concessions about what you do with your time in the foreign land.

There are some things you should know about London:

* It is a terrifically friendly city. Everyone I talked to, from the bus drivers to the restaurant workers to the strangers on the street to the people who sat beside me at the theatre, was incredibly helpful and nice.

* It is a terrifically expensive city. One pound is almost two dollars, so money doesn't seem to go very far. The cheapest theatre seats I found were 10 pounds (18 dollars) and they were terrifically terrible.

* There is approximately one Starbucks for every London resident.

* It's an excellent place to walk around. For extra fun, count the Starbucks to determine the population.