I’ve always considered myself to be a relatively apt traveler. I’m skilled at navigating unknown streets with the help of Google Maps and public transportation doesn’t faze me. I am not afraid, in the slightest, to ask a stranger (or usually a police officer, because they’re relatively more sympathetic to the plight of a misguided young girl) for help getting from Point A to Point B. I have been known to wear practical, orthopedic walking shoes to avoid blisters and plantar fasciitis as I traipse across cities. This all changed, however, when I got to London.

Having lived in a number of cities in the United States, I figured that upon arriving in London, I’d practically blend in as a local as I confidently strode up and down the posh streets of Kensington. British men would lust after me and British women would ask where I got my clothes and I would reply some little boutique in San Francisco (but let’s be real for a second, I pretty much shop exclusively at Target and Urban Outfitters when I’m feeling ambitious). By some miracle, my hair would be perfectly messy chic every morning when I woke up and I wouldn’t gain any weight subsisting solely off of brie, prosciutto and baguettes. With the exception of thinking my ex-boyfriend and I would last, I have never been so wrong in my life.

A scone and tea enjoyed at Buckingham Palace

My traveling prowess has gone completely out the window since I touched down in London town. First off, my Google Maps has seemingly s**t the bed. That’s the most eloquent way I can think to put it. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m using a new cell provider or what, but every time I open Maps, it first sends me the entirely wrong way before realizing that I am half a mile in the opposite direction and then it decides to reroute. As for asking for directions, I haven’t even had the gall to ask a police officer for directions when I’m lost because they intimidate me so much with their proper uniforms and steely expressions. The only area in which I have stuck true to my well-traveled traveler roots is walking shoes, because the one time I decided to stray and wear cute booties, I ended up with blisters the sizes of Wales and heels so sore the pain radiated in my kneecaps for days after.

Trafalgar Square

I’ve gone to countless clubs and pubs with my classmates and spent probably too much money on beer, and despite spending a solid 30 minutes on my eyebrows alone, British men don’t throw me a second glance. Sure, sure, I know that England produced individuals like Emily Blunt and Emma Watson and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Kate Moss, but COME ON. The only thing any British man who fancies to strike up a chat with me finds interesting is the fact that I’m from California, because apparently, here in the United Kingdom, “California” is synonymous with “Hollywood.” Little do they know that my dad lives in the heart of suburbia in Southern California, 45 minutes east of anywhere near Hollywood, where the most exciting thing to happen in the past five years was the installment of a fried chicken café (which, honestly, is unreal), and my mom lives in a tiny town in Northern California where my backyard opens up onto a nail salon and sandwich shop and my pug once ran away for several hours, only to be found napping on a neighbor’s porch, completely unharmed. But if British men choose to believe that I am, by proxy of my origins, some ethereal creature they sing about in Beach Boys songs, then fine. My blonde hair and tan are totally authentic and I for sure know how to surf.

That same blonde hair is a frizzy, flat disaster and I haven’t even tried to style it once because my apartment gets so hot that I cannot fathom the thought of turning on a flatiron or a curling wand and holding it close to my already sweaty forehead. I wear the same clothes over and over and over again because not only is laundry ludicrously expensive, but that 50-pound baggage weight limit quickly crept up on me as I packed back in August. Other mishaps include narrowly escaping death on a daily basis as cars claim right of way over pedestrians and completely disregard street signals and shrieking as rogue pigeons dive bomb for the street in front of me. It hasn’t been an easy adjustment, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Parma ham, ricotta, and pesto at Borough Market

I have spent the past seven hundred words complaining, I realize, but truly, this has already been a life-changing experience. I’m a girl without a guidebook who landed in London on her twenty-first birthday and decided to go after living instead of waiting for life to come to her. This weekend, I walked twelve miles across London and visited Buckingham Palace, the National Gallery, Borough Market, and finished by going on the London Eye—and I did it all by myself. I got lost on several occasions and even went to the wrong museum for three hours, but over the course of my day, I found that each step I planted onto the streets of London cemented me more in my belonging of this city.

This has not been an easy adjustment. Despite the number of similarities between Great Britain and the states, I am still learning how to get home on a run and order a black coffee because apparently, that’s not a thing here. I only sat down on Saturday and made a budget for the rest of the semester. But despite all of my mishaps, I am here and I am surviving. Every day I feel a little more at home, I sleep a little better, and feel more myself. Maybe it was spending a weekend here for it’s the time passed, but I think maybe, just maybe, this girl without a guidebook will find her way in London .