I love the sensation of riding through all of London in a London Cab. Crossing the whole town, late at night, with no one else on the road, drunk in the back of a real London Cab. You've drunkenly babbled out the address of your hotel - you don't have to give the name, or the cross street, and no matter how obscure, and how slurred you say it, off they go, never asking a question about how to get there.

You head south, and things look unknown and vague. You were told that night that 28 Days Later was filmed in this part of town, and it looks it. Real london, not the center. People live here.

Then gradually things become more recognizable. This used to be around Camden Town, but I can start to pick things out by Kentish Town now. Then a quick turn and a route you don't know, and you're into the unknown again, eventually coming out somewhere on oxford street, and all of the sudden everything is familiar. There's the first Top Shop I ever went into. Your old late night drinking club is on the right. The Apple Store should be coming up now. Ahh yes, there it is. But you're staying in a new part of town, so again you plunge into the unknown. Only it's not the unknown, it's the parts of London you always see, but never can piece together. There's Marble Arch. That's weird, that doesn't seem to be on the way to your hotel, especially when the next thing you see is the London Eye, but somehow it all just works and makes sense. Big Ben, kids. Houses of parliament.

And then, like that, one last turn happens, and you're at your hotel. Blake's or Charlotte Street or St Martin's Lane or the Saunderson or wherever it is this time. A different one every time. What was the name of the one you stayed in with your sister? Eight Hundred dollars a night, with a private terrace and a king sized, dual temperature zone, moisture absorbing Tempurpedic bed that still ranks as the greatest bed you've ever slept in? But not this time. This time you've chosen an upscale suites style hotel, gorgeous but stupidly cheap on Orbitz for some reason, and you're on a budget these days. South Kensington. A new part of the city for you, but gorgeous as always.

London. Every time I go, I can see why Aug loves it. I don't even have to DO anything to love it. Just sit in pubs with his friends, do some karaoke, eat funny foods, hunt for british-only books, and con pharmacists into giving you codeine. There used to be an absinthe hunt, too, but that's over now. Gone the way of the dodo, thanks to the legalization of absinthe in America, courtesy of the Swiss embassy.

Just as well. Duty free's a pain to haul around the country for the rest of your vacation.