England: Jonas Tangen (Interact)

Program: UW Global Launch in London, Academic Year

On a crisp Thursday afternoon, we left class early (after being excused by our professor :)) and raced to the Gloucester Road Underground Station. Our destination: The London Big Bake. If you’ve ever had the joy of watching the Great British Bake Off (and if you haven’t yet, you should), which the London Big Bake was modeled after, then you will understand the excitement in our hearts as we swiped our Oyster cards and headed for the trains. There was just one problem. The Big Bake was scheduled to take place in Tooting Broadway, which is quite far away, and we didn’t know how to get there. You’d think there’d be an easy solution to our conundrum. Surely we could simply consult the glowing rectangle in our pocket and it would gleefully send us on our way. Google Maps said to take the District Line eastbound towards Wimbledon and then hop on a bus to our final destination. Small problem: the Wimbledon branch of the District Line never comes. You could stand on the eastbound platform at Gloucester Station for days and never see the District-Wimbledon train. It’s quite a rare bird, and none were scheduled to arrive in the next 30 minutes.

Consulting the station map, we found that our next best option was to take the District Line westbound and transfer to the Victoria Line, southbound at Victoria, and then transfer again to the Northern Line, southbound at Stockwell Station. Now I know that this sounds like a mess, but it was just a simple three-train transfer, is what I would say if I was a crazy person. It was a bad plan, and we were running out of time. We hopped on a train heading west and started figuring out a new course of action.

At this point, many, should we say, “radical” options were considered. Someone said we ought to take a train to Victoria and get on a National Rail Service train called the Southern and then get onto the Northern Line. Another suggestion of getting off the tube at Victoria and taking the 44 bus was considered, but it would have taken too much time. Uber was über-expensive (as always), and Vanessa suggested that we take a train to Whitechapel for reasons passing understanding.

While we deliberated, time ticked by, and the train took us further and further from our destination.

Luckily we had yet to tap into our greatest asset. Samira turned to a man on the train and simply asked, “How can we get to Tooting Broadway from here?” The man thought for a moment and then calmly explained that we could stay on our current train and then transfer at Embankment Station to the Northern Line as long as we transferred trains in the Northern Line later on in our journey.

This was a real watershed moment for us. In all of our frantic deliberation we never considered asking for help from a local, but once we did, everything came into place. We had spent so much time consulting maps, debating routes, and trying to figure everything out ourselves that we overlooked the knowledge of the people all around us.

Now it might seem a bit contrived. But reflecting back this exchange taught all of us about who Londoners are. Calm, helpful, considerate, and so very in touch with their city. The man didn’t consult a map or his phone for directions; he took a step out of his own life and stressful commute because he wanted to help, expecting nothing in return.

I think this exchange captures something important about the experience of studying abroad. When we travel somewhere unfamiliar, it’s easy to become preoccupied with navigating the practical challenges of daily life: figuring out the transportation system, finding our way around a new city, and adjusting to a different culture. But some of the most valuable lessons come from the people we encounter along the way. Living abroad isn’t just about learning to navigate a new place; it’s about learning to engage with it, to be curious about the people who call it home, and to recognize how much we can learn from stepping outside our own perspective. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple question and a willingness to ask it.

With his help, we made it to The London Big Bake, five minutes early.