I've got a story about London.

A few months ago, I decided to embark on a little adventure out of stubbornness. I had already got a little taste of short trips and I decided to take it a little further.

Nowadays, with not much money and a lot of drive and determination, anyone can embark on a journey or start to fulfil that dream which many of us have and which is so impossible to see until you start acting on it: "travelling around the world". I was working on that when I decided to visit one of my brothers who lives in London. I currently live in a beautiful city very close to Frankfurt, Germany. From there it's really easy to travel via different means, flying being the preferred choice for most people. Well actually, I never like being amongst "the majority", or that's what I wanted to think, when I bought a bus ticket from Frankfurt to London, fuelled by my fear of flying.

I could say that lots of people do it, that it's another way of travelling through countries and gazing at different landscapes (which it is), but instead, I felt obliged to say that, sadly for me, it was an "interesting" 13-hour journey, sat down. Because of my horrible flu (until the day before my journey I had a temperature), the only thing I tried to do on that bus was survive and count down the minutes I had left to arrive at my destination. On top of that, those waves of car sickness which haven't shown there face for a good few years decided to come out to add the finish touch to the idyllic image which I started to sharply create in my head (me sat on any plane, closing my eyes for two hours and arriving at my destination).

I can't deny that it was anything amazing and that I didn't regret anything at all for the simple fact that now I can laugh at it when I share this memory with anyone who is interested. At the beginning of the journey, I had already made a friend, a German woman whose daughter was studying in Salamanca and she was around my age.

The agony of not being able to breathe due to the congestion, the pain in my bottom, back and neck and the dizziness weren't able to soothe the impression I got from seeing how the signs changed language and how the landscapes transformed every time my beloved bus and I crossed the neighbouring borders. It was incredible to think that in one night I had crossed half of Europe, the English Channel and part of England until arriving in London.

LONDON, I have dreamt so many times of walking along your streets, of breathing in your air, of gazing at the people... All the obsession I had for this city, 90% caused by reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray", only made me remember the moment in the book and my mind was doing somersaults when I was able to come face to face with the word "Underground" at the entrance of the metro which would take me to Notting Hill. I had a sweaty face, red nose, watery eyes from the congestion (and emotion, of course) and, to go with the "outfit" of the day, my "20-year-old rucksack which had worn away over the years".

When I arrived at my destination and could finally surprise my brother, who obviously called me crazy for not catching a plane here, the first thing I did was try to plan the things I would do in the two short days I was going to stay. I say I tried because my brother refused to accept it by explaining to me that you don't need to plan in London, THAT was the plan.

I was already emotional from staying in Notting Hill itself (it wasn't a four-star hotel, but I would have slept in any street just to be there). However, the following day when I crossed the street and came across Portobello and its booming market, all I could do was look around the whole area and not stop talking. I couldn't even pretend to hide my excitement which was radiating. Everyone, sellers, buyers, street singers and wannabe actors united in the streets which were full of antique stalls, clothes stalls, food stalls, and general happiness.

Of course, I could talk about how beautiful the centre of London is, and about how enormous the shops are. Or that you can find things which you have no idea what they're used for and that they sell them at a ridiculous price (more expensive than the house you grew up in). However, I would take ages to describe it, as long as an international journey by bus would take. Therefore, I'm going to give up and describe the most exciting moments of my trip, not counting my visit to Portobello I've already mentioned.

The first moment was in another market. I would like to be more impartial, but the markets are truly magical.

I only had to take one step into Candem Town to know that I could never look at the one thing with both eyes. I had the feeling that one eye was looking in one direction and the other in another. Wherever you looked, there was something extravagant and eye-catching.

There were so many people with different styles all together and everyone lived in harmony as if it was the most common and normal thing in the world.

You can spend hours looking at things and a century looking for one thing in particular, so the best thing to do is to do what my brother had advised me to do: instead of making plans, let yourself go. Getting lost (and probably no metaphorically) is the best thing you can do there. Make sure that you have something to look at, something to entertain yourself with and food and drink to quench your vital instincts (and wow, the food... ).

The second moment, and not less important, was the journey to the London Eye. Yes, I mean the journey, because the opportunity of going across London at night from one end to another by bike and breathing in the magic, built up all the excitement of getting there and gazing at that postcard picture. Big Ben, the London Eye... and the most exciting for me, the Thames.

A journey which three Spanish people, two Spanish people and a French girl embarked on. Like in blue summer but a little colder, we cycled the whole distance which separates Notting Hill from Westminster Palace, always staying on the left (although not without having some trouble due to lack of experience) and checking in at the dedicated bays every 15 minutes to renew our hire bikes.

WARNING: in this brief description of the journey, I didn't include the laughter, the "no not that way man, the Map says it's this way", the "to the left, to the left!", and the stops at every park or green space in front of us. When we went over the bridge, flooded by the smell of the river which flowed beneath it, I couldn't help but imagine myself being Dorian Gray (without the heroin and a bit browner).

All the above would have added up to the Museum visit, the walk in Chinatown, the binge-fest in M&Ms, travelling by double-decker bus, the times I got lost on the metro, the strange laughter, the strange looks we got from people freaked out like you, the change in temperature, every street performance, every smell, every step and every "God, which film is this place in?".

I couldn't put into words what it meant for me to cross out this place from my list of "Places to visit before every president goes mad and we can't leave our countries".

And don't forget that this is only a description of a trip from a random person (amongst many of those who have visited London and walked along its streets), told from their point of view, from what they could see with their own eyes, feeling their own emotions and remembering their own experiences which will remain in their mind and heart.