In terms of your walk, it sounds like a veritable map of my last few jobs before I left England — the Guardian, Granada TV, news int, etc.

But I have to say, my favorite city for walking is still Amsterdam. It has a density and a bumpkin like me can understand and almost everywhere you turn there is a truly fine-dining restaurant experience to be had.

Although most of the time it was by bike that I was trying to discover London – where you can cover more ground in the same time (Hampstead Heath is great with a mountain bike).

Over at my project (Tagcrumbs) we’re trying to build an app that’ll let you remember great places and share them (and stories similar to Richard’s or Morgan’s) with others. Photos are great (looking forward to seeing some of those) but I believe that people would love to share a story to a place.

I was just a kid when I was last in London, but I do remember the walking. I remember the pain!

I also remember getting lost downtown during a Jack the Ripper tour. We stopped at one of Jack’s ol’ haunts which was then and still is now an eatery. I wanted to get another bag of chips before continuing on the tour, so I did. When I looked back, the tour group was gone. They left me! Along with my dad and his coworker at the time! Poor me…

There I was, all alone in downtown London, just a kid. Most likely not even in my teens yet. I stepped out of the building, looked around, and the tour group was nowhere in sight. I ran down one street and back again. I stopped and asked the women on the street corner (who I later realized were working girls, which is why they were dressed so colorfully) if they had seen a tour group. They pointed in one direction, but that way lie a freakishly long crosswalk and lots of traffic.

And then they pointed in every other direction… So, I ran the direction that was opposite their first suggestion, and encountered a Londoner in a black suede or leather jacket. Initially, I didn’t want to ask him for help because, in California, a man of his image and style was likely to be the WRONG person, if you catch my drift.

Since at that point I had tears in my eyes, and I rationalized that Londoners are amazingly friendly — in a previous experience, I was bilked out of several pounds by a 16-year-old who politely asked for money to catch the bus and thanked me — I figured what the heck. The guy turned out to be quite heroic in his attitude toward the situation and walked with me back to the eatery. I could tell he really wanted to return this lost Yank to his father. (He might have been a pimp, too, so he might have just not wanted a little kid bringing the cops around…)

I then saw my dad and his coworker, and the tour group, returning from the other side of the freakishly long crosswalk. When they arrived at my position, my dad was oblivious. He asked, “How did you like the tour?” *sigh* I told him that I was left behind. “Oh, sorry about that, kiddo!” *sigh again*

I never thanked the man in black. I regret not doing so though. He left as soon as he saw he was successful.

Anyway, yeah, London and walking…

Richard