Huhu, my Sunday Lovers,

we’re already on story number three, and this time we’re leaving the house and the country. This edition of Sundays Plot takes you to London, England.

There was a time in my life when I decided that having a full-time job simply wasn’t exhausting enough. So I went back to university at the same time: nine-to-five by day, studying my ass off at night and on weekends. Every so often, you have to show up in person for class. I chose to take mine in London: Global Corporate Strategy and Brand Management, specifically, because becoming a business psychologist with a focus on marketing, advertising, and leadership psychology was the bigger goal.

So I took time off work and planned to spend a month in London. I was thrilled. I mean, come on, it’s London, Baby! But as anyone who’s been there knows, London is not cheap to live in. Which didn’t leave me many options. So I booked a hostel. One of my closest friends swears by them, like, for traveling, for actually living somewhere a while, for making friends. What she never mentioned was the hygiene situations.

A Hostel With My Name On It

I booked a hostel called Victoria, which felt like a sign since, well, we share a name. I arrived the week of King Charles’s coronation, which meant the city had lost its mind.

I hauled my suitcase up five floors with no elevator because, of course, it was a gorgeous old building. Beautiful. Also ancient.

I shared the room with five other girls (girls, specifically, because I already have trust issues sharing a bedroom with people I know). I did not need strange men added to the experience. (The universe saved those for later.)

I got the bottom bunk in the back corner. My roommates had zero interest in responding to my hello. So much for my new international friendship group.

I knew London was not famous for spotless hygiene, so I had braced myself. But the universe needed to make its point fully.

The tiny sink the six of us shared was the single most disgusting water source I had ever seen. I would rather brush my teeth in a street puddle.

Anyway, the king was mid-coronation, and I wanted to make it to the public viewing in the park.

I followed the crowds and bought Crémant and an actual glass, because drinking sparkling wine from a paper cup is not fine, even if you live in a hostel.

London extended its famous hospitality: it poured. Crowds everywhere. I saw absolutely nothing of the king and was soaked through.

With zero visibility, I decided to drink my Crémant before the rain watered it down. My entire aura must have been radiating pure rejection because an older British woman said I looked sad and invited me to join her friends.

So there I sat with four women in their sixties and seventies, having drinks, eating sandwiches and getting rained on while they told me about the royal family and their own families. For a few hours, London felt magical.

It was, genuinely, a lovely first day. And yet, that night, I lay in bed and cried. Nobody wanted to talk, the hygiene situation was a disaster, and I stared at the mattress above me, actively choosing not to imagine the one beneath me.

Some mysteries are acts of self-protection.

The pillow had the substance and emotional support of a folded napkin. I genuinely did not know how I would survive a month in this city.

The room felt like a women’s prison. That Bridget Jones in Thailand kind of energy.

The Shower Curtain Attack

For the next few days, I tried to make the best of it. But staying strong got harder every time I needed the bathroom.

I’ll admit it: I came very close to asking my father for a private loan so I could move into a hotel. But spending three or four thousand pounds just to sleep seemed like a bit much for me.

One morning, I entered the shower knowing I would come out dirtier than I went in. White tiles, a curtain and walls displaying strangers’ hair and unidentified substances.

Even the hook for my towel looked as if it carried a disease no longer covered by modern vaccines. It felt as if I had time-traveled straight into the plague.

This shower or no shower, I told myself.

I finally worked up the nerve to get in. Honestly, it felt like breaking the spirit of a wild horse. I stood exactly in the center so I touched neither wall nor curtain. For ten glorious seconds, I enjoyed warm water before a gust of wind pressed the wet curtain flat against my body. No escape. The wall behind me was already occupied by other people’s hair and foreign DNA, and so was the curtain. I screamed.

It felt like a wet, filthy raccoon had jumped straight out of a trash can and wrapped itself around my bare skin. Cold. Dirty. Impossible to escape.

Don’t get me wrong: I can live simply. I grew up camping, slept in tents and dealt with sand in places where sand should never be. But at this point, sleeping on sand felt like the cleaner lifestyle choice.

After a few days, I started making peace with my own physical decline. Even if that meant becoming a street raccoon myself.

The Time I Considered Adult Diapers

Surviving the shower was one thing. Answering nature’s call was a different sport entirely.

Like any good camper, I packed toilet paper, soap, disinfectant and flip-flops. I entered every bathroom as if it were contaminated.

I rolled up my trousers to keep them from the floor. The bathrooms were so small that opening the door sent your trouser leg dangerously close to the toilet. And wiping the loose toilet seat shifted it sideways and revealed the horror underneath.

No amount of disinfectant could save me. I had to surrender to nature and disgust. I have never had stronger legs than I did that month.

I would rather give birth in a public motorway toilet in Scandinavia than use one of those bathrooms again. I even considered adult diapers. Voluntarily peeing on myself seemed more hygienic.

One morning, I flushed, and I knew the person before me had had a serious moment. The water began to rise, carrying evidence of every person who had used it before me.

I stood there in my flip-flops, clutching my toilet bag, and prayed.

The universe showed mercy. It did not overflow. It just stopped there. Threateningly.

And I still had to go.

£150 Worth of Dignity

My hygiene spirit had been broken, but my soul was still fighting. My survival instinct offered two options: become the feral raccoon or make the best of the situation.

I got dressed and took myself into the city. First stop: Harrods. I went down to the bar, ordered a cup of English tea and a scone, and made a plan.

Then I bought a down pillow, a cozy blanket, fairy lights and an arsenal of cleaning supplies. Around £150 seemed more reasonable than several thousand pounds for a hotel.

Back “home,” I scrubbed the disgusting sink, set out my own soap and turned my bottom bunk into an actual cozy little den.

Two days later, when a staff member showed up with a rag to “clean” the sink, I politely informed him that I had it handled from here on out.

Where Everything Turned Around

Once I stopped waiting for the experience to become better and actually started making it better, London opened up.

I found friends at university and discovered new corners of London on my route to class, passing Parliament and MI6 every morning. I went out with classmates in the evenings. And as people left the hostel, new women moved into our room.

For a while, I shared the room with an American author in her late sixties, traveling to research her next book. Every morning, I shared my French-press coffee with her. In the evenings, we shared the wins of the day.

One was from Ecuador, meeting investors for her rainforest initiative. Another had a job interview at Christie’s. One was an opera singer with several auditions and one specific condition: no open windows at night, or her voice might suffer.

So we became a small community that happily gave up fresh air in service of someone else’s vocal cords.

Finally, I understood what my friend had meant about hostels and the friendships they can hand you.

Our idyll did not last, obviously. One by one, our new friends moved on until it was just the author and me.

New women arrived. New, deeply questionable things happened.

One night, I woke up because a roommate had washed her underwear and hung it from the bunk ladder above me to dry. It was dripping steadily onto my face.

Waking up to a stranger’s underwear dripping on you was not on my London bingo card.

Then two men wandered into our female dorm, apparently assigned beds there by mistake. The one in front looked exactly like Hagrid, straight out of Hogwarts.

Was I a little scared? Sure.

But I would not let two men with a booking mix-up wreck my peace. Like Hermione defending the girls’ dormitory, I made it clear they were not staying.

We sorted it out and went back to sleep.

Just another peaceful night in London.

What London Actually Taught Me

Eventually, my time ran out too. I finished the course with top marks, but learned even more about starting over somewhere unfamiliar and staying yourself while everything around you falls apart a little.

Almost immediately, the month became the opposite of what I had pictured.

Somewhere between the raccoon shower and the sink I scrubbed myself, I decided I would not let a bad room win. I fought for the London I had imagined and got it, just not as expected.

I could not change the hostel, replace the mattresses or defeat every shower curtain. But I could clean one sink, hang up fairy lights, share coffee and ask another woman how her audition had gone.

Sometimes, making a place feel like home begins with something that small.

Those weeks became some of the best of my life. I am still in touch with many of the women. We still check in, root for one another and keep tabs on each other’s plot.

When it was time to leave, I gave my blanket and fairy lights to the next girl. Maybe she needed a cozy little den too.

Back home, I washed absolutely everything with hygiene detergent and disinfected whatever could survive being disinfected. Personal growth has limits.

But I came home knowing this: you cannot always change your reality. You can decide how you show up inside it. Sometimes, the life you dreamed of is already there, simply hiding behind a filthy sink, a frightening toilet and a shower curtain trying to hug you.

You may just have to make it yours first.

Happy Sunday! x
Victoria