Chapter 1

Oh, the wonders of travelling light, I thought to myself as I stretched my legs and reached up to grab my 32L backpack from the overhead compartments. I was seated in 2A — a fancy seat for those who pay for extra legroom (and those who forget to check in until the last second). A minute later, I was the first to exit the aircraft, stepping out into a surprisingly warm November breeze.

Although being the first to exit didn’t matter much, considering I had to wait for my travel companion, Andrea, to disembark as well. His seat was on the opposite side of the plane, 33E — possibly the worst seat in the aircraft, and the other side of the coin if you decide to play the last-minute-check-in roulette.

Eventually, I caught sight of him making his way down the back staircase of the craft. Andrea was carrying his beige backpack, in which he had kindly packed some extra room to take home the clothes I’d brought to keep me warm in London weather (but absolutely didn’t want to bring to Latin America). He wore a hoodie with a green gradient that shifted from dark forest at the hem to bright olive near the hood, and a pair of light-wash jeans.

It’s always strange to see my beach volleyball friends in anything but shorts and sand glued to them by sweat, I thought. I tried to catch him on video as he walked toward me, but the second I got my phone up he stopped to tie his shoelace.

“Ruining the vlog, are we?” I teased as I approached.

“What?” He looked up, then laughed when he realised my camera was in his face.

“There will be plenty more video opportunities in the next few days,” I said — not actually knowing if I even wanted to make any vlogs. Photoshoots and writing would capture the trip pretty well on their own, and I’d never gotten good at video editing. But then again, I had promised to make some content for the Instagram account Louise set up for us.

“We are here!” Andrea exclaimed with excitement as we climbed the stairs to Arrivals. “Let the yoloing begin!”

I was so grateful to have Andrea join me in London. The initial flight I’d booked took the route: Stockholm → London (10-hour transfer overnight) → Dallas (2-hour transfer) → Cancún — where I would finally be reunited with Louise, who was travelling from Italy. I was not looking forward to spending those ten hours curled up alone on the cold Heathrow floor with only beachwear packed in my backpack. Andrea agreeing to go a day earlier and see a Pendulum concert together was a blessing (and a great way to turn something dreadful into something exciting).

After passport control, we walked straight up to the first info desk available and asked for the cheapest way to get to the city. The man at the desk greeted us with a heavy accent and a crooked-toothed smile, which instantly induced the feeling of oh, this guy knows how to get around in the UK. He sold us two tickets for the next departing bus towards London.

“Jus’ head to the right, then turn left towards the lift, go down to the coaches, an’ find stop A26 — yer bus departs in twenty minutes.”

We headed right (too far), turned left to find no lifts at all, accidentally exited the airport, looked around in confusion, considered giving up and taking a bloss instead, decided against it, went back inside, and finally found the lift to the ground level where the coach station was located. That was when we realised neither of us was good at following navigational instructions. But we did end up at stop A26 and got on the bus.

“So, I’ve been reading this article about deepening intrapersonal relationships in a scientific way,” Andrea said as we sat down. “In this experiment, they use a set of thirty questions, and they proved that empathy was higher after completing them. I saved them in my Obsidian — wanna try?”

I swear this man has everything in his Obsidian. Gotta respect that.

“Sure,” I said. “What’s the first one?”

Andrea cleared his throat, then picked one to read aloud. “If you knew that in exactly one year you were to suddenly pass away, would you live your life any differently today?”

Oh, that’s a relevant one, I thought.

According to the experiment instructions, the person who picks the question is supposed to answer it first. Andrea told me he would quit his job straight away and try to fill the rest of his days with anything and everything that brings him joy. I thought that was the most sensible answer.

Then he turned to me with a curious smile. “But you — you’re already kind of doing that, aren’t you?”

I returned his smile. “Why, yes. But I think I’d still do some things differently.”

He was right. I had indeed just quit my job, got rid of my belongings, cancelled my flat contract, and cut off as many responsibilities as I possibly could to my life in Stockholm. I’d been longing to feel free and unattached for quite some time, and I’d finally just set myself up for it. On paper, I was homeless, unemployed, single, and kind of poor. But oh, the privilege of detachment.

“Yeah… I’d do things differently, for sure. Specifically, I’d use my travel funds to financially unlock all the people I care about to join me on this adventure,” I told him. “I wouldn’t bother spending time with anyone I don’t love, and I’d do anything to squeeze out some final moments with those I truly care about.”¹

I meant that. And I felt my chest tighten a bit with longing as I uttered the words. I already missed my family.

But did someone say adventure?

We got off the bus at Waterloo. The plan was to head to the Airbnb to drop our backpacks off, then go to Coram’s Fields to see a fireworks show (it happened to be Guy Fawkes Night) and then grab a beer with a couple of Andrea’s old friends from his lab. As we were walking towards the next bus, I spotted a tunnel on the street orthogonal to our path.

“I wanna check that out,” I said and criss-crossed over the street. Andrea followed.

The tunnel went below Waterloo Tube station and was half-circular with a radius of maybe ten metres and a fifty metres long. Every single square centimetre was covered in spray paint. We weren’t alone in the tunnel — there were graffiti artists working away on their pieces all around, soft music playing from a bar nearby, and a group of teenagers in grungy outfits running about taking photos of the incredible artwork. It smelled of spray paint and concrete.

There was every colour you could imagine, every art style you could name, and all around the texture of the wall changed with the number of layers that had been sprayed over the years. In some parts the walls were peeling, revealing a crust of paint several centimetres thick. In one corner a small group of fencers were recording videos, trying to capture a slow-motion shot of them slashing a spray can.

“What is this place?” I asked Andrea in wonder, eyes glittering with excitement.

“I think I might know, actually.” Andrea scrambled to get his phone out of his pocket. “Yes! This is The Vaults — I pinned it in The Yolo Itinerary.”

The Yolo Itinerary was the name of our shared Google Maps list where we’d pinned dozens of locations across London that we might want to visit before the concert. Specifically, we’d been looking out for places where we could take cool photos. Andrea’s an amazing photographer and he’d brought his whole camera setup.

We wandered through The Vaults and let the art mesmerise us. How did they get up there? I had so many questions. But it’s a pity to carry around unanswered questions when there are people around who can provide answers.

“Excuse me, sirs,” I said as I approached a couple of older men chatting by a small stall covered in artworks. One of them was seated on a high stool behind it and appeared to be the artist. “I don’t want to bother you, but my friend and I just got here and we’re fascinated by this whole place. Would you tell us more about it?”

“Why, of course, young lady,” the seated man replied, flashing me a broad smile. “This ’ere’s an open graffiti gallery; anyone can come spray whatever they like, an’ it’s completely legal,” he explained. “Me an’ this lad’ve been sprayin’ ’ere for years. Used ter be no man’s land jus’ a few years back, ye know — homeless folk all over, drenched in piss, not a place you’d wanna be. But back in 2016 they cleared it right up, they did. Put in cameras, opened a few bars. Now it’s a haven for people like us who just wanna express ourselves an’ do it somewhere free an’ open, ya know?”

The seated man kindly went on to show me some of the walls he’d painted on his phone, while the other man started chatting with Andrea, who asked him to pose in front of his artwork. While they were shooting, I continued talking with the old artist.

“What’s your name?” I asked, stretching out my hand.

“Name’s Tam — yours?”

“I’m Tuf,” I said as we shook hands. “What about these creatures? Do they have a name?”

I tilted my head towards the canvases propped up in his stall. They were all small, colourful paintings of a one‑eyed creature — think Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., but more illustrative. Two legs. No mouth. Just one eye, and legs slightly bent to the side, as if it walked bow‑legged. The paintings seemed to be mixed media, using spray paint and acrylic markers.

“Oh, these are Snamuh,” he replied.

“Come again?”

“Snaaamuuh,” he repeated slower. “It’s humans spelt backwards. Jus’ a little character I came up with durin’ the pandemic, I did. Now I spray ’em all ’round town — they’re my signature, in a sense.”

Gazing at the Snamuh, I was reminded of those strange pandemic years. I could imagine this city being one of the worst to be quarantined in — all locked up in a tiny London flat. His character felt like a nod to the fact that we were all strange humans back then. Mouths covered, reduced to just watchin’ the situation play out in front of us. It was all backwards indeed.²

“They’re brilliant,” I said, and his face shone even brighter.

Andrea was shooting the fencers while I said goodbye to Tam and wandered around for a closer look at the walls. One artist, by the name of Stocke³, lent me a spray can and showed me how to use it.

“You go close to the wall, bit o’ speed, an’ let go before pullin’ away,” he instructed. “That’s how you get nice even lines.”

I got it in theory, but not in practice. I sprayed my usual signature — just a T and L that I compress into something that looks like a π. The turquoise paint ran a bit from me going too slow, and my lines were anything but even, but I still liked seeing my tag on the wall.

And I felt it — that small seed of inspiration. At some point in my life I want to learn this medium, I thought to myself.

I woke up around 10 a.m. the next morning to Andrea putting on the soft tunes of the Wingspan videogame soundtrack on my small red JBL Clip speaker. Through the magic of Spotify Blend, I had somehow managed to get all my friends hooked on this soundtrack as their go-to relaxation music. Hearing it play made my thoughts drift back home as I tossed in bed — eyes refusing to open just yet.

This was probably the first night in which I’d had more than four hours of sleep in the past week — all the travel preparations and goodbyes keeping me up. I looked like I’d been homeless for five months, not five days.

It was for this reason we’d decided to go to sleep right after meeting Andrea’s old friends at the pub the night before. We’d also decided to sleep in to have enough energy for the day. I could’ve easily slept double the amount of time, though.

“Wakey-wakey!” Andrea sang with his melodic Italian accent as he jumped onto the bed next to me. “We’ve got lots of quests to complete today!”

I rolled over to face him. If there’s anything that wakes me up, it’s words like quest and adventure.

“Okay, let’s see what’s in The Yolo Itinerary, but you know what my main quest is for the day.”

Tuf’s top priorities:

1. Go to art supply stores to find the one sketchbook I’ll bring to Latin America
2. See the bombed church (St Dunstan in the East Church Garden)

Tuf’s bottom priorities:

• Go to pinned galleries
• Eat breakfast

Andrea’s top priorities:

• See Big Ben
• Take cool photos
• Make Tuf eat breakfast

Andrea’s bottom priorities:

• Also galleries

“So, we take the bus from St Mark’s Church up to Lambeth Rd, cross the bridge over the Thames — we can take some Big Ben pictures there — then continue up the road to the district with all the art supply stores, get me a sketchbook, and then head towards the bombed church. From there we’ll see what time it is and take it from there. Food should be available everywhere,” I recapped as we panned around the map on Andrea’s phone.

“Yeah, we have to be in time for the concert! It doesn’t take long to get to O2 Academy, but we’ll probably want to drop our stuff off here before we get there, so we don’t have to use the cloakroom.”

Our eyes locked in agreement. “Amazing plan — I can’t wait!” I squeaked, lying on my belly, feet kicking back and forth in excitement.

“Just give me five minutes to wash my face.”

“Cool, then I’ll do my makeup.”

Hours later we found ourselves in the Moleskine store on Neal Street. It was a small shop, decorated in a dark, luxurious interior and offered fewer options than we had hoped for.

“Oh, but these are all the same as in the other stores,” I complained as I scanned the shelves. “I’m sorry for making this quest so long, Andrea. I just can’t help being picky with this stuff.”

I had decided to let myself buy whichever sketchbook fitted my needs best, at whatever price. Normally I’d opt for Royal Talens Art Creation A4 sketchbooks as a budget-friendly version that I also don’t mind littering with math and random notes, but I knew I preferred the feel of Moleskine better. This was the fourth store we had entered, and they had all shared the same boring black A5 sketchbook from the Artist Collection. I was hoping to find a landscape-orientation book and preferably in a bright colour, to make it harder to lose the book, but my hopes were slowly dying when even the flagship store only stocked one option.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ve got plenty of time,” Andrea assured me. “I already got to see Big Ben and try that amazing chocolate bar⁴ – we wouldn’t have found that if it wasn’t for your indecisive roaming around these neighbourhoods.”

“You’re right,” I giggled and scrolled through one of the fancier shelves of the store. It was stocked with bright, business-card sized sketchbooks inspired by Japanese accordion design. “I think I’ll just get the standard A5 version and be done with it, though. Do you mind if we go back to Cass Art? They were on sale there.”

“Of course,” he replied. Then his eyes shot to the tiny books I was handling. “Wow, those are so CUTE! Do you like them?”

“Yeah, I love this layout and the colours are amazing. But they’re way too small for my needs.”

“Fits in your tiny bag though…” Andrea said with a playful smile. “Let me buy it for you.”

“Oh no, Andrea, you already came all the way here and I think they’re expensive.”

“Not an acceptable answer – I’m yoloing you. What do they cost?”

“I don’t see a price tag.”

“Even better. Here – hold my coffee and go outside. You’ll never know the price.”

“Andrea, I can’t let you. Why do you insist on these things?”

“It’s my departure gift for you!” His accent came out stronger as he spoke passionately. “Here’s my coffee, now shoosh.”

I stepped outside. Italians, I thought to myself (though secretly overjoyed to receive a bright orange, teeny-tiny notebook that fits right into my teeny-tiny Kånken fanny bag). I suppose he’ll get good karma for being so kind to me.

I scanned Neal Street. It was lined with small cozy stores that all looked distinct from one another. There weren’t many people out that afternoon, presumably because it was a Thursday. I was just thinking how I could see why people make trips to London to do Christmas shopping when a group of three people started walking towards me. Andrea exited the store and reached me at the same moment they did.

“Hi, sorry to bother you,” the woman in the crew said to us. She had beautiful brown glossy hair, green eyes and reminded me of a classic reporter. She was carrying a mic with a marine-blue foam cover and was followed by two men – one carrying a camera and the other a few white shopping bags. “We are recording a video for Instagram in which strangers get to play a game of tenna or a mystery-bag – would ya like to be in it?”

I looked at Andrea, confused because I didn’t know what a tenna was, but I knew we were saying yes regardless.

“Sure, we’d love to!”

“Great loves! Then we’ll do both of you, but one at a time. We’ll start with you,” she pointed at Andrea. “Could you stand over there for me, please?”

Andrea followed her direction and I walked over to the other side of the street. The man with the bags handed one over to the woman and then moved over to me as they started recording.

I leaned over to him. “Sorry, what’s a tenna?” I asked.

“It’s just what we call ten pounds around ’ere,” he replied with a laugh. “S’ppose you haven’t been ’ere long?”

“No, we just got here yesterday,” I replied and looked back across the street just to catch Andrea’s shocked face as he pulled up a brand-new iPhone 17 from the mystery bag.

“What?!” he exclaimed with excitement. “You mean I can keep it?”

“Yes, it’s all yours,” the woman said with her honey voice and a broad smile. “How do you feel?”

Why, karma was quick today, I thought. It was clear Andrea didn’t really know what to feel — and even less what to say. I laughed at his awkward mix of happiness and doubt as he shared a hug with the interviewing woman.

“You should know that was our last good price,” the man said to me in a low voice with a menacing expression. “Now it can be anything.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” I replied.

The woman turned to me and I knew the drill. She placed me on the other end of the street so that it would seem we came from different locations and we began filming.

“Would you like to play a game of mystery bag or a tenna?” she said as she approached me, then reached the mic over to me.

I leaned into the mic, “Yeah, sure!”

I picked the tenner. Whatever “not as good” item was in the other bags I bet we didn’t need anyway. I’m gonna get Andrea and myself two beers with this later, I thought.

We had to sign a form stating that we agreed to be in their Instagram video and stayed to chat with the crew just a minute. The man I had spoken with pulled up what had been in the mystery bag I was offered. It was a plastic bag full of overcooked spaghetti in a red sauce.

“That’s not pasta,” Andrea exclaimed before they left us.

We giggled our way down the street back to Cass Art.

“You know how many people warned me when I said I was going to London?” I said to Andrea. ”oH nO, wHy WoUlD yOu Go tO lOnDoN bEfOrE eVeN sTarTiNg yOuR jOuRnEy?! YoU’lL gEt mUgGeD aNd StAbBeD tO dEaTh” I imitated X colleagues, Y friends and everyone in my family. “So far, the Londoners have been the friendliest people I’ve possibly ever met — given us free cookies, taught us to spray-paint and given us free money and the latest iPhone.”

“I know!” Andrea agreed. “This is the best day ever, and we haven’t even gotten to Pendulum yet.”

We decided that since neither of us needed the iPhone 17, it would be more sensible to sell it and split the money. That would fund Andrea’s ticket to go see me and Louise in Latin America over Christmas, and an additional month of hostel stays for me. But we were also high on that feeling of luck. iPhone money, became our new mantra — justifying any stupid purchase we’d normally be too cheap to pay for.

yolo mindset intensifies

The sun came out as we walked among the skyscrapers of the financial district, the rays gently lighting up the tops of the tall buildings. The fact that our precious bombed church was closed off for renovations didn’t bother us at all. We saw it from the outside, along with some cute squirrels climbing up the surrounding wall to greet us. Nothing could destroy the good mood we were in.

As we strolled along Rood Lane, just passing The Fenchurch, Andrea spotted a man walking slowly around the building. He was middle-aged with black hair and glasses, wearing a grey parka and a matching backpack. More noteworthy, though, was the peculiar device he was carrying. It looked somewhat like a futuristic microphone, except equipped with a screen and decorated with a blue, shiny half-sphere right at the top. The man kept looking down at the screen and walked slowly along the rim of the building.

“Excuse me sir, what are you carrying?” Andrea asked the man.

“Oh, it’s a LiDAR scanner,” he replied.

“Cool!” Andrea said, and we continued along the street.

We stopped to take some photos at a crossing a little further ahead. There was a construction site nearby, and all the colourful numbers scribbled in chalk on the asphalt caught our attention. As we crossed the road, we heard a voice behind us: “Hey!”

Turning around we saw mr. LiDAR jog across the street to catch up with us. “Hey, I’m sorry for being short back there. I just finished the scan — let me show you the result!”

Excitedly leaning over the device, he showed us a point cloud on the screen, depicting the facade of the building.

“So this little dome on top is the emitter,” he explained, tapping the blue half-sphere. “It fires two hundred thousand laser points per second and stitches them together into a live 3D model. The range is about seventy metres, and it’s accurate down to a centimetre. See those colours? They show the density of the point cloud — every surface you see is made up of thousands of readings.”

“That’s amazing,” I said, remembering I’d worked with LiDAR data for topographical mapping at my first job.

“Yeah, and the best part is it does full 360-degree coverage. Normally you’d have to scan each floor or wall separately, but this can do the whole building in one pass. I can capture over two hundred thousand square metres in a few minutes.” His eyes lit up as he spoke faster, clearly in his element. “It’s called the GeoScan S1. I’m testing it for a review on my YouTube channel, so this is all for a video⁵”

“Oh cool! I’ll follow you — what’s your channel called?” Andrea asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“Thanks, it’s Robot Review Tech,” he replied. “I’m heading up to Lloyd’s Building next, then the Gherkin, and then home I think.”

“Oh, can we walk with you as you scan?” I asked. “I would love to get a closer look at how it works in action.”

“Yes, that’d be amazing actually,” he replied. “I’ve noticed some guards giving me strange looks. No wonder, considering it looks like I’m planning a terror attack, but perhaps it looks less suspicious when walking with you two.”

“Well, it does resemble a microphone. Perhaps it’ll seem more like an interview than a scan.”

“Yeah, you’re right. How lucky I am to just stumble upon a couple of guardian angels like that!”

“What’s your name, by the way?” I asked him.

“I’m Yeong, nice to meet you. What are your names?”

Andrea and I stated our names and we set off towards the next building.

The Lloyd’s Building was an amazing complex of what looked like large metal pipes all surrounding a huge glass box in a sparse grid. Several staircases looked like they were floating between the parts. It looked very futuristic-cyberpunk and I loved it. Must be hard for the device to pick up on all the intricacies of the exterior, though, I thought to myself.

As we kept walking he told me he was an architect by trade. Andrea was following close behind, camera in hand, snapping pictures of our “interview”. He had moved to the UK in ’96 for his studies and had stayed. From the way he talked, one could tell Yeong was excited about the topic and loved answering the questions I threw at him about architecture and structural design.

I love people like Yeong, I thought to myself as we said our goodbyes, it’s so easy to go about your day and mind your own business. Taking the time to share your experience, knowledge and excitement is truly generous.

Andrea looked through the images he took as we walked away from Yeong. He shot me a smile as he looked up, “Oh, these look so good. And what a fun encounter.”

“Yeah, imagine the closed-off church would turn into such a cute side-quest,” I replied.

“I bet we got at least 1000 XP from this.”

“Or a title — Guardians of a YouTuber’s creative freedom.”

Andrea laughed, “This sure doesn’t happen often in Stockholm.”

I thought for a second, then looked at him, “You know, I think it could happen though. I don’t think Londoners are necessarily more approachable than Stockholmers. We’re just in yolo-vacation mode and people feel it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, just that our energy is directed outwards right now. Usually when we’re in Stockholm we go about our everyday lives in a pretty boring manner — focusing only on the things we need to get done in the day and not making space for fun encounters like this.”

I didn’t know if I was right in that claim, but one thing I did know was that ever since we got to London and started saying yes to everything, amazing things have started happening to us.

Writers live comment: This chapter was written on my flight from London to Cancún, using my phone and portable keyboard. It took the whole length of the flight. If the rest of this journey is as eventful I’m not sure how many chapters will need to be written, or if my wrists are capable of keeping up. My Cancún flight is landing as I am writing. From my seat in the aisle I can just see the sun setting over the sea. Somewhere down there is Louise. Next quest: reunite with her.