Aydika emailed me last night to ask if London was the London I remember.

You probably don’t know this, but I spent a few months here Back When. Went to school, hung out, ate terrible pastries, and complained about how limeys put blackcurrant in everything.

One of the reasons I wanted to come back was to walk around and revisit parts of my former life. I remember my time in London as having been the happiest in my life. I wanted to come back to see if the place really existed, or if I had just imagined everything.

The first thing I noticed upon returning was Starbucks. I don’t recall having seen a single one when I was here in 1998. If you wanted tea or coffee back then, you went to a traditional English establishment like McDonald's. If you wanted pastries, you went to the supermarket and bought them fresh, still in their vacuum-sealed packs. When you punctured the seal with a fork and unwrapped your croissant, it was just as dry and hard as it was the day it was made at the croissant factory. People had standards back then, damn it.

Now I think the Starbucks density is even greater than in Seattle, and I’m outraged. The Starbucks Invasion is changing the face of London, and it is now possible to get a good cup of coffee and a fresh pastry seven days a week in most areas of the city. It’s deplorable. The youth will be running naked in the streets next, shaking their private parts at old people and kicking over trash cans. Civilization is on its way out. Wave bye-bye. It was nice knowing you.

Another big change is health. When I think “English breakfast,” I think of a piece of bacon wrapped around a sausage swimming in grease, dipped in batter, and then deep-fried with a piece of white toast on the side, a cigarette to enhance the flavor, and an early morning lager to wash it all down.

While Londoners haven’t quite figured out this whole health thing, they’re on their way. They get the basic idea, but usually fumble somewhere in the implementation. Take jogging for instance. It’s a very healthy activity, but if you smoke while you’re doing it, then is it really all that good for you?

They’re also trying out organic, fresh food. While wandering around on Friday, I stumbled across a shop near Russell Square called “Organic Planet.” It looked more or less like a normal American health food store, but it was filled with Brits who looked like they were learning to ride bicycles for the first time. A young male picked up an organic orange (does that mean that the orange is carbon based or that it’s free of pesticides?) and rolled it over in his hands. Almost as though a cartoon thought bubble had popped up over his head, you could see the troubling question on his face: “I like the idea of this organic orange thing, but where does the cigarette go?”

Some other people aren’t ready to take the plunge. A woman stood outside and stared at the customers coming and going. Her face was squished into a sort of disgusted question mark. Her expression had WTF? written all over it. After a couple minutes of observation, she shook her head and walked away, taking care to look over her shoulder every few feet to ensure the store wasn’t following her. Clearly, there are those who view Organic Planet as a threat to a basic way of life. The scene with that woman was about what I would have expected if I had watched someone slap McCarthy in the face with the Communist Manifesto.

I gave it a try myself. Wasn’t that bad. I got some sort of raw bean cilantro thing. It didn’t taste like anything. I thought of it as English sushi – vegetables being eaten without having the holy shit boiled out of them first with a small nuclear powerplant.

Definitely not the London I remember.

This one’s better, and it’s still my favorite city on Earth. When the Romans created Londinium in 43 AD, I doubt they had any idea what a kick-ass thing they were doing.