A Little Night Music

London at 4am is a lot different than London at 4pm. The changes can be subtle, like a shadow sneaking across the ground when the sun is behind a cloud, but they make a world of difference. In this case, the place is Leicester Square. During the day it is booming with tourists and theatre-goers cramming in lines to buy tacky souvenirs and get discount theatre tickets. At night the young of the town gather together: Music blares from venues on every corner and men in sharp suits stand in the street and try to coerce passer-bys to enter their club and buy their bar's drinks.
If you're not careful you could roped into a line longer than the square and an obscene cover charge before you have a chance to get your bearings.
So you find a joint that suits your mood (in our case a little rave called Walkabout with a colorfully lit dance floor, a pretty good DJ and 1.50-pound drinks for students on Wednesdays), you go to the bar and get a drink (maybe a few rounds of shots with your friends), find a spot on the dance floor and groove the morning away until your feet are sore and the place is closing for the night. You wander happily into the street, sometimes with some new friends and sometimes not, and it's then that you start to see the changes.
Everything is quiet. Light traffic makes its way down the streets, taking care to not hit a stumbling drunk, and groups of people chatter quietly. The square itself is now eerily empty. A girl is violently drunk and takes a swing at two police officers. One grabs her in a headlock and pins her to the ground, while the second (after telling her friend, quite forcefully, to step back) pins down her legs to keep her from kicking. There is a shout and a rhythmic clack of shoes against the pavement as drunk spectaters circle around to watch the event unfold, no doubt not quite ready to retire for the night and looking for one last adventure.
The only people out right now are young adults, like ourselves; police officers; taxi and bus drivers; a lone hot dog street vendor here and there; and bikers trying to earn a wage carrying people to and fro in the carriages they tow. We make our way to Picadilly Circus where the giant TV adverts (reminescent of Times Square in Manhattan) are still blazing forth their silent beacons, impervious to the passing of day to night. The bronze horses prance forth from the gentle rumbling of the fountain they make and a sound cuts through the silence. It is smooth and golden, flowing through the night like silk on the wind, the tone warm like the center of a new loaf of bread. It is a solo saxophonist, playing his blues into the night, maybe hoping for a pound or two from a passing stranger.
This is the song we're left with as we hop onto the night bus and home to our beds.

JD