“You guys aren’t going to find a burger.” Sam told us with malicious certainty. It was 00:30 on a Tuesday night in London. Charlie Hollis and I were in ravenous pursuit of a burger place, or any place with burgers, that would serve us at such a time. Further fueled by Sam’s doubt and distrust, we decided, by any means necessary, we would find our demanding bellies the patty of beef they required.

We quickly found ourselves lost and disappointed at the numerous eateries we passed that were either closed or no longer selling succulent meat sarnies. “What a bunch of Scots!” Charlie proclaimed as we disconsolately departed from one of the many false hopes. However, we did not lose optimism. Each time we failed, we were reminded of Sam’s devilish, dispirited, downcast, downright disheartening words and felt reinvigorated.

Now 01:00, we began to ask London’s random night crawlers to point us in the direction of any shop that could nourish us. Mostly we were laughed at, but select individuals provided us with incredibly vague hand gestures that we followed devotedly. After reaching a completely unrecognizable area (who knows how far from our hostel), we were confronted by a pair of drunken locals (a couple of Scots if I do say so myself). “What did you say!? What did you say!?” one of them bellowed, slurring  some of his speech in obliterated aggression.

Blinded by our malnutrition and anticipation, we failed to pick up on his instigating tone. “Oh, we’re just looking for some burgers, my man” I told him casually, “do you know any place that might still be open?”

Expecting fighting words, the drunkard was exceptionally taken back by my unenthused response. Words escaped him for a moment, his bulky stout friend equally confused standing next to him, until he calmly told us he didn’t know.

We thanked them and continued on our journey, not realizing till moments later that we unintentionally diffused a potentially violent situation.

Soon enough, we found the imprecise directions we received from the locals proved surprisingly fruitful. We had reached a large street still bustling with excitement and knew we were close to our goal. In just a few minutes we found the promised land, a place that was still open and could serve our now rapacious, famished stomachs with the burgers we craved: Burger King. The idea of going to Burger King would have been out of the question at the start of our voyage, but after almost an hour of search, we were desperate. After devouring a double Whopper each, our guts were disapproving but our minds rejoiced in our (somewhat) successful outcome.

Though finding our way back took some time, it was not our first time getting lost in London and at that point we couldn’t have cared less. The next day, we boasted to Sam about our accomplishment, but she was largely unimpressed.  Though the story is under minded in a vocal accounting, it was personally memorable and thought us three noble explorers lessons in navigation, perseverance, and integrity.