Am back at Genna’s for the night, but we’re up at 4.00am to catch the train to PARIS!
This week has been London, Newark, Newcastle, Edinburgh, York and Newark. But it’s late and I still need to dry my hair and pack before I go to bed and it’s almost 11.00pm.
But in the meantime:
today was more shopping and a disappointing visit to st paul’s cathedral. no way was i paying £10 to go through the gates and not be able to take photos! genna and i looked around the parts that we could see without paying and promptly left.
We caught a red bus tour thingo around london (open-topped and COLD) before jumping off in time to warm up and head off to see avenue q, which i absolutely adored. i also met genna’s potential boyfriend, george! who i also approve of.
tomorrow is the big internet girl meet up (11 of us in total now) which will go until lunchtime sunday. then i head home with harriet for our trip up to edinburgh on monday morning. internetting will be sporadic but my au mobile seems to be fully functional now (about bloody time you pulled your finger out, vodafone).
the end! today’s post was brought to you by the letter q and definitely not the shift key.
Categories: London
I’m still having some troubles with my AU mobile phone – Vodafone says it’s now to do with NYE congestion (yeah, right). So apologies if you’ve received a text from me about 20 times, as I suspect it may have happened to (especially you, Natty!). I’m anxiously waiting for news on Julie and Scotty’s newest arrival, which should happen any hour now.
It’s taken me about 2 days to write this, and not because I’ve been out socialising or sightseeing. I’ve been relaxing and taking it easy since I realised that it’ll be almost non-stop for the rest of my time here – hold on tight, rah!
I’ve uploaded another batch of photos to flickr – click here to see them. Since the last episode:
Saturday 29th
Genna and I trained it in to London to queue up at Leicester Square’s TKTS booth for cheap tix to RENT. I had a wander around and checked out the palm prints laid in the square – Arnie, Colin Firth and Omar Sheriff. It was cold and mostly pleasant, but the security/terrrism sirens decided to malfunction and let out this annoying wailing sound AND IT REALLY WAS ANNOYING. It was still going after we’d bought our tickets, so a good 45 minutes later.
Then we tubed it towards the Natural History Museum and geeked it up around all the stuffed animals. Through Genna’s awesome tight-arse skilling, we managed to get 2-for-1 entry to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition, which was completely amazing.
This was our favourite pic. the building itself is also pretty spectacular, complete with themed gargoyles (dinosaurs and whatnot).
We’d planned to go to the Science Museum, but we changed our minds because of the massive queues and we knew that Becca would hold it against us if we went without her.
We hiked it to Harrod’s and OH MY GOD how extravagant can one shop be?! I made a point of not going to see the Diana and Dodi memorial but we grabbed lunch from the food hall before gawking at the overpriced souveniers in the Harrod’s gift shop. The best part was the opera singing pizza chef, who decided to start serenading one of the workers while we were walking past.
We hopped on another tube and got off at Westminster so I could go back to the Westminster Abbey gift shop and buy one of the Westminster gargoyles that I’d eyed off when we were there last. Genna bought us a tickets for a ride down the Thames and the commentary was very typical British humour and well worth the price with yet another 2-for-1 offer. Bargain! We travelled up to Tower of London as sunset was starting so the long shadows made for a beautiful sight.
Tower of London is much bigger than I thought it would be and I found it hard to realise how old everything was. We checked out the crown jewels and I was v impressed with the moving walkway method to keep crowds moving. The views of Tower Bridge were beautiful and one of my fave photos of the day.
By the time we finished at Tower of London it was cold and dark and time for us to make our way to Covent Garden for dinner and to see RENT. Walking through Covent Garden at night was completely hectic, but very pretty. Lots of stalls selling things I couldn’t afford and buskers vying for our attention. We ate at Bella Italia, a nice chain restaurant with VERY nice garlic bread. It was so nice to finally sit down long enough to give our feet a rest.
My belief that all West End theatres are nice and retro was long forgotten as soon as I went to the bathroom at the Duke of York’s theatre. What a horrible, tiny place. Then I got to marvel at the bad sound set up in the theatre itself before being shocked beyond belief by the production itself. RENT being one of my all-time favourite musicals meant I was looking forward to seeing the show, even though I knew that this production was very different. Well, different didn’t begin to describe it adequately but it was interesting to see a new interpretation by the same guy who’s worked with Kylie on her styling for the last million years. Kylie’s voice even featured in parts of the show. I hate to admit it, but the whole experience made me want to watch the movie version again.
Sunday 30th
Sunday started with driving into London to go shopping on Oxford Street with Genna and Claudia. I managed to by a swag of souveniers and a new carry-on suitcase for my trip home while the girls went and spent up at Selfridges. We made our way to Covent Garden to have another look at the markets (and were treated to the sight of a guy wearing nothing but gold hotpants on a unicycle) and ate a late lunch at this restaurant were the waiters dressed like monks.
We finally got home through the London traffic and managed to convince Becca to come over a day early for our NYE fun. We played Singstar and discovered that we were all pretty amateur, really.
Monday 31st
A biiiiiiiiiiiig sleep in and bumming around the house until midday, Genna eventually got me and Genna out of the house and to Sainsbury’s for some grocery and clothes shopping at Next and Monsoon. Genna cooked us delicious pasta bake and we watched TV and movies and played some guitar hero until midnight and watched the London fireworks on TV. Not to slag of the fireworks here, but it made me appreciate the Sydney fireworks that much more. NYE TV here is freaking awesome, though, and we very much enjoyed spotting David Tennant (current Dr Who) and his sideburns on the Jools Holland special. Being the hardest of the hardcore, I was in bed just after 1.00am. Party animal central!
Tuesday 1st
A nice big sleep in and another round of Guitar Hero before Becca went home after lunchtime. Genna and I didn’t get dressed until we thought we were going out for dinner with her new love interest, until plans were made for Friday instead. We watched movies and TV in bed (I’m now in love with Top Gear) and are now getting ready for our overnight road trip that starts at 6am tomorrow.
Tomorrow we drive to Avebury, Stonehenge and then to Bath for our overnight stay, then on Thursday morning back home via Oxford. Friday I’ve got a free day in London before going to see Avenue Q with Genna and love-interest George.
Saturday starts my big weekend with my girls – there will be 13 of us in total – 2 from Sweden and 1 from Wales and will no doubt be the highlight of the trip. We haven’t been organised enough to work out what we’ll actually do when we’re together, but sounds like alcohol will be a big part of it. London, you have been warned!!
Miss everyone back home, hope you’re doing well!!
Categories: London
So I ended up having about 6 naps on my first afternoon here and I’m sure I would have had more except BECCA! surprised me in my bed just before dinner and we had a couple of hours of laughs with her before she had to go home again. Becca and Genna and I are driving up to Harriet’s tonight for Christmas.
Yesterday was my first London day. We’d planned to catch an open-topped bus, but the weather was too crappy to make it worth the overpriced cost. We drove to St John’s Wood station and tubed it in to Westminster station. Tube trains are overheated and just like they look in the movies. At some stations they’ve installed protective walls on the ledge of the platform – there are only gaps for the doors on the carriages and is supposed to be extra protection in the event of another London Bombing. A lot of the streets have ram-raid barriers as well, it’s amazing how unsecure Sydney now seems in comparison.
As we were walking into St John’s Wood station, I notice a Beatles souvenier shop and Genna said that Abbey Road was only a 10 minute walk away. Score! We hoofed it down there and checked out the fence of Abbey Road Studios which are completely graffiti’d with tributes to John Lennon and co (some psycho also declared their love for Mark Owen from Take That). Apparently they paint over parts of the fence every now and again so that the fans have a clean canvas to work on. Genna took a photo of me walking across That Crossing at Abbey Road and I can safely say that I look more like Kevin Smith except without the beard.
Genna very cleverly walked me out the right exit of Westminster station so that the first thing I saw was Big Ben and holy cow I started crying. Tragic, aren’t I? I managed to keep my cool after that, but there was just something about seeing Big Ben and HOW BIG IT IS and it was just amazing. We started crossing Westminster Bridge to try to see the London Eye, London Bridge and the Tower of London, but the fog was still thick enough that we couldn’t even see the other side of the Thames. We walked around the Houses of Parliament (had my photo taken with a Bobby!) and checked out Westminster Abbey. Being a Sunday it was closed to tourists but we ogled the detail of the outside.
It was only a few degrees outside and I was pretty well rugged up for the weather but we still dropped into Caffe Nero and bought this hot chocolate that was just like melted chocolate. It was about a week’s worth of chocolate in one hit and I LOVED IT.
We walked down to Trafalgar Square via the Horse Guards Parade and stared at the guards and beautiful horses. Horse Guards Parade is just behind 10 Downing Street and will be the venue for beach volley ball during the London Olympics. Maybe this is Little Britain’s fault, but I imagined that you can walk right past 10 Downing Street and have your photo taken out the front and HOW WRONG I WAS. The security at the end of the street is insane and the police and security looked scary as all out.
Trafalgar Square has nowhere near the amount of pigeons as I thought, but apparently some politician has it in for them and is probably having them poisoned to keep them away. There’s a £500 fine for feeding the pigeons, so it’s lucky the bird lady from Mary Poppins isn’t around anymore.
Genna cultured me up in the National Gallery and saw a few Monet’s and other famous artists/paintings that I’d never heard of (this could be a running them while I’m here). National Gallery wins because it was free!!
Then we headed up Regent Street, Carnaby Street and then Oxford Street to meet up with the one and only Emma V. Emma’s a Melbournite I haven’t seen since Natty’s wedding and she’s been back here since about October. Very strange to hear an almost-Australian accent! The three of us went out for lunch on Regent Street (I think, I was pretty disorientated) and caught up on gossip until about 4.
OH MY GOD I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH. It’s this fashion store that is more like a nightclub – dark, loud thumping music and totally not my scene. Everything is overpriced becuase it’s an American brand and so that makes it okay. The staff aren’t called ’sales assistants’ or anything useful, they’re called ‘models’. And blow me over, they’re right! Everyone looks like they’ve walked off the set of the OC or some fancy rich-kid tv show. Their thing is to have a scantily-clad man standing in the entrance and they offer to take your photo with said hottie with their polaroid camera. I’ll have to take a photo of the polariod so I can show you. They totally make it a touristey thing and pop the photo in a cardboard frame and everthing. Definitely a highlight in the eye-candy stakes.
So after all this it was dark and we popped into a few shops like Selfridges and Marks and Spencer and dealt with the crowds before catching the tube and driving home.
We planned to go out to the movies, but I ended up having a nap and not wanting to wake up. I ended up in bed before 9, which is why I’m now awake at 3 in the morning.
A heap of photos from London day are here on flickr.
Categories: London
This could very well make up for not being able to go to New York this trip:
Plus there’s the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. Genna’s electronically humping my leg at the thought of going:
I’m not seeing anything wild about this shot, but it’s an Aussie photog of Coogee Beach right near where Julie and Scotty got married so it’s already won my vote.
Categories: Itinerary · London · Pre-holiday
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