Day 11-13: A Weekend in London

Going from New York to London was a longer journey than what it should have been cuz I went via Frankfurt!!! Who does that? Apparently my Dad, me and his colleague! Anyway…it was a long journey so I won’t get into the details. Well, I eventually made it to London, caught the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, then took a cab to our very nice boutique hotel – Threadneedles Hotel! That is by far my favourite hotel :) The hotel was modern and spacious, one of those hotels that even had an LCD TV in the bathroom! Such luxury! (Yes, the perks of tagging along your parents' business trip!) As I have mentioned in previous emails, London was more like a weekend thing rather than a typical tourist thing. The last time I was in London I was 10 yrs old…so even though it’s a long time ago, I didn’t feel the need to go all out touristy…so I didn’t! It was good to relax for a bit as I realized NY was one big mad rush to try and accomplish everything I wanted to do! It was really nice being in London on a weekend, and it was definitely a good change of scenery for me! Gone were the giant skyscrapers and in were the petite British buildings!

If you don’t want to read my lengthy and somewhat boring recount of my day-by-day experience in London, here’s the short recap in point form.

• London has great food! Definitely try Indian if you come here cuz it’s great!
• Riding up and down the tube is actually a tiring experience…well, if you’re a tourist going one place to another!
• I love the Brittish cabs…they’re so cute
• Try to catch a game of Football if you’re here! I managed to watch Chelsea vs Aston Villa! Great game! Awesome atmosphere!
• Carry an umbrealla everywhere you go in London, you’ll need it!
• The best thing to do when it’s wet, go to a museum! You're guaranteed to remain dry until you step out of the building :P

Day 11:
As I arrived rather late on Day 11, the only activity I managed in London was eating! Charles (my Dad’s colleague) being an ex-Lodoner himself suggested going to Queenway for dinner, whereby we could walk along the mainstreet and see what takes our fancy. So we took the tube down to Queensay and it didn’t take us too long to decide upon eating Indian food! I wouldn’t have thought of that…and it was one of the best dinners I’ve ever had! It was only that night I learnt that London has some of the best Indian food in the world! (I should have known…as Indians have been settling in England since it was part of the English colony from way back! I just didn’t make the connection!) I think the food tasted especially good too since I just survived aircraft food (although it has improved over the years…it does not stand a chance against London’s high culinary standards!), and the spices and the aromatic basmati rice just made it even more delicious!! Mouthwatering food! I think we managed to stuff ourselves with pampadans before the main course arrived…but my lamb curry was so good I didn’t leave anything on my plate! As you might imagine, by the time we made it back to the hotel, we just went to sleep!

Day 12:
It was a rather typical London day – I say that in regards to the rain-sunshine-rain weather we had prior to even stepping out of the hotel! Once the weather settled a bit, we took a stroll to some landmarks such as:

• St. Paul’s Cathedral – I believe it’s one of the only domed churches in London! The grounds surrounding the building were especially lush and green…very peaceful just to stroll around the gardens.

As we were walking around the streets, I noticed the stark contrast of London to New York! In London the buildings are so much shorter…it was a good change from the mighty highrises of Manhattan! Everything just seemed so much more petite and delicate in comparison to NY.

First picture of Daughter & Dad - Our morning stroll around Royal Exchange just near our hotel

Cute squirrel at St. Paul's Cathedral

Walking the streets of London

The arvo was spent at the Chelsea Football Stadium enjoying a good game of football! My dad managed to get us seats from his London brokers, and we were 3 rows from the front! This of course only made my brother, the soccer fanatic ever more jealous that he had to watch it on the internet at home in Sydney, whilst I was only 3 rows away from live action! Hehehe…It was awesome to be doing something typically ‘English’ instead of ‘tourist’. Ok, so I don’t really follow English football too closely, but I still felt the need to go for Chelsea since it was played at their home ground and their colours are blue and white! What’s the significance of blue and white? Just that my house colours in highschool were blue and white! When we actually arrived at the stadium I realized I should have put on my blue top instead of the bright red one I was wearing! Yeah, shows how much I know about football huh?

The game was awesome…1 goal was scored by Chelsea in the first 3 minutes! It happened so quickly as I was still settling into my seat! The crowd was obviously ecstatic! Just when you thought Chelsea had control of the game, Aston Villa scored the equalizer just before half time!! Much to the dismay of the crowd…and it was frustrating to watch Chelsea to lose so many close shots for the remaining game! Still, a 1-1 result was better than a loss…and from my spectator perspective anyway. There was plenty of action to sustain my interest!

At the football!

Dinner was spent at Covent Gardens – I had another awesome meal!! Saw so many stretch limo’s that night too…does that happen regularly in London?!?! I’ve seriously never seen so many stretch limo’s in one night! Again I stuffed myself with so much food I just wanted to go and sleep after dinner. (hmm...I think the glass of red wine I had also made me particularly sleepy!) We actually had dinner with my dad's colleague's Charles' sister - so she took us for a stroll around Covent Gardnes - definitely a cool vibe and atmosphere there! However, getting a cab home was not so cool...waited for quite a while before getting one.

Day 13
I woke up relatively early to meet up with my uni friend Peggy whom I haven’t seen in 2.5 yrs!! She's decided to pursue Law instead of Accounting (not a bad call!) hence she is now in London doing further study. As we haven't seen each other for so long, it was agreed a few weeks ago that I'd blank out one day to spend with her. So, what better way to spend a weekend than going up and down the tube :P Our plan wasn't very coherent or organised (actually, just really adhoc!) so we ended up on the tube most of the time! Going from one stop to another, getting off, walking for ages, transferring to another line etc etc. That was totally fine by me as all I really wanted to do was catch up with her, and since I’ve been deprived of serious talking to people I know on this trip so far, I couldn’t shut up! She too also asked when did I get so talkative!

Rach in London - Westminster & River Thames in the background!

We intended to do touristy stuff – so we started of at Westminster taking photos of the building, walked to Millenium Eye and decided the queue was too ridiculously long to bother going up a giant ferris wheel; we walked up and down the River Thames before deciding our legs were tired and it was time to eat! Off we went on the tube to Covent Garden (yes, again!) for Belgium food! Yeah, more talking...

Me and the Eye - can you tell it was a windy day with heavy clouds? :P

Next stop – Brittish Museum! Free admission plus rainy day prompted that decision. I don’t think we even covered half the museum…but the parts we did cover were fascinating - Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mesotopia, Assyria etc. Once again I realized my history knowledge is pathetic – not only do I need to read up on Ancient Greece and Rome, I’ve decided Middle Eastern History is equally fascinating! It’s just a question of where to start? So much I don’t know and want to know! I guess it’s an extra-curricular activity I can take up once I return to Sydney! I think we spent more time at the museum shop looking at various souvenir gifts and books than viewing the exhibits!

Inside the Brittish Museum

We visited Piccadilly Square – but by the time we got there the shops were closing…so we window browsed! Probably a good thing considering how everything is so much more expensive in pounds! Our stomachs were once again empty (catching the tube is actually really tiring cuz ur walking around so much transferring to different lines!), so we went to Chinatown for dinner. I’ve just realized that with every city I’ve been to so far I’ve visited Chinatown! Anyway, we spent half an hour or so looking for a Japanese restaurant that she couldn’t locate! So we settled for another Japanese restaurant that was obviously run by Chinese as they were speaking to us in Cantonese! Still, the food was decent so no one was complaining!

Although the day itself was not packed with touristy stuff, it was definitely a great way to spend a weekend in London! I'm glad I've had a mix of things to do on this trip so far! Yes I do miss home a lot...but I still love travelling too!

Something I’m getting very used to on this trip is packing my bag every 2 nights! And I tend to spend a lot of time repacking! Oh well, I’ll learn hopefully towards the end of the trip what is the best way to pack!

Next Update: Madrid in 1.5 days!