Return for a few days
Trip Start
Apr 12, 2011
1
42
46
Trip End
Jun 26, 2011
London, England, United Kingdom
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
The flight took just over an hour to reach Heathrow, and so once we landed and collected our bags, we made our way back to Shepherd's Bush on the tube to return to our previous accommodation at Matt and Spark's place. We headed out to get some dinner at the local Thai restaurant, followed by a movie at the local Westfield shopping center, which surprisingly is open till 9/10pm every night (even the shops). We opted for The Hangover part 2. After the movie had finished (10:20pm) there were still movies still to be shown, with the last one starting at 10:30pm, so a bit of a difference compared to back home.
After the movie had finished we walked back around the corner where we retired for the evening.
Day 1:
For our first full day back in London, we didn't accomplish much. We awoke late in the morning and and grabbed a quick bite to eat for lunch, before heading to the local travel agent to organise our USA section of our trip, as we hadn't got around to booking anything for it yet. So we spent a good couple of hours at the travel agent before we headed back home to rest up before heading out for the night.
After a lovely lazy afternoon rest, we headed to the West End district to pick up our tickets to Mama Mia. After we'd collected our tickets we walked around the block to find a place for dinner. We stumbled into a Italian restaurant which looked to be full and so we didn't think we'd get a seat. The waiter lead us down stairs and there was another dinner room the same size as the one above. I ordered a huge ham pizza and Az ordered some kind of pasta which she liked. After dinner we headed to the Prince of Wales theater to watch Mamma Mia. Was a good show, bit of singing and at the end some standing up and dancing.
After the show we caught the tube back and crashed for the night.
Day 2:
We had a good sleep in and then jump on the tube to Victoria station to get the train to Brighton. Took us maybe an hour and a half to get to Brighton, which got us there perfect timing for lunch. We followed the crowd from the train station straight down the road to the sea. The closer to the sea we got the windier it got and I was seriously regretting wearing shorts.
From a far we thought there was sand, but as we got closer we realised it was a pebbly beach. We weren't enthused enough by the beach to go for a swim, so we went searching for somewhere to eat instead. Stopped at the first place we came across on the beach. We found ourselves a sheltered table in the sun. Paul ordered fish & chips and I had chicken, salad and chips. We both agreed the chips were really good, but Paul found bones in his fish so was put off and mine turned out to be just chicken nuggets with hardly any salad. Even though it wasn't a particularly great lunch our hunger was satisfied.
We walked along the beach up to the pier. We walked out to the end and I was surprised how much it looked like a kid's casino, with all the penny drop and arcade machines. We changed a pound into 2p pieces and felt like we were rich when all the 2ps came clinking out of the change machine. We then proceeded to drop them into the penny drop machines. We did make some pennies drop out, but in the end we left one pound lighter (I know big spenders).
As we made our way back down the pier we spotted the Victoria's Bar which served afternoon tea so we both had Cream Tea, scones with jam and clotted cream with tea, although Paul swapped his for a hot chocolate.
We slowly walked through the shopping district in Brighton back to the train and headed back to London.
After getting back to Victoria Station from Brighton we jumped on the tube back to Hammersmith where we called into the travel agent, who happened to try and call us 2 minutes before we got in there but we'd missed the call. So our documents were ready, so we collected them and then walked back to have a quick rest before heading out for dinner with Emma.
We met Emma at the front of the Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepard's Bush and decided to grab a drink while we waited for Darren to arrive on the tube. We headed down the pedestrian walkway to a multi story pub where we had a few drinks (well Paul did). Darren arrived soon after and we headed to the local Pizza Kitchen, which served a lot of different pizzas and a few pastas and salads, all of the pizzas are named after cities, there was even a Canberra pizza. To be honest, it would of been a lot easier if the names of the pizzas matched what was on them, as it meant we had to read the whole menu, including what was in all the pizzas rather than the usual name of the pizza. We had a lovely evening with Emma and Darren sharing travel stories. When the evening came to an end Emma and I didn't want to say goodbye so we said we'd catch up again before Paul and I left for America. Really just an avoidance tactic as we didn't manage to fit in another catch up, but fingers crossed she will be back in Oz one day.
Day 3:
We woke up late again before heading out to the local Westfield Shopping Centre where we grabbed some breakfast (crepes). After breakfast we headed to the cinemas to watch X-men: First Class, where we watched it on the big screen which was advertised as xtreme Sound and Vision. It really was extreme sound and vision as we both jumped when the music first started playing.
After the movie, we slowly made our way back to the boys place and grabbed a bite to eat on the way. We rested a bit before Matt got home, and so we watched some TV while waiting for Sparks and Coop to get home so we could head out for dinner. We headed towards Hammersmith and stopped in at a Indian restaurant. It was very good food, I had the butter chicken, and Az had the tandoori mix grill, both were very good.
Once we'd all finished our dinner, we headed to the Green Room to have some drinks and play some pool. They had a band there this time playing some music which was good, a guy on his acoustic guitar, and a guy on what I think was just a wooden box. But nonetheless it sounded good. After playing a few rounds of pool, Coop and Az decided to head back home. Myself and the boys headed down the road about 50m to another place and had a couple more beers, before we called it a night and headed back to get some rest before our flight the next day.
Day 4:
After awaking bright and early, we got ourselves ready for our flight to JFK airport in New York which was due to leave at 1pm. Luckily for us, Spark's offered to drive us to Heathrow, so Spark's, Matt and the two of us jumped in the car and headed to the airport were they dropped us off at the usual 2 hours before our flights departure time.
So we walked around the airport shops before heading to the Gate to wait for our flight.
