Let me take you by the hand...
Trip Start
Feb 26, 2004
1
Trip End
Mar 03, 2004
London, England, United Kingdom
Thursday, February 26, 2004
February 26
Our flight lands at Luton airport, one hour and a half away from London's city centre. Once we get there, we set foot in the enormous London's tube for the first time. Sometimes I have problems to get my bearings at Barcelona's metro, even though it's quite small and simple... so you can imagine what London's tube means to me: HELL. I'm lucky that my friends' sense of direction is quite better than mine, so we arrive to the hostel easily.
We spend the evening becoming familiar with the neighborhood -metro stop "Bayswater", very close to Notting Hill and Hyde Park- and at night we have dinner at the healthiest place on earth: the McDonalds.
After that we get in touch with a very english thing: the pub! We choose one called Prince Alfred just because is the first one we see and as it happens it turn out to be a pretty cool place, warm and pleasant but full of life and interesting people.
[Footnote: a guy called Tony -a complete stranger to me with whom I've chatted for three minutes- gives me marijuana for free just because he likes spanish people... wow, nice people these londoners!]
February 27
[3 a.m: the hostel's fire alarm rings in the middle of the night and we all wake up on the point of a heart attack.Some people get ready to evacuate the building... finally nothing happens; is just that in the kitchen someone's food has burn in the pan ... ¿?¿???]
We wake up early for an absolute touristic day. Everything's soooo beautyful! [japanese mode ON] Photo, photo, photo, photophotophoto! [japanese mode OFF] Partly is like we'd already been in London because every building and every monument is very familiar to us because of the movies, tv shows and tv news. The Big Ben, the London Eye (really expensive), St James Park and, of course!, the Buckinham Palace (what a hideous building, holy shit!). We arrive in time to see the Changing of the Guard, so freaky, all the bobbys parading with their cute hats...
We eat some sushi and then we get some culture at the National Portrait Gallery and at the National Gallery (blowout of galleries, I know, but it's very cool outside!). The National Gallery is located on Trafalgar Square, a really nice square with a huge Admiral Nelson's statue in the middle.
February 28
This morning we're going to visit something I have it in for: Portobello!! Big expectations and no disappointment; the place is awesome! I really love it. It's rustic but smart, full of stalls and odd small shops, antique shops, second hand bookshops...
In the afternoon we visit Madame Tussaud's Museum, the wax museum par excellence. I recommend visiting it at the last hour in the afternoon, just before the closing time 'cause tickets are quite cheaper. Even so it costs 12 pounds but it's really worth it, figures are so realist that they're a little bit scary!
Later we go to Covent Garden, a really good place with a cool atmosphere: lots of people, street artists, performances...
At night we go past through Picadilly Circus with its neon lights.
February 29
We spend the morning at Camden Town, the famous distric of the odd people, so my personal paradyse. It's quite like Portobello but with pierced individuals, most of them with punk and goth aesthetics. I really like this and I have to say that shops have really good prices (for being in the UK, I mean).
After lunch we go to Regent's Park for a while: big but very common, nothing special but my friends insist on visiting all the parks in London (and there are loads of them!).
At night we go back to Covent Garden. Yep, we've liked it 'cause at night it's really fun!
March 1
Today it's gonna be a very complete day. It's like the final sprint, 'cause we're leaving in 2 days and we still have a lot of things to see. London is too big!
Free museums?? Here we go! We spend the whole morning at Somerset Gallery because it's huge. In the afternoon we look like japanese tourists; going to and fro taking pictures of everything. First, a must-see visit to the British Museum, even huger than Somerset Gallery... so huge that finally we don't get to see half of it because closing time is at 6 p.m.
Later we go to the mythical London Bridge, a simple bridge that crosses river Thames, and by its side we see the Tower Bridge, haughty and spectacular. As it's getting dark the bridge is lit up and we drool over the scene.
London Tower is beautiful too but we're a little bit confused because we thought it was a "tower" and we spend half an hour looking for the damned tower and finally it turned out to be a castle (??)
Two more things and we'll be ready to go back to the hostel: the usual picture to St Paul's Cathedral (the second biggest in the world, only after St Peter of the Vatican) and a quick visit to Westminster Abbey, where Lady Di is supposed to be buried.
[Note: Inhuman cold]
March 2
Second visit to Portobello to buy some presents for family and friends (basically "Mind the gap" tube's plaques). Once we've spent our prized pounds we go to the Science Museum just because it's free. Nothing special, I personally prefer Barcelona's.
Next we go to... Harrods... uhm... yeah ok... a big and posh mall, so what? We simply thought it was unforgivable leaving London without entering at the temple of luxury... but the truth is that Harrods is nothing more than another department store. Waste of time.
We spend the afternoon at magical Soho, with its neon lights, pubs, discos and motley people. I love it!! it's so cosmopolitan and multicultural! The best part of the district is China Town, where everything, and I say EVERYTHING is chinese: restaurants, shops, bookshops, videoclubs... Woaaahh great!
Tonight we have supper at Pizza Hut and make pigs of ourselves. We want to say goodbye to the city in style hahahaha! We've not been eating much these days so now we look like kenyan kids eating fast, without chewing and in silence.
March 3
Well, time to leave! Our flight departs at 6 p.m so we spend our last morning at Hyde Park (100m far from the hostel and we wait until the last day for visiting it!).
We call around to Waterloo Station 'cause a room mate told us it was nice but we really can't see its charming, sorry.
Finally we carry our backpacks, take the tube to Victoria station and once there we take a bus to Luton airport. It starts raining (cool) and the traffic is terrible so we arrive at the airport with a tight time. The plane takes off and the next thing is an hour and a half of violent turbulences that makes the panic spreads among the passengers. Fortunately we land save and sound at Barcelona singing "Goodbye Picadilly, farewell Leicester square, it's a long way to Tipperary but my heart's right there..." ;)
