Londonreport

London Travelreport

My travel to London from 04.05.-10.05.2000

Anne, Mike (a mate from my Square Dance club) and I travelled to beautiful London in May for 6 days. We stayed in a cheap hostel in Southbanks, just 5 minutes by walk from the London Bridge, so it was very central and we were in the city soon. The room wasn't so nice. There were only 2 bunk beds, no chair, no table, no locker, nothing! Just the 4 beds. That was all. Anyway, the toilets and showers were clean and I never had to wait for an empty one, so that was a nice surprise. And we had a pub in the house, just under us. So we had music the whole day and night.... That wasn't very good, but we lived with it. We just didn't sleep in the first night, because evryhing was new and Mike was snooring very terrible! We didn't know, that he is snooring! It is terrible! We had really problems with it, but luckily, we slept in the next nights as we were too tired. :) The pub was very nice with a charmed atmosphere and we spent two evenings there as we got 10% of every drink, because we slept there. So the prices were fair and I drank some Cider, but not much as I don't like to drink too much. One Cider an evening is enough for me. The 4. person in our room was Phil from Canada, who spent 3 nights in London. He was funny and nice, so we spent an evening together at the pub and talked a lot. A good training for our English! And it was the first time I heard an Canadian accent, so I had much problems at the beginning, but after some time it got better. Well, breakfast was included in our price, so we went to it every morning just 100m away in St. Christopher's Village. We slept in St. Christopher's Inn. The breakfast wasn't good, but we hadn't to leave it hungry. There was toast, jam, cornflakes, milk and tea. That's all.... Now we hate toast and jam and try to eat other things! It was too much!!!!!!! :) And I really didn't eat healthy things. We ate Fast Food every day and went 3 times to McDonalds, which was 3 times too much, but it was the cheapest way to get food + a drink. We also ate fish&chips two times, but unfortunately, we didn't find a fish&chips take-away, so we had to sit in the restaurant and buy an expensive drink. Anyway, fish&chips was great and I really love to eat this meal with a lot of vinegar, salt and lemon! I haven't ate so much fish in the last months as in London. Even by McDonalds I ate fishfingers as a Happy Meal, which included a free Winnie-the-Pooh figure. I now have Winnie-the-Pooh, Eyeoore, Rabbit and a beaver, who I never saw before. And that for 3 Happy Meals! The reason is, that my fish fingers weren't ready at one day, so I had to wait and got a second stuff figure as a little gift. So it was useful time to wait for fresh fish fingers + a gratis figure. Well, we also visited supermarkets (Sainsbury's) and bought sandwiches, bananas (our only healthy food), triffle, chocolate, cakes, chips, .... I love to go through supermarkets in foreign countries, because there are different products and I would like to try the most ones, because we don't have them in Germany. It was the same in Spain! I even ate most of the different chocolate bars and my fave one is Doubledecker, because I loved the taste. I spent my last pounds on some different chocolate bars, so I still have some to eat, which is nice. And now I am afraid, because I don't want to know, what I weight now. :)

Well, Anne has travelled by train through the Tunnel and Mike and I had the same flight to Heathrow, but back I took an earlier one, because I flought stand-by, which means, that I am always not sure to get a seat. I only get the plane, when there are still some free seats. Anyway, it is a little bit cheaper than the normal ticket. Both flights went well and now I know one airplane company more, British Midlands. But the train from Heathrow to our hostel took over 1 hour, which was a really long time. Luckily, we had a good underground ticket, which we used a lot. We drove every day by underground and bus, which was the best, because you had the chance to see London from the bus out. The underground is very old, I think. And you see that!!! And it is very expensive! I have ever thought, Hamburg's public services are expensive, but beside London it is cheap! Well, it was the easiest way to discover London! And our feet were still aching every evening! Puuhhhh............

We three arrived around the same time, just left our luggage in our room and went sightseeing in the city of London: Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Eye of London (big Ferris wheel next to the Themse ... by the way, I just recognized, that a Square Dance figure has the same name!), Leicester Square, London Bridge, Tower, Tower Bridge, Picadilly Circus, Regent Street, Oxford Street, Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner, Trafalgar Square, .... We didn't visited the Buckingham Palace + Guards, because we all saw that before. So we spent our time in other places, which we had seen before, too. :) Then we bought our first chocolate bars and talked until 2am with Phil while Mike was snooring....

At Friday Anne and I made our first shopping tour. We started at Harrod's, where I've never been before. So it was my wish to go to it and it was really brilliant. I've never seen such a big departement store before with so much decoration! We even saw a music group from Scotland: a drummer and 2 bagpipers. They walked through the whole departement store and Anne and I followed them through some food halls. I have never seen such a thing before. And then we spent over an hour in the children paradies at 4. floor. There were a lot of pigs walking through the halls with a big ballon round there belly. It was so funny to see it. We had to laugh a lot and played with these silly pigs. And every other person, which we saw, played with them, too. And many bought such a pig. It was a good advertising, I think.... Anne and I also found a children wood-train to play with, which was funny, too. We are crazy, but without some crazyness, life would be boring, or am I wrong ??? After Harrod's we went to all the big stores: Hamleys, The English Teddy Bear Company, Selffridges, HMV, Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and every card shop we found as we both are fanatic to cards and stationary. So I was surprised to see, that I only bought some Christmas cards (don't laugh!), a birthday card (which I will never send to someone as there are frogs on it) and 8 small cards with cats and dinos. That's all.... Not really much... Well, Virgin Megastore and HMV weren't good for my money. I bought 4 videos: Dirty Dancing (my all-time- favourite), Whisper Down The Wind, Ever After and The Avengers. I watched most of it yet and they are all good. And all were reduced and special offers, so I had to buy them as I like to say. And to see an English movie is again a good training for my English! Good excuse, or ? Well, I also bought 2 magazines and was surprised to get a book gratis for every magazine. One is called Misbehavin and the other one My legendary girlfriend. Misbehavin seems to be good and even I can read it. Perhaps it will be my first English book, I will read without pressure. And the magazines are good to read, too. Of course, both are typical women stories, but I love it.

At Saturday Anne and I visited my "adopted" Grandma Dot in Crawley, which is a town on the half way to Brighton, next to the airport Gatwick. She is an old friend of the family and I visited her several times before. The last time was 2 years ago, so it was really wonderful to meet her again. And we had a wonderful time. We talked 3 hours about everything and even Anne loved her. It was a good afternoon with Dot and it was hard to leave her again. But 3 hours were enough. Dot got really tired at the end. I also met Steven, her grandson, who is only 3 years older than I. It was nice to see him, too. Well, I am really happy, that we visited her as she died some months later. I am still sad about it and miss her. :( Well, when we went back to London by train (about 50 minutes to Victoria station), Dot gave us a Doggie Bag with all the things we didn't eat during the visit (means several sandwiches, cakes and cakes). And we decided to call it a Mikie Bag as Mike loves to eat. And yes, he ate most sandwiches at the night, which we enjoyed, because we didn't want to throw it away.

At Sunday we visited Covent Garden, which is a part of London with an old market hall and many small shope to go through. Always nice to see and we enjoyed it. We wanted to visit Camden Market, too, but we didn't do it, because Covent Garden was enough. So we better went to Marylebone (better don't ask, why), where we found a take-away fish&chips restaurant, but it was closed. :( So we drove to Paddington Station and I visited the Paddington Shop and was lost to a bear with yellow hut and blue coat. He now sits in my bed...... And he is really cute! I love the stories of Paddington Bear and really enjoyed the webpage, which I visited this evening, when Anne and I went to an Internetshop called "easyeverywhere", where we got 60 minutes for 1 pound at one day and 100 minutes for 1 pound at the next day.... So I think, the price was fair. We went to it two times and wrote e-mails to home and checked especially the weatherpages and German newspapers to read the news. It is nice to know, that you can keep in touch with friends from all over the world even when you are on vacations! Crazy thing, or ?

At Monday was the highlight, I think. We drove by Docklands Light Rail to Greenwich and visited the Royal Observatory and the 0. meridian! The train is very new and automatically. They only need personal for closing the doors.... The train drives overground and you can see all the modern architecture, esp. at Canary Wharf with the highest skyscraper in London. It is very modern and it was a little bit like a trip into the future. Anyway, Greenwich is still an old town and has still the charm of old England. We visited first the Cutty Surk, a teaship. And then we walked through the park to the 0. meridian, where we made many photos (but not as much as next to the Tower Bridge) with Anne and me: Anne in the west, I am in the east; and the opposite; only Anne; only I; both at east and west; .... Unfortunately, there came a school-class, which wanted to make photos, too. And I have to say, that we just visited the 0. meridian for poor people as there are two: one outside the Obseravtory and one inside the Observatory. Of course, both are the same, but the one inside the Observatory is red and bigger, but you have to pay lot of money to get there. So we decided to take only the small one and save money. It was really funny and Mike had to make all the photos. He didn't want a photo of him next to the 0. meridian.... Don't know why! Well, it was so great to go through this park around the Obseravtory and hear nothing: only silence and birds. London is a big town and very load! So we enjoyed the silence very much. After Greenwich we drove to "The Dome", which is situated in North Greenwich. I don't know, if you know this future tent, but it is as big as the Eiffeltower in Paris (not in the height, but in the length) and inside are many future shows and games. It sounded very interesting and I would love to visit it, but it was too expensive and you need a whole day inside. We just arrived at the afternoon, so we decided, not to go into it, which was a pity.... Well, after it we drove to St.- Kathrine's Docks, which are near the Tower Bridge and wonderful. It is like an oasis in the big town. We enjoyed to have some port atmosphere around us and made a stop next to the Themse to relax and enjoy the sun, which shined the whole days except 2 hours at Monday, where we had some rain. It was beautiful weather and not the typical London weather! We even got some suntan! :) That was a very nice surprise to have so wonderful summer weather during our vacations!

And at Tuesday Anne and I made our last shopping tour and bought all the things we wanted for our last pounds. It was nice. And the evening was good, too. Mike and I drove to Boston Manor (which is near Heathrow) to visit a Square Dance club. It was lovely to dance in a foreign country. Nice experience. Square Dancer collect autographs of clubs they visit. You can get a special badge, if you visit enough different clubs. For the first badge you need 26 clubs. For the second one 52 clubs in 3 different countries! So I now have my first foreign country, which is great! The club was typical British with a teabreak and a lottery! I couldn't believe that first, but it was very relaxing, esp. as the most dancers were older than 50 years! I was the youngest one and even Mike with his 38 years was younger than most of them! I think, it was the first time, I didn't swear at a club evening. Anyway, the people were very friendly and we talked about differnet clubs and whole Square Dance. I was happy to visit this club.

At Wednesday we drove home. First we drove to Waterloo and spent the last 2 hours in Burger King and spent our last pounds on chocolate bars and magazines. Anne's train was leaving from Waterloo station, so we waited until she was checked-in. Then I drove to Heathrow and Mike spent some other hours in London. My flight home was okay, too. And I am happy to be home again. To travel is fun, but to come home is even fantastic, esp. the first night in my own bed without any snooring! Very relaxing, I can tell you! And my cats were happy about my return, too. My parents, too, I think. :) Well, I really enjoyed my time in London and had a lot of fun. I hope, I didn't forget anything to tell to you. Take care and enjoy the summer!

Love, Christina