First stop: London
Trip Start
May 02, 2007
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Trip End
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London,
United Kingdom
Sunday, May 6, 2007
We landed in London in fine form and met up with my friend Susan, an aussie I met a few years ago in Spain, and who still happened to be living here. Her and her husband Bruce have been kind enough to host us and save us some major quid on accommodation. The first thing we noticed at Gatwick airport was there were no garbage bins...we asked a worker there and they told us to just throw it on the floor and someone would pick it up! Then we overheard the same advice being given to someone else later on. Anyway...since it was a work day, Susan let us store our massive backpacks in her office while we sauntered around until she was off. It was a nice sunny day so we went to Hyde Park and relaxed our jetlagged bodies on a bench in front of the Serpentine (lake?). After walking around the park and checking out the fountains - one of which was a memorial to Princess Di - we found our way back to Susan's work, picked up our bags and headed over to her flat (since we're in England now we'll call it a flat).
01. The newlyweds in London!
After catching up with her and Bruce we went to bed for some much needed sleep...(May 4)
Unfortunately we had a little too much sleep...we woke up at noon the next day. Our plan was to get up early and start checking out the town but I guess our bodies had other ideas. We started off with the typical sights - London Tower bridge, London Tower (from the outside), walk alongside the Thames and finally the London Eye, Big Ben and the Parliament buildings. After coming home, we (er, Yvonne) cooked up a nice pasta dish for our hosts, sat around and chatted and finally retired for the night.
(May 5)
After learning our lesson the previous day, we set up an alarm clock and were up at 7:45 sharp...actually, 8:30 after we decided that we couldn't get up right away. We watched the changing of the horse guard, then walked down the Mall to Buckingham Palace where a massive crowd was assembled in front. There was a parade with a marching band inside the grounds...we tried to snake our way to the front to have a look but it was pretty tough...we eventually backed off and waited on the side for the parade to come out. We'd had enough of the crowd after about 15 minutes so we left and slowly strolled around the Palace and through Green Park to Westminster Abbey. Not willing to pay the 10 pounds to go inside, we settled on sitting on a bench inside the little church beside it, St. Margaret. More strolling found us in Soho and Chinatown...interesting area. Fruit stands lined the streets in front of sex shops...you could get your freak on while getting your fruit on! We carried on to the British Museum, which is really cool, cuz it's free!
For dinner Bruce and Susan took us to Brick Lane in east London.
02. Rainbows in a Hyde Park fountain
Curry houses were spread along the stretch and men with thick accents stood outside their restaurants trying to coerce us in. "I give you 35% off everything, EVERYTHING! A free bottle of wine for the ladies, and a pint each for the men". SOLD! The curry was fabulous, and the two drunk brits next to us (the only other people in the place) were entertaining...they were really quiet, but they kept spilling their beer.(May 6)
The four of us left in the morning back to East London to check out the Sunday markets. The first one we came upon was the Petticoat Lane market (they actually changed the name from Petticoat Lane - because it was bad to say women's underwear aloud - to Middlesex St - MUCH better). This was an interesting market, almost everything was 1 pound. "Have a look! Have a look! 1 pound! 1 pound!", they would yell from their stands. The intoxicating aroma of deep-fried shrimp mixed with roasted chestnuts (mmm) filled the air while Bob Marley blasted out speakers at the reggae stands.
The other market we checked out was Spitalfields market. This one was a little higher class...nothing was 1 pound, and no one was yelling (in other words, kinda boring!). But they had very nice hand-made stuff, from jewelry to clothing to knick-knacks. The homemade ethnic foods and bread, cheeses, olives and desserts looked amazing too. After the markets we visited Greenwich, home of the prime meridian. The town itself is quite quaint and pretty. We moved on to the observatory where THE LINE is. After putting up with annoying tourists who queued up to take a portrait of themselves straddling the line we b-lined it out of there. We splurged a bit (a tiny bit) and took a catamaran down the Thames and listened to a pretty funny old brit tell interesting tidbits about the area (e.g. a story about a missing 15 year old working on the battleship The Belfast, who was found later inside the hull. Seems he was putting the metal plates in place and was sealed inside by the riveters). We then tubed it to Notting Hill, a rich area of London where every second car on the street is a Porsche and walked around the lovely Holland Park. Sadly to say, our last London dinner consisted of a bad chicken doner, sitting curbside (we were desperate for food at this point).
Some observations about London: it is very tourist friendly - they have maps everywhere on street corners, the tube system is fantastic, the bathrooms are free, and lots of the museums and such are free too - which is of course great considering how expensive everything is due to the exchange rate. There is plenty of green space to relax or have a nice quiet lunch (even if it's right off a busy street), and the people are friendly. It's too bad though, just as we were getting used to looking in the right direction for oncoming cars when crossing the street, we had to leave!
Comments
England
Hello Carlo and Yvonne. I enjoyed reading your log up to now. Lisa and I were in England over 10 years ago (Good Lord time goes fast) for our Honeymoon and we had a blast. We stayed with Lisa's and my relatives. I think I enjoyed York the most as it was never bombed during the war. I looks the same as it did 400 years ago! keep on trucking. I am too busy with house reno's and changing poopie diapers :)