A homely christmas away from home
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2006
1
66
100
Trip End
Sep 08, 2008
London,
United Kingdom
Monday, December 24, 2007
I arrived at London's Stansted airport around 2pm, and was surprised that it took me more than an hour to get to the centre of London. Upon arrival I met with Chris for a few beers at a Baker Street pub, then went for a wander around the centre, taking in Oxford and Regent Streets, Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square before meeting Steve and Stace at a tube station in Tottenham Court Road early that evening.
The big day was marred by one not so pleasant incident which doesn't need to be mentioned, but otherwise it was a fantastic Christmas. We began with a pumpkin and sweet potato soup, followed by a huge plate of roast veggies (with meat for the non vegetarians) and to finish it off a huge dessert made up of Christmas pudding, apple crumble and ice cream. I was so full by the end of it I spent about 3 hours sitting on the sofa downing Stella after Stella, which not surprisingly only seemed to worsen the situation. We made our way back to Leah's by foot in the hope of walking off some of the kilograms we'd put on, and as quickly as it had come around, another Christmas was over.
We woke to blue skies and sunshine on Boxing Day, and not wanting to waste it we decided to go for a walk around the centre of the city taking in as many of the big London sights as we possibly could. Starting in Leicester Square, we spent the best part of three hours wandering around Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and finally St James's Park and Buckingham Palace. I hadn't been in London since early 2004, before I had a digital camera, so it was a good opportunity to take some photos. Later on that evening Steve and I found a Walkabout pub where we could watch a reply of the first day of the Boxing Day test match between Australia and India, and later the first session of the second day, whilst drinking some Toohey's New. It was a much needed taste of home.
The following day Steve and I went back a few years and paid a visit to the Natural History Museum. I hadn't seen skeletons of dinosaurs before, or at least I couldn't remember, so we spent a few hours wandering past the giant remnants of something that took up a big part of our childhoods. The T-Rex, Diplodocus, Triceratops and my old favourite the Stegosaurus were all there, and it was fantastic to stand alongside them and marvel at their size. The biggest of all wasn't a dinosaur though, but the Blue Whale. I knew it was the largest mammal on earth, yet I was astounded by just how large it actually was.
Following our few hours in the Natural History Museum we had some Thai for lunch before spending some time looking at some artifacts the colonialists stole from around the world at the British Museum. I'd been here in 2004, and it didn't quite inspire me the way it did the first time, but that may have been due to the hundreds of people there. It was difficult to get even a glimpse at some displays, although I was glad to have a few seconds with the Rosetta Stone.
Come mid afternoon it was time for me to bid farewell and make my way back to Stansted for the flight to Wroclaw. Unfortunately my wit and humour didn't impress the stern English woman on security, and I found myself coming home without my vegemite and most of my toiletries. Nonetheless, it couldn't ruin my trip, and I was glad I had the chance to get out of Poland for a while and re-enter the English speaking world. Christmas 2007 was one to remember.
