London!

Ok, so it's been a while since I've written a post. But here we go. London. Each year my old host dad goes to London on his boat with a huge group of people. This year, it was planned I'd go with him but duing to my inability to handle the cold, we booked train tickets on the tgv to meet up with him and if it was nice weather I'd go back on boat with him. It wasn't nice weather and for the first year, the trip was cancelled. Thankfully, by coincidence, my parents were in London at the same time as part of their holiday on europe, so I was able to stay with them.

I caught the TGV after school on a wednesday, when school finishes at 12. And it took 2 hours or something to get to London, after going under an ocean ( or channel, same difference). Not that it was scary or anything.
Then i met my parents at the train station. It was really weird to meet up with them on the other side of the world after 4/5 months. But it felt normal after a few seconds. Then we made our way to the holiday apartment at hyde park. I wanted to catch a taxci, the really cool ones u see on tv, but instead we caught a metro n then a bus. Going outside the station was really weird. Like walking into a post card, I kow I said that about Paris, but it's the weirdest thing seeing all these places. These was a red phone box, yes they actually are everywhere in london, as well as the double decker buses. We caught a bus to St Paul's cathedral but because I had my bags we didn't go inside. On the way there on the bus, there was someone, possibly aussie, who pointed out all these sites. One of a barber shop where this serial killer use to slit the throats of people who went in there and then drag them to his basemlent, turn them into pies and sell the pies at a bakery a few houses down. So be careful when you buy a meat pie! Another site had something to do with the Knights of Templar, but I didn't really understand, he was talking english :p.

Then we went back to the hotel, I went with mum to do some grocery shopping, where they had vegemite, cadbury, everything! but extremely expensive. THey also had a Woolworths, but it didn't sell food. My parents said they went in there and asked where the food section was. It was more like Big W. Then we went back to the appartment and went to an Indian resteraunt for dinner. Which is strange because we had Indian the night before I left too!! After dinner dad went to the internet café, and I followed too, afterall, I'm addicted to msn. There I called mharianne to arrange to meet up the next day. The plan was she'll come to the appartment at 10:30.

The next morning I wake up, my parents leave to do some museums and I wait. 10:30 comes and goes, and at 10:55 I go to phone her, thinking maybe she was lost. I go to the phone box, dial a number, no response. Dial again, still no response. Call her home number and I get the answering maxchine. Ok I think. And head back to the appartment blocks. When I get there there is a message waiting for me from her. It says she came she left she might come back. So I wait for her. An hour I leave thinking I'll go to meet my parents and I leave a message at the office with my mobile number again, just in case she had the wrong one.

After walking 5 mins down Oxford St, I'm suddenly attacked by a psycho from behind. It turns out to be Mharianne. By some queer amazing thing she saw me walking down the road. That was so great to see her.

After walking a bit down the roaad we walk/ catcha bus, can't remember, to the palace. Buckhingham Palace. Where we take some photos. Frankly I didn't find it so amazing, and after a few photos was ready to go, while there were people there who were just standing there for ages. Maybe they were hoping to get a glimpse of the queen or something. But I'm putting too much detail into this so I'll sum oit up a bit. We walked to big ben and all that, passing by Downing Street, where the prime minister lives, then to Westminster abbey and to the eye of London. Then we made it back to Trafalgar Square,watching the pigeons for a while. Walking around London really is like walking around the Monopoly board.

That night Mharianne slept over. Then the next morning we split up on the metro on the way to the Tower of London so she could go home :(. Fortunately I'm seeing her again in a month :). The Tower of London was great. We had a tour of a guy dressed as a beefeater (the guards) and he was really into it and everything. Then we saw the crown jewels. WE walked pretty much straight in, but then after we got out of the white palace (can't really remember the name, but it's something like that, what wlliam the conquerer built) the line was so big, it would've taken a few hours to get in!

AFter that mum and I went to harrods while dad went back to ge my bag. That's a pretty cool appartment store. Then we headed to Waterloo, so I could go home.

It was a really good visit. And while London isn't the most beautiful city in Europe, it's really impressioning. Will definately go back in my lifetime, I hope.