We got off the tube at Westminster station, whose decor is best described as 'nuclear war chic'. Apparently it's supposed to be so well decorated because of its proximity to the House of Parliament etc, and therefore has so many important people passing through on a regular basis. Personally I think my bathroom is decorated better, but that's just me.
We came up to ground level right at Big Ben. I didn't get to see it while it was stopped, which would have been grand, but it was still pretty cool to be looking at it, again after seeing its image so often. I took a few photos of it and the House of Parliament, and then we strolled across the bridge (by strolled I of course mean shoved our way through, leading with the elbows at all times). Over the bridge was the London Eye. We walked through the area for a bit, trying to decide what to do for lunch. In the end we decided to go to this burger place near Trafalgar Square that my friends had been to before.
Now that we'd decided what to do, we set off in what we hoped was the right direction. We strolled past one side of King James Park, where we had to make one of our friends keep walking, as he wanted to go and find out what the police were investigating (there was a crime scene taped off, with police taking photos etc). As we neared Trafalgar Square it was obvious that there was something going on there - there were plenty of police around and we could hear cheering. Turned out to be a rally for the National Health Service (NHS). People were seriously wandering around with flags that said "I love the NHS". The equivalent of this would be "I love Queensland Health" and "I love Medicare". Strange, but true. Sadly, my friend wouldn't steal a flag for me.
We bypassed this rally and headed on up to lunch. It was great food, but crap service. I ended up speaking to the waitress in the same way I speak to naughty students, but after waiting 45 minutes just to order once we'd been seated, I wasn't in the mood for playing nice. It worked too - we ordered and got served our food quite quickly after that.
We then moved on to Leicester Square, before going to the Australia Shop in Convent Garden. A few purchases later, we moved further into Convent Garden, watching some street performers at the spot where the first ever Punch and Judy show was put on.
We then moved ourselves along towards Oxford and Regent streets, again utilising the full force of our elbows. We strolled past virtually all of the shops, on a mission towards the UK's biggest toy store, Hamleys. There we played with the keyboard that you step on, admired the range of Harry Potter wands and thought about how much fun it would be to play with the petrol-powered remote control cars.
Next we headed over towards Soho, before finally calling it a night. I'm fairly certain we walked across most of London!!
No comments:
Post a Comment