Five unforgettable days. Three energetic students. One city – our favourite city. A mixture of cultures, variety of culinary experience, fun and unusual clothing, magnificent buildings, megalomaniac night life, excellent musicals, red buses, over the top nice Englishmen, richly stalked shopping streets, green parks, relaxed and out of the box feeling on every corner.
Let's go to London!
We booked our flight almost 5 months in advance, as we got a great offer just calling for new experience. Take it or leave it. When if not now? It's what we were thinking about until we finally pressed the »buy ticket« button. The return flight to London was only 60€. After a smooth flight we landed on Luton airport.
We took the bus to Baker Street, where we got the weekly ticket for the underground. Our first ticker was an Oyster, typical of London. You can put money on this card and then only pay for what you spend. The good thing about the oyster is, that if you're in London for just a few days you only pay 5 pounds. You put money on it which you can use in all the city zones. Upon return you can put it back at the underground terminal and get back the 5 pounds and the money you haven't spent. There's no better feeling than getting a refund at the end of your trip and you spend it on the best ice-cream in the city – at the Ben & Jerry's –with a triple chocolate. Yummie!
With a suitcase up the stairs
Our temporary home was on top floor and the stairs were very narrow and tall. It was quite a task, but also a magnificent challenge to get the 15 kilo suitcase, in which we had all our stuff inside, to our room. Before each journey I always question myself how to get my wardrobe in the suitcase, as there’s never enough room and closing the lid is always a pain. With joint effort and some innovative techniques we somehow managed to tackle the stairs and with some light bruises settled in the room of our new home away from home.
After all the travelling, settling and financial formalities we finally started to feel “our London.” It’s a city that really offers a lot, so we came with a list of things we wanted to do and see. The list included classical London sites such as the Buckingham palace, London Eye, London Tower, Tower Bridge, Big Ban, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Downing Street and Trafalgar Square.
Each morning we started with the favourite coffee from either Starbucks or Costa. We had coffee rituals separated to waking up, morning and afternoon enjoyment with aromatic treats. Yes, we admit it. We spent a lot of money on it, but without it we just wouldn’t enjoy London as much. We also had some fun with the people at Starbucks and used a bit more complicated names instead of our own, we knew they were hard to pronounce.
In all six days we walked through many of the city parks (Hyde Park, Green Park, St. James Park …) that always fascinated us. It’s really interesting and a sharp contrast to the noise and traffic of the city, how many plants, ducks, swans and other animals you can find. These are places where people calm down, enjoy the silence, listen to birds and have a squirrel visit them during the lunch on a bench. There are many visitors to the parks and we met many people caring for them and keeping the parks clean and neat.
A look at the past
Of all these classical attractions I was most fascinated by the Tower of London with the bridge nearby and with a special and relaxing energy surrounding it taking you back to the past. The building stands on the bank of the river Themes, with the contrasting modern glass buildings on the other side.
And what does the Tower offer? It offers a well preserved and beautiful medieval architectural masterpiece dating back to 1078, so you expect to see Robin Hood or King Richard to pop around the corner. And you can also see the famous crown jewels – the whole collection – here: from the crown and sceptre to all the other expensive tit-bits needed for the coronation. The explanations given by the uniformed guides also help to make the scene complete, especially for the lovers of true English, the one with the stiff upper lip! The British accent is something I could listen to for days without end. We made sure for ourselves that what the survey of the Time Out magazine showed is true – the British accent is the sexiest in the world. I just wanted to pack one of the nice uniformed guides with me on the plane, to have at home, to talk to.
We also visited Greenwich – an eastern part of London, where – amongst other things – you can also find the famous observatory. I didn’t find the line, that marks the meridian, anything special, although so many people were taking excited photos of it. But I was so the more fascinated by the view of the city, that was offered from one side of the green park, giving the feeling of perpetual calm and even taller buildings on the other side, giving an uncomfortable feeling by being so grey.
Westminster Chapel
We also passed the Westminster Chapel and the Westminster Cathedral. It’s a huge and interesting religious object, visited by the royal family, with royal celebrations taking place there. We were all thrilled by the chapel and have unanimously decided that our prince on the white horse will marry us at the altar of this famous chapel. A bit further on you see and hear Big Ben. It might not be the biggest building, but it’s so very primeval that it’s just straight English.
Next we went past the Big Ben and across the Westminster Bridge, from where you get to see the Houses of Parliament. It’s the standard place from where people take pictures fo the parliament and Big Ben, so it gets really crowded. We again had an interesting experience here as Tadeja decided to participate in the three cup street Monty game. The artist is moving the ball quickly under the cups and you need to follow where it is. Sure, you have to pay for the effort and if you guess it, you can get double your money back, otherwise you get nothing.
Shop ’til you drop!
We spent one whole day shopping at the famous Oxford Street. It’s interesting to know, that if you explore long enough you’ll even find shops that aren’t expensive, along all the posh shops.
The real hit in London is as in Frankfurt – the Primark shop, with cheap but fashionably very popular articles. I still don’t get it, how Primark got all the hype about it. I still feel the rush of adrenalin just remembering what we saw and bought and what was offered while we went shopping.
We spent most of the time at the Disney store, where you can find all the Disney characters in all shapes and sizes and poses. The even bigger ecstasy was offered at the M&M’s Shop, where everything smells of chocolate. The three floors are so wonderfully colourful you cannot leave without buying something.
And a visit to the national art gallery
We also visited the national art gallery, which takes pride of having one of the world’s largest collection of European art works. We became art lovers and tried to uncover the hidden meanings and philosophies behind the paintings. And I realized that if you really take enough time and stare at a picture for long enough, each gives you a different feeling. This made the walk around the gallery a completely different meaning.
And there’s no London without many markets. The Camden Market at the heart of Camden offer just about anything. I tried my haggling skills and with every bought article, nice words and even more beautiful eyes and other tricks (like – we really only have this much money left) we managed to get good prices. I was very proud of myself to have paid only 8 pounds for a 20 pound T-shirt saying: »My sister went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.«
I have no night to sleep
As we had our flight back at 8 in the morning, we decided to spend the last night at the airport, so we saved some money and got to see how it’s like to stay at the airport overnight. We stayed at the seats in the waiting lounge for a while, but gave it up quickly, so we found our second best coffee place – Costa, with extremely comfortable seats. There was a table free and we occupied it immediately. Two nice weightier tended to our needs and made us feel great and had us laughing with their nice comments.
Maja Lamovšek
