Flirting in London

I'm ba-ack!  In fact, I've been back for 2 weeks now, and school started a week ago.  I've gotten in the swing of things here, but my heart and mind don't seem to ever get very far from Pommern.  Perhaps the best thing to do to feed my nostalgia and aching heart is to return to blogging.  Let's start at the beginning of the adventure.


Thursday, July 12, and Friday, July 13, 2012

So imagine this.  You’re in London, about to enter the tube (subway station) near your hotel, when a guy who works at the station tells you, “Sorry, you can’t go through there.”  My sister and I look at each other, wondering what’s going on.  “Cute people aren’t allowed, and you’re just too cute,” he tells my sister.  We laugh and continue about our merry way.  Later in the day when we were returning to our hotel via the same tube station, the guy catches up with us again.  “Sorry about that earlier.  I just love your accents and you’re so cute,” he tells both of us and proceeds to flirt with us for a few minutes including telling us he works at a couple of bars in the area at night and that he can get us in for free.  Too bad we weren’t staying one more day!  (Even though bars aren't my thing, it might have made a good story...)

A shot of the Russell Square tube station near our hotel, from a user-uploaded photo via GoogleMaps.  Unfortunately, it wasn't anywhere near that sunny while we were there!

Ah, London.  I really enjoyed our day and a half of frenzied sightseeing on our way to Tanzania.  We planned the extra day on purpose, and even though it feels kind of like a blur in my memory at this point due to how quick our stay was (not to mention the effects of jetlag), I'm really glad we did it.

Rachel and I spent most of our time the first day taking pictures in front of the facades of classic landmarks, as most places were pretty expensive to enter, though we did splurge and pay a small fortune to ride the London Eye after dark.  We were treated to magnificent views of the city from that vantage point, and it was definitely worth the expense.  On the second day we spent some time at the Science Museum.  The museums are free in London, and that alone enticed us, but it also had some really neat exhibits.  We definitely needed more time there than what we had available.  And, of course, we couldn’t go to London without paying a visit to Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station!

Enjoy some pictures of the sites, as well as some miscellaneous musings about the city of London.

We saw Buckingham Palace, waved to the queen, and watched the royal guards strut their stuff.

Certainly the only purpose these telephone booths serve in the cell phone age is for tourists to take pictures much like this one!  And yes, it started raining shortly after we started our self-guided sightseeing tour and didn't stop the rest of the day.  How fun.

Parliament – a royally magnificent castle.  I think the thing that's most spectacular to me about Europe in general is the age and grandeur of things.  So many of their buildings were built hundreds of years before the United States was even a country.

This poor couple was trying to take wedding pictures in front of Big Ben.  In the rain.

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

Tower Bridge

The view of Parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye at night

Looking out over the city of London (to the east of the previous picture) from the London Eye

Frizz had definitely taken hold of our hair by the time we were done for the night!  The London Eye is all lit up behind us.

Day 2 took us to King's Cross to see a famous Harry Potter location.

Going to Hogwarts!

Here's more of King's Cross Station.   I'm not even the slightest bit embarrassed to say that this particular site was the one I was most looking forward to seeing in London!  Now if only we could have visited Diagon Alley and the Ministry of Magic too....

And here are those miscellaneous musings I promised:

• London is a remarkably clean city.  I was impressed. 
• The Olympic games were two weeks away when we were there.  The city seemed very well prepared – lots of announcements about how the games would affect normal travel for locals, and lots of signs to help direct the foreigners.
• People seem very stylish, though the styles are different from at home.  Tight jeans (skinny jeans or jeggings) and leggings are very “in,” often with bigger baggier sweaters or other tops.  It looks kind of like the 80s, except people don’t have poofy permed hair.  Men tend to wear nice collared shirts with nice jeans or dressier pants.  Lots of people (men and women) wear colored pants (jeans or leggings) of all shades – red, green, blue, purple, you name it.
• It rained more than it didn’t while we were there, and apparently it has been the wettest spring and summer on record.  Lucky us.
• People are very friendly, and it doesn’t really feel like a “big city.”
• Drive on the left, walk on the left (except in major tourist areas where everyone else is used to being on the right).  Many streets are one-way though, and at the end of each block of sidewalk most intersections have a notice painted on the pavement to tell you which way to look for traffic.  Nice!
• The tube system is very clean and very easy to use. 
• I adore British accents and British-isms.  J

I really liked London, but it wasn’t quite as magnificent and royal as I expected it to be either.  Most of it just looks like a normal European city.  That’s hard to remember sometimes when all you see on TV and in the movies is the classic royal landmarks.  Still, London was awesome and very friendly, and I recommend you go if you ever have the chance!