I stayed at a place near Brunswick square- London is the most convenient city I've ever been to. Busy, for sure, but the tube is like one of my favorite things ever. Every 3 minutes, fast, takes me all over the city. I guess it's somewhat expensive, but travel is capped at 7 pounds a day I think, which isn't all that bad in the end. I basically ate food, visited tourist attractions, and exhausted myself every night.
First day in London:
I packed up everything from my room, and caught a midday train to leave the small miserable English town I was in, I struggled to drag my luggage along for a mere 12min walk from St Pancras, before I arrived at my London address. It was a small room, but I didn't mind because it was cozy, the heating was on point and I could wander around in a tshirt indoors despite it being London winter. Rested for a bit, because I didn't know where to go/ how to kill time, so I just enjoyed having fast WiFi and wasted time on my laptop until it was around dinner time. Took the tube for the first time, and decided, "ah, you haven't really experienced London until you've walked the underground which smells like piss and had the pleasure of being squished flat by other commuters on the tube". I mean, it was probably because I traveled at peak hour, but I fully understood why the service ran every 3min, from the sheer volume of people I saw. I had dinner at Flat Iron, which is a steak house that gives you a small cleaver as a knife. I thought it was kind of novel. The steak tasted okay- I finally learnt and asked for medium rare- what came was what I would describe as "medium", but I won't complain. Turns out you should never ask for steak "well done" because what turns up is basically just charred-meat/ash. Then in the evening I went to see Phantom of the Opera--- I've actually never seen it before, and it was a great experience. I have the song "Think of Me" stuck in my head, but heyyy it was a pleasant experience and I'd say it was worth my money. Musical finished at around 9, I went home and went to bed after.
2nd day in London:
I decided I'd go to Madame Tussaud's- that really famous wax museum, where they make people out of wax and it looks real. I didn't buy my tickets beforehand and I probably stood in line for 2hrs. I guess I should've known better- it was a Sunday after all. So yeah that was fucking dumb, but when I got inside it was good again. I was more amused than I thought I'd be, given that they were just figurines of famous people--- but I enjoyed taking selfies and whatnot. Actually I mostly asked random people to take my photo for me, because I didn't want every picture to be a selfie and look like a total loser. I have a souvenir photo from the James Bond display- I figure it's the closest I'll ever get to Daniel Craig. I don't know if I regret not having another souvenir photo taken for the One Direction display though--- but everything's calculated in pounds so it's probably a good thing that I didn't go overboard. I mean, I don't even like One Direction, I just thought it'd be funny.
When I got out of Madame Tussaud's it was like 2pm, and I didn't have much time before it'd get dark. Fuck London winters, man. They're the worst. I walked down the street and visited the Sherlock Holmes museum. It was on--- yup, Baker st. I couldn't resist buying a couple of souvenirs- I liked the TV show Sherlock, at least. The museum itself was kind of boring- but they put a lot of detail in to recreate the kind of home Sherlock would have had, and effort was taken to place things in the places as they were described in the novels. I don't regret visiting though- it's one of those things you should do if you've made it as far as Baker st. It was darkish when I came out, so I took the tube back to Brunswick square and had dinner at the Hare and Tortoise. Nice restaurant, I like their laksa curry (well some review on Google said it was good so I ordered).
3rd day in
I went to Oxford on my 3rd day, travelling from London. I got there and it was miserable and cold and I regretted life. I had gloves luckily, and that made it better but not really. I picked up two souvenir Oxford tshirts for 15 pounds because there was a sale on, and around 15 postcards. I spent like an hour writing out postcards and I was soooo relieved when I finished that task. Visited some colleges (can't even remember which one), took a long walk in one of the gardens in the colleges- they have these nice modern buildings inside as well, and I was thinking I wouldn't mind being there if I studied at Oxford. I gotta say, I liked Cambridge better (I don't know why). Ended up at the natural history museum, looked at some dinosaurs, and I spent a great deal of time working out whether the human skulls displayed were male or female because I recently learnt how to distinguish them. I came out, it was dark, and I got lost. Decided not to have dinner in Oxford, went back to London early, and I have no memory what I did for the rest of the night. I think I was just tired- but I can't even remember whether I ate dinner or not (I don't think I did- I got into this terrible habit of skipping dinner this year).
4th day (last day) of fun in London
I didn't want to do shit. I was tired from before, and actually I was tired from work building up from the week, except I didn't really rest and just traveled a lot. Except it was my last day, I was going to fly out 9am the next day, and there was all this touristy stuff I hadn't done. I went on Google maps, planned out a route for myself and off I went. Google Maps is the hero in my London journey, I swear. It has this function which plans your trip for you if you enter your starting location and destination- I used that soooo much, since I couldn't be bothered to plan everything out down to the minute. I started off at Buckingham Palace- walked there from the nearest station. There wasn't much to see, really. The weather was cloudy, looked like it could rain on my any minute. There was this really cool statue thing right outside the palace though, so I took a bunch of photos and I guess that was all I did.
Walked down the road to Westminster Abbey- I like the architecture. I would've liked to get closer but there was some event going on, people were crowding around, and everything was sort of fenced off. So I walked along to see Big Ben. Well, it's iconic and that was it. Was nice walking along the bridge and getting people to take photos of me though. The London Eye (big ferris wheel thing) was just on the other side. I wanted to ride on it- then on my way it started raining, so I went into the nearest building. Turned out to be the aquarium. That was the first time in I don't even know how long I've been in an aquarium, so I was like, "why not, it's raining outside anyway". Saw some sharks, saw some funny looking fish, and this REALLY cute crocodile.
How fucking cute is that
Then it was feeding time for the stingrays- the aquarium workers gave out cups with bits of seafood that you chuck in. The stingrays seemed kind of chill, just lying on the sand, but this bitch of a stingray decided to bounce up and flap its wings (idk if you call it wings) and splash water at me. Idk if it's trained to do that, and I certainly NEVER expected a stingray to be that theatrical. I mean, it was VERTICAL ffs, and it just decided to splash water over me. Actually it was kind of cute, but it'd be cuter if it didn't flip water at me. Luckily I didn't get wet.
Rain finally stopped after I left the aquarium. Went on the London Eye- good view, would be better with a partner or travel companion. 0/10 romance when you're travelling alone. I was amused for the first 5min and then I just ended up playing on my phone. I took some photos, sure, but that was about it. Didn't feel anything special. Probs because the sky was grey and everything looked miserable. Then as I crossed the bridge to go back, I saw that the clouds had cleared and the sky was a faint blue again--- so if I just waited like another 30min I could've taken way better photos. Oh well.
Had fish and chips for lunch- it tasted okay. I didn't finish eating though, because it was oily and I felt guilty about eating food. I'm like, on my way to anorexia or something. Good ol' weight-loss. Jokes, I'm going into this really body-conscious phase and next thing I'll be wanting is muscle tone and I suspect that I'll never be happy with myself. GG.
I legit can't remember what I did that afternoon. Maybe I just wasted more time on my laptop. I probably just took a break. I know I had to force myself to go out and get dinner, because I was so tired I just didn't want to move. I HAD to go out and eat though, because last night in London and I hadn't even tried all the nice food here. Apparently there's this really famous roast duck place called Gold Mine, but I was tossing up between going there and going to Burger & Lobster. Then I was like, I can get roast duck anywhere, and if I get Chinese food I'm going to want a soup and vegetables along with roast duck, the portions will be too big, my bill will be massive and dining alone just won't work out. Therefore I ended up at Burger & Lobster- had a steamed lobster- it was delicious but it tasted just like crab, so it wasn't that special to me. Had fries and salad on the side- finished all my food because I was semi-hungry and I was done with feeling guilty about eating. Also had champagne to go with my meal- bartender asked for my age but not my ID. I'm surprised she believed my word because I look like I'm 14. I guess 14 year olds don't just walk into restaurants on their own though.
Because of that 1 alcoholic drink I had, I couldn't be fucked packing, and after my shower I just sat on my bed playing on my phone. That was a mistake, because when I woke at 5am (thx, alarm), I was sent into a packing frenzy, trying to stuff everything in. Luckily the station was close to my residence, and it took me straight to Heathrow airport. Made it for my flight, and slept on the plane.
In summary, London was great.
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