Day 42 to 46

Day 42: Monday 1^st August

So, I have decided that Katherine and I have to really check details about our flights about 100 times because firstly, we arrived at the airport an hour early for our flight to Rome from Athens and for our flight from Hamburg to London…well:

We checked the time of the flight and knew that we had to be at the airport for check in which started at 7:20 am. So, we caught a train at 6:20 am from our local station and for the first time, we were actually on time. One problem though…. None of the flight boards were showing our flight. Apparently Hamburg has two airports… who knew! So… after an hour cab trip which cost us 107 euros we made it to the other airport with 5 minutes to spare before check in closed! Needless to say that for the entire flight to London, we slept; only waking up as the plane was landing.

After our dramatic morning, we caught a train from Stansted Airport to Kings Cross, which is where we were staying. Our hostel was really cool – it was built within an old court house and the court rooms had been transformed into TV rooms and computer rooms.

Katherine and I spent the afternoon wondering throughout King’s Cross and the area nearby before then having a tea and cake in a nearby pub. It took us nearly an hour to walk back because we managed to leave without a map. That night we went and saw the last Harry Potter. So yes, I am very proud to say: I SAW HARRY POTTER IN LONDON AND MY LOCAL STATION IS KINGS CROSS!!!!! Afterwards, we got a frozen meal from Tescos (coolest supermarket out) and then we sat in the bar in the basement of the hostel and met some of the other people in the hostel.

Day 43: Tuesday 2^nd August

We started off the morning by doing the free walking tour around London. Unlike the German cities, the free walking tour here was more about the Monarchy in London and their significant buildings. We started off in Hyde park at the station of the Duke of Wellington.

Duke of Wellington 

The Duke of Wellington was the bloke who won the war against Napoleon and then became a Prime Minister of England. He is also the only Prime Minister of England not to live in 10 Downing Street, he moved himself into Number 1 London. Another interesting fact is that he is the most statued man in all of London – He put most of them in himself!

Buckingham Palace Gates 

The tour took us to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall, Westminster, Big Ben, Parliament House and past 10 Downing Street.

The tour ended in a very cute English pub where Katherine and I shared a traditional fish and chips with mashed peas. I might add that the mashed peas… they taste kind of strange and neither of us particularly fancied them. 

After lunch we met up with Bridget, a good friend of Katherine’s and continued our sightseeing day. We started at Westminster Abbey, past Big Ben and moved towards the London Eye.

Bridget, Myself and Katherine and Big Ben 

London Eye 

We finished our afternoon of sightseeing by traveling back to King’s Cross via the tube and took typical touristy photos.

On the Tube

That evening, we did a pub crawl around London.. well it was more a bar and club crawl. It was so much fun. We went to five different bars with a group of about 40 of us and in each bar we got free entry and cheap/free drinks.  We danced salsa with Spanish boys and danced with the three of us girls before dancing on the main floor in the last club with hundreds of people.

Day 44: Wednesday 3^rd August

We started the day by catching a double Decker red bus to Notting Hill. We got majorly lost wondering around Notting Hill trying to find Portobello Road. On the way though we found some wicked shops and the house where George Orwell used to live.

We eventually found Portobello road which is this adorable road which has markets and shops lining it for miles. For those of you who don’t know… it’s the road on which the character from the movie “Notting Hill" lives.

We grabbed a meat pie for lunch from a small English pub that played old English rock which was pretty cool. And then we found the coolest vintage store. The whole store was lined with clothes and they were organised according to colour and size. The guy who owns it had personally gone and found each individual item of clothing.

Inside the shop

  

 That afternoon we then went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum which is located inside the house where he and Dr Watson used to live. The majority of the house is set according to how the house used to be, however one floor has models of some of Holmes’ cases.

That evening we did a tour known as the Grim Reaper walking tour – which was a tour of the grim parts of the east of London. We heard about Jack the Ripper and the gruesome murders he committed, the Black Plague, the prostitutes and about the awful conditions in the east. It was a pretty entertaining tour and it finished at this tiny little pub on Brick Lane where we met some other Aussies and some Americans.

Day 45: Thursday 4^th August

So the first thing we did today was go to Harrods. It is such a cool store, like absolutely massive. We started off in the food court and we managed to get all these free chocolates from these lovely shop assistants and then we went into the women’s fashion.

Inside the Chocolate area 

The whole store is just so extravagant. Even the toy area which had a huge Barbie area and huge bears and it was just incredible. You could honestly spend hours in there.

The Big Bear 

I saw my cousin, Steph’s designs in Harrod’s where they managed to tell me how much they loved the designs before I even mentioned that we were related. Holy Moly. That’s all I can say. Katherine, Bridget and I both wanted to play dress ups in all the amazing clothes.

We then went to the V&A Museum which had amazing collections on designs from all over the world. We spent probably about 2 hours in there and could have stayed there for much longer.

Afterwards, we then caught the tube to the Globe where unfortunately there was no show going on and there was rehearsals so we couldn’t go into the theatre but we still got to see some of it. For those of you who don’t know what the Globe is… it’s where all of Shakespeare’s plays were put on.

Then, we crossed the Millennium Bridge, which is the one that gets destroyed in the 6^th Harry Potter and headed towards St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Bridge 

St Paul’s Cathedral 

That night we went into apparently an area which is good to go out in. We started in a pub where we had dinner and drank Pimm’s (typical English drink) before heading out. What surprised us was that the majority of places were completely dead, and yes it was a Thursday but the locals had been saying that Thursday were the new Fridays. Absolute lie. As the night continued on though we did find another club/bar which had an amazing dance floor in a room covered in various types of wall paper. We finished the night with a late night snack before heading home around 2:30ish.

Day 46: Friday 5^th August

Today was generally a quiet day. However it did have an early start, we had to check out of the hostel and place our bags in the luggage room – which I might at add was completely empty so we placed our bags in the furthest corner from the door.

We then we went to the British Museum where we saw all the Ancient History exhibitions ranging from Egypt to Greece and then Rome. When we went back to collect our bags… the whole room was completely full. As in we had to move bags to open the door. So, Katherine and I had to climb over a lot of people’s bags to get ours which were on the opposite side of the room!

We then caught a train to the outskirts of London, where Vaughan picked us up as we were to be staying with him and his family for a week. We spent the evening watching movies and generally abusing the fact that we had a house that we could relax in.

Goodbye!

We’ll update soon about our week at Vaughan’s.

Cait and Katherine