London town
June 11th, 2009Part my unorganisation was never really organising myself to meet up with up with Hannah who I was planning on staying with in London, so arriving in Heathrow after little sleep I wasn’t really sure what the heck I was actually going to do. Thinking if I could just get on facebook I could sort this out I found overpriced internet which ate up £2 before finally accepting my last £1 coin to give me a mere 10 minutes of internet, where I found to my despair my attempts at opening facebook in Dubai had resulted in my account locking me out in ARABIC so I couldn’t get into the account or do anything because I couldn’t read a freaking thing. Angry. I was angry. Frustrated and tired I found directions to a hostel on hostel world with £10 beds and headed down to the tube to get myself into town. I stupidly didn’t get myself an oyster card (the electronic auto card for all London transport which makes it not as ridiculously expensive) straight off, and brought day passes until I lost one then just ended up with an oyster card, wondering why I didn’t do it in the first place.
So I eventually found the hostel after getting a bit lost of course. Somehow the price had gone up to £20 if I booked by just turning up, apparently if I book online its cheap, so I went to find internet and cheapest I could find was £17, then straight after a guy turns up and booked online for £10…grrr! I wasn’t happy. So usually the place I’d avoid set around a bar with Aussie staff and £2 snakebite tuesday nights, but didn’t matter after 3 days of travelling. My room wouldn’t be ready till 2pm so I headed into town to enjoy the sun and see whats changed in the 3 years since last being here.
Very little seems to have changed, most notably is
- tube expanding and more expensive
- LCD screens for advertising in tube escalators
But mostly things are the same
- No actual British people serving me or selling me anything
- Fluro still in fashion
- terrible exchange rate makes everything extortionate prices
- to many kiwis and aussies
Although really I do love London so many things to do and see and so much going on, from bands to theatre to art…I spent bout 3 hours wandering around in the su over to Southbank and Westminister which I never really been around very much. My job for the day was to get a cell phone but ended up asleep back at the hostel for most of the afternoon waking up at various stages to talk to the couple of Aussies, and South African guy in my room. All fitting my stereotype particularly the 19 Aussie guy who like to talk about how much beer he drinks and how many girls he pulls in hostels. Despite this had a kind of fun night hanging out in our door room and having a pint in the bar down stairs.
The following day I spent the morning in a “Welcome to London’ info session with an oganisation which helps Kiwis and Aussies moving to London, and most importantly sets up bank accounts which I found impossible last time. I did have to spend most of the morning learning about London and living there which wasn’t really what I needed. But people were nice, about 25 of them all in the same working holiday visa boat. The place also helps with services for accommodation and jobs and also runs loads of social events every night of the week, which actually seemed kind of fun and made me think about sticking around London after summer. Afterwards I really needed o go get a phone as needed to be able to contact the bank to finally set up my account and ring my London friend to find a place to stay but of course we went to the pub instead and spent all afternoon drinking cider….so finally I got a phone later on and sorted out meeting up with Hannah, a chick I meet in Singapore last year. She works in London something to do with music management and bands and research and album launches, it all sound very glamorous but she assures me its not. Somehow she is living in this huge mansion while she is house sitting for some guy she hardly knows so living in this posh area of London with some friends. One of her other friends was staying as well who writes for a music magazine so we dumped my bags and headed out to the Lexington to see some hip cool band called Post War Years who were pretty cool.
My last full day in London I managed to catch up with Kineta from home who is living in London at the moment. We had some lunch and some cider (I pretty much drink cider every day) then I spent the afternoon at the Tate Modern checking out some great exhibitions as well as some slightly dodgy ones involving sex and self mutilations….modern art…awesome.
I was staying with a friends mum the last night in Notting Hill so was nice to see my old pub and Portobello road, I really think Notting Hill is the best part of London and hopefully can time my next visit with the Saturday market. So 3 days in London..it was good, I had heaps of fun and the next day it was onto an early morning bus for an 8hour trip up to Glasgow!
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