their flight touched down at the obscene hour of 6:20 am and although i was hoping to greet them at the gate, when my alarm went of at 4 am, i just couldn't be bothered with going all the way there as i knew i'd lose steam halfway through the day. fortunately, i had sent incredibly detailed directions on how to get to my flat from heathrow via public transit and the ladies turned up at 8:30. this part of my life is so separate from everything else i've known that i couldn't imagine my past and present crossing paths, so seeing katie out in the frost with her giant suitcase was definitely surreal. we came up to my flat where i had made a cuppa tea for everyone and began our ambitious list of what katie hoped to see while she was here.
an hour later we were riding the overland train towards waterloo station with my flatmate rob (on his way back to manchester for christmas) who sat in awe at the california banter and constant parroting of the announcer, "mind the gap," or my personal favourite, "beggars occasionally board the trains, please ignore them and alert a member of staff. thank you!" how polite. at the station we parted ways with rob and headed towards south bank and went into the first pub we could find. fish and chips. check. pints of stella. check. we were making progress on the list. next we took the tube to westminster where we wandered around parliament, big ben, westminster abbey area then headed down horse guard road towards buckingham palace. i had never been to st. paul's park but it was fantastic. so picturesque with a little pond in the middle full of ducks, geese, and pelicans. wha? yes, enormous pelicans (a couple of them were pink) perched on rocks showing off their wingspans. at one point we were passed by the prime minister, gordon ramsey, er..brown (long story, basically i continue to get the crass celebrity chef and head of state mixed up, silly american girl) in his shiny black jag surrounded by motorcycle p.c.'s. after the palace we wandered a bit more but the feet were getting tired and the girls were starting to feel their jetlag. we popped into a pub for a glass of warm, mulled wine then caught a double decker bus *check* back to the train station. day one was jam packed and by the time we got home we had a little dinner, realised the original list was nearly conquered and started planning for the next day.
ben!
westminster abbey
parliament
the next morning we let ourselves have a bit of a lay-in then headed to notting hill to find a cafe for tea and crumpets. the lazy daisy cafe was just what we were looking for. set back off the road it was multi-levelled with a mixture of lovingly worn furniture. i noticed a lot of the wooden chairs had bible holders on their backs and we used our detective skills to figure out that the place was an old converted church. adjacent to a nursery school, the cafe had lots of grammas and mums with little ones enjoying a midday snack. we enjoyed our delicious and fresh brunches, quiche, salad, porridge..then headed to portobello road to windowshop the antique stores.
lazy daisy
enjoying a cuppa
portobello road
i picked up a used copy of fitzgerald's this side of paradise, since i'll have some time to myself at alice's house and i've finished all the non-academic books that i brought with me. from notting hill gate, we went to the tower of london and circled the big castle over to the tower bridge. beautiful and spooky place. another one of those places where you stand there in awe thinking about how many people have been in that spot over that past hundreds and hundreds of years. from here we went to the incredibly packed shopping areas, regent, oxford, picadilly and carnaby streets to see the bright lights of the big city while avoiding getting trampled.
tower of london
once we got back we rested, recharge and got dressed for a night out in kingston, unfortunately most of the uni kids have gone home for the holidays, or 'hols' as they love to shorten everything, but that didn't stop us. first we headed to the pub across the road for a pint of the infamous fruli strawberry beer and a fluke game of pool where i chanelled a pool shark and cleared the table. barman sam was working and suggested we head to eivissa for their student night, so i rounded up the few people i could find that are still in town and we headed over for a vodka-redbull fuelled night of london dancing.
heidi, sam and me at eivissa.
day three, we woke up at 8:30 to beeline to buckingham palace in time for the changing of the guards only to find that this time of year it only happens every other day. not including that particular day. not to worry as we were in time to see the mounted horse guards proceed down the mall along st. james park. this city is obsessively clean as a street cleaner follows directly after the procession to clean up any mess the horses may leave behind.
st. james pond frozen over with birds sliding on the surface
we next wandered down fleet street towards st. paul's cathedral. mike, a friend from sf, had told me about a pub called ye old cheshire cheese that he knew from when he studied in london, so we had to stop in. this pub was rebuilt in the 1660s, meaning it was around even before that. the floors are all about wonky and the ceilings change height as you go about through all the different rooms. we didn't stay for a drink but it felt like we travelled through a portal when we went in and out of the front door. our last tourist stop was abbey road, were we took a minute to warm up in the beatles cafe then proceed to block traffic to photograph the crossing. it had to be done.
i realised that i feel really at home here, despite everything and everyone that i miss..i was able to find my way around and ramble my random factoids (probably more than they wanted to hear!) all over the city. they'll be in spain in mid january and i'm booking my ticket to go see them in the warmth before uni starts again. x
