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Monday, June 20, 2005

Look Kids Big Ben, Parliament (London Part 3 of 3)

So Sunday morning we woke up, quickly got ready, and set out on our day of sightseeing. We hopped on one of London’s famous red double decker buses, took in some of London’s traffic and made our way out to London tower. We spent the morning there taking in the various towers, Tower Bridge and of course visited the crown jewels. Once we were finished there we wondered down the street from which we came in the direction of St. Paul’s Cathedral. We stopped for lunch along the way and then completed our walk to St. Paul’s. We took in the beauty of the Church and even caught a cleaning man taking a nap on the backside of the Cathedral. Don’t worry we didn’t disturb his nap, but we did snap a picture of course.

After St. Paul’s we then crossed the Thames via the Millennium Bridge and took in the oddities of modern art at the Tate Modern. Neither one of us being big fans of modern art but merely being curious, we were able to go through the museum fairly quickly despite its enormous size. Being completely baffled and having had our fill of modern art we decided to head back to the hostel in order to freshen up before dinner.

With Danielle being a lover of Indian food and me only just starting to experience it we decided to have Indian food for dinner since we were in London after all and they’re supposed to have some darn good Indian food. We were wondering around in an area we were told had a good nightlife scene and restaurants when we happened to come upon the movie theater where earlier in the evening they had the premiere for Batman Begins. Unfortunately we had just missed the actors all leaving. Oh well I hate Katie Holmes now anyway, but Christian Bale would have been cool to see. Anyway, after asking a cop what was going on and then proceeding to ask him where we might find some good Indian food we were heading to dinner which was conveniently just around the corner.

We arrived to the restaurant which looked nice and we were placed in the back at a two person table. We ordered our food but unfortunately for us the only other table that was being occupied in our area was finished with their meal and left. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but when the waiter has a mega crush on Danielle it becomes a big deal. Now with nothing else to do the waiter decides he is going to “join” us for dinner. He stands at the side of our table talking to Danielle for as long as he can. Danielle not being interested at all tries to keep the conversation to a minimum. However, the awkward silences apparently aren’t so awkward for him. He continues to stay only leaving for moments at a time to assist somewhere or to get us more water. Anytime he leaves he comes back with chocolates for Danielle, who had a bag full by the time we left. After our meal he offers to get Danielle a drink, who isn’t too keen on the idea in the first place. After insisting that she has a drink she finally chooses a drink and brings us each one. While we’re attempting to finish our drinks as quickly as possible he then informs Danielle that she is a “strong woman” and asks her to make a muscle and let him feel it. He then encourages her to feel his muscle. After this exchange he then offers to give her a massage right there in the restaurant at the table. At this point we begin downing our drinks as quickly as possible. Thankfully a few more people began entering the restaurant thus distracting him a bit. At last we were finally able to pay, in cash of course as we feared giving him any credit card information, and were able to flee from the crazy waiter. But despite the persistent waiter, the food was pretty darn good just as the cop said.

Since we weren’t able to go out on Saturday night after Guys and Dolls, we decided to see what London had to offer on a Sunday night. We had only just turned the corner when a bouncer called us over to his club and offered to let us in for half price. Sounded like a deal and since we were cold and not sure of where we were going to go anyway we decided to give it a try since it was cheap as well. Immediately upon entering the club the guys inside basically attacked as it seemed the club was severely lacking females, thus the reasoning behind the bouncer letting us in for half price. After prying the guys off of us we were able to make it to the bar where we could actually stand in peace and order a drink. However, as previously stated being female in that club we were a rare breed and therefore it wasn’t long that we were actually left alone. After spending around 2 hours fighting off the guys the club closed. It was still too early in our opinions so we wondered down the street some and came across a club that while no longer serving alcohol was still open and playing dance music. We entered in and danced the rest of the night, however not before we forced the DJ to play Jamilia’s Superstar for us “two corny girls”.

The next day we would be leaving at 5:43 and heading back to Paris. We got up what we thought was early enough and decided to walk to Buckingham to catch the changing of the guards. However, as usual the walk took longer than expected and we wound up running through the Buckingham Park to catch it on time. We missed a little bit in the beginning but I don’t think it mattered as to my surprise the thing lasted 30 mins! Once that was finally over we meandered over to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament. There was an enormous line outside Westminster Abbey, not to mention you had to pay a hefty fee to get in, so we opted to pass on going inside on this trip. We took our pictures and walked around and then finally started heading back in the direction of our hostel. We made our way to Sloane Street, another VERY high end shopping street, and crossed over to Harrods. We spent quiet some time in Harrods and eventually went back to our hostel to pick up our luggage. We took the metro back to the train station and since we had some extra time decided to grab some food to get rid of our remaining pounds. We found a McDonalds but unfortunately didn’t calculate how many pounds we had left before ordering. Our order came out to be a little bit more than we had and they wouldn’t accept credit cards. We were able to return the bottle of water thus reducing our order a bit and actually putting us only a few cents away from the total. So after about a 10 minute discussion on what to do, they accepted the money we had and let us go on our way. I mean we couldn’t leave London without one more unusually situation happening now could we? With our pounds gone we ran onto the train, as we were actually running late after the McDonalds fiasco, and said our goodbyes to London.

We had a great trip filled with weird situations and weird people; we ourselves acted unusual thus leading me to believe there is something a little strange about London. Perhaps on my next trip I'll return with more money and I'll be able to actually afford it, although I'm not so sure I'll be wanting to "party party".



Below is a pic of Big Ben which I especially liked. I always seem to take too many pictures of the Eiffel tower and we realized that if I lived in London, Big Ben would be my Eiffel tower as I took probably 15 pictures of Big Ben while on our three day trip.

2 comments:

Michelle said...

Next time you go back to London, we should go together!! I absolutely LOVE it there. I could probably stay there forever and never come home.

Anonymous said...

Glad you "party" girls made it back to Paris safe and sound. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the next installment.