London in a day

Okay, yea yea, I know I'm crap at keeping this up to date..Sorry...Have tried over the years to get better at this sort of thing, but, well it's not going to happen haha. Anyway I've now been in England for over 4 months! Time has gone super fast, especially in the last couple of months. I think it's because I'm settled in, have new routines and a great bunch of friends. One part of why I love to travel is that when you first move somewhere completely new, every day feels extra long and jam packed with exciting stuff. After awhile time gets back to it's normal crazy pace, and while there is still plenty of exciting stuff going on you've got to make sure you take notice of it, get in amongst things and make the most of everything before you wake up and realise life has gone on without you.

I now feel that if someone had only one day to experience London I would be able to show them around some simply awesome places and experiences that would show London off. My ideal day of really seeing London would probably start with a morning walk along the Thames by southbank, under the London Eye observation wheel and across Westminster Bridge to have a look at the parliment buildings and the area around Westminster Abbey. Yes this probably the most tourist hyped part of the city but it is definitely worth a look on a sunny day. This area is also gorgeous in twilight when it's all lit up. I haven't been on the London Eye yet, I don't know if I can be bothered to get around to it. Like most of the tourist destinations here it's very overpriced, and weirdly I think it's a nicer view to stand underneath the wheel and look across the river. Maybe some day I'll go on it if I find a good discount voucher haha.

Big Ben tower

London Eye

Night view

We would then walk down the river to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. If you are going to spend some money on a tourist attraction the Tower is the best one I've been to yet - super interesting, especially if you join up with the free tours given by the Yeoman Warders (actual guards). There is also the beautiful St. Paul's cathedral. Definitely one of these two attractions anyway.

Queen's Guards in the Tower of London

Tower Bridge from inside Tower of London

St. Paul's

After a few hours checking these out it'd be time for a late lunch over the river in Borough Markets, a massive gourmet food market ...

...Then tube to any of the big parks like Hyde Park or Regent's park for a wander...

I love Camden town and markets so the day would be finished off walking through the massive, famous market area before going around the many pubs in the area for drinks. Camden is one of the main spots for partying and is great any night of the week

If it's a nice night the view from Primrose Hill is stunning - right across London, and only a short walk from Camden so this would be the last stop.

Borrowed from the net as my pics didn't turn out haha

So there you have my take on the real London, condensed down to what would be one long but awesome day. It's a bit different to what a tour guide would say but for me these are places and areas that I have mostly been back to many times now as they've been so amazing. They really mean 'London' to me. The city is so massive and so full of great things it is hard to narrow things down. It is also made up of loads of little communities, like Camden, from when it used to just be a bunch of villages back in the day, so I think it is best seen by just picking an area an wandering around with not much purpose but to simply see it all.

Random observations of Englishness

A little collection of some random different/interesting things I've noticed here so far...

• I don't think it's compulsory to wear bike helmets here so given the massive level of traffic it's always quite weird to see people cruising along helmet-free as if they are on a country back road, weaving in and out between the huge buses
• Because of the way London has evolved - from loads of little villages - a lot of streets are tiny, narrow and winding. The hardest thing to get used to (especially coming from Christchurch and having lived in Vancouver) is that there is no convenient grid system - at all. If I'm walking around exploring I often turn down a random street and automatically think 'I'll just take the next corner to come back onto the original street.' But no! Dead ends or random curves that lead away from where you want to go. So very easy to get disorientated or spend extra hours just trying to get back to where you started haha. All part of the charm of London...luckily in the centre there is never a shortage of tube stations to get back home with ;)
• Perhaps because of the level of traffic again, the majority of intersections -big and small- have the words 'look right' and 'look left' on the edge of the road for pedestrians (photo coming soon). I now have the impression that London is full of jaywalking idiots. I do see the point in having this though - except when on seriously busy main roads, Londoners never stop for cars when crossing a road. They hardly break their step at in intersection, they are so hurried and shut off to what's around them
• I live near a busy intersection so sometimes I hear an extremely annoying little recorded voice coming from the larger trucks waiting at the lights. It goes: Caution, truck is turning left. Zzzt zzt zzt. Caution, truck is turning left. Zzzzt zzzt zzzt.' Over and over again. Grrr.
• I bought a little potted sunflower to brighten up my room for a few weeks. Nothing unusual about this except that I bought it from a 24 hour florist. Why does a florist need to be open for 24hours? And it wasn't even in a very busy area!
• There is definitely a big lack of care for the environment, at least in London. It's very hard to recycle - there just isn't the facilities. Sometimes you see a few skips grouped together on the street with a 'recycling station' sign. Do you remember those plastic rings that went around 6 packs of beer? Weren't they banned in NZ a decade ago? Yea England didn't get that message...
• Also on alcohol, it is extremely accessible and cheap. When you really want a single bottle of beer/cider or a 4 pack of anything go to the fridges at your local mini express supermarket (Tescos or Sainsbury's). Spirits are behind the counter. When they are closed, just head to the nearest off-license, basically a dairy open 24 hours.
• The sirens of the emergency vehicles are ear piercingly loud. Like, you don't want to be just walking along the road when an ambulance comes up and gets stuck at the lights. Wince.
• The '@' symbol on computer keyboards is in a different place so I have to be careful when typing my email address. The '£' sign is where @ should be on top of the 3, and @ is above '
• Many of the cafe/ready to eat food chains like Starbucks have two sets of prices - one for eat in and one for take away. Everywhere here is geared towards ready to eat, on the run food, so they actively encourage you to take your food away so they don't have the hassle of cleaning your one plate and one fork. This wouldn't annoy me so much if the price differences weren't so crazy. Sometimes it's nearly a pound difference if you want to eat in! For the exact same food!! :( More on cafe culture (or lack of) in a future post.
• To finish, did you know that years of actual hard work could have been avoided?

Elbow Grease: the only cleaner you'll ever need

"Stubborn deposits may require further applications"

• And lastly, here is a picture of an electric smart car getting charged on the side of the road. Enough said.

Always

Thanks to Jess B ;)

Passions and new hobbies

I'm really into cinema at the moment. I'm always really into current and popular movies, despite not being able to see as many as I'd like to. But I discovered a serious passion for classic cinema in the best paper ever at uni on exchange in Canada. This is everything from the old movies themselves, to the grandeur of the cinema buildings, and the awe (and envy) of the mass popularity and experiences of cinema-going from 1890ish - 1970ish.

Unfortunately, I've been too slack to actually pursue this love...until now. In this huge city, so far slightly lacking in friends to hang out with most of the time, I have a lot of time by myself and a lot of extremely exciting things to be doing. So this past week I've seriously indulged in movie themed things, with a half formed idea of maybe meeting some similar minded people, but mainly just because it feels so awesome ;)

In a 'London's Hidden Secrets' guidebook I discovered the cinema museum. Such a quiet and unheard of place that you have to email ahead to book a time for a tour, I ended up being the only person to seek it out that day and had a personalised, one on one tour of this fantastic place. The museum is housed in a beautiful brick building; an old workhouse, similar to the one that Charlie Chaplin and his family went into so they love their location. A workhouse was the last resort for all the thousands of severely poor and destitute types in 1900s London. Anyway, my tour ended up being over 2 1/2 hours, much longer than usual I think, as the lovely guy, who happened to be the guy who started the collection, saw that I was genuinely interested and not in a rush to get anywhere. He even put on the first few minutes of The Artist, the black and white silent film from last year, in the little screening room as he found out I'd only seen it on the small screen on the plane ride over to London haha. He also plucked out a book on old New Zealand theatres for a quick flick through. The museum has so many old pictures/books/old film/magazines/advertising that it's impossible to see just the smallest bit, so the most interesting part of the afternoon was seeing all the old signage, uniforms and equipment from the old cinemas that closed down in the 50s-70s.

I loved this tour. It was perfect and magical and about exactly what I love in cinema.

 http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/

An hour after leaving the museum I was at the British Film Institute (BFI) on Southbank (developed touristy area alongside the Thames where the London Eye is), devouring a chocolate brownie from a gourmet street food market, waiting until a movie started. Not just any movie - an an old, silent Alfred Hitchcock movie called The Lodger that had been remastered as part of the BFI's Hitchcock season. I then capped the night off with a twilight wander along the Thames, checking out the main sight of the London Eye and the Parliment Buildings all lit up. Such a brilliant, brilliant day.

(The Genius of Hitchcock exhibition poster)

I have discovered the great joy of going to see a movie by yourself. A few days after seeing the Lodger (where I also enjoyed a rosemary mojito mmmm) I went to see a just-released movie called Take This Waltz with Seth Rogen and Michele Williams. Really good movie, sad though. But there was an extra level of enjoyment as I was by myself, in the middle of the day, sitting in a huge, beautiful old cinema from the very era of cinemas I love, all done out in purple and gold, joining only about a dozen other people. It was peaceful, surreal and fantastic. This is definitely my new hobby.

I am forever looking up future exciting things and upcoming movies to do and see now... :)

Better late than never....Bloody typical me

Wow! The first post! Bet you didn't actually think I was going to get around to this sooner...

A blog of my travels and experiences, beginning here in London, England, is still something I want to do, not just for myself but all you friends out there. I'm fortunate to have so many people to call a friend, but this also means it makes it hard for me to keep in touch with everyone! So I'm aiming to keep this reasonably up to date and full of random bits and pieces as my way of being in contact of everyone. If only I can beat down my old nemesis, procrastination... ;)

"The two rules of procrastination:  1) Do it today.  2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow."
~Author Unknown

Yesterday was the last day of the 2012 Olympics, and since I was working all day (seriously, all day) it was quite surreal. I work/live on the edge of the central city in the north west, with the Olympics mainly based in the East so I've kind of missed the busyness and hype of it all. On the screens at work I saw bits of the marathon with the thousands of people lining the streets and up around Buckingham Palace, but the pub was completely dead so didn't feel like a big deal at all. I have to pinch myself sometimes to remember I'm actually in London, where this is all going on live. Thankfully over the past two weeks the pub has been pretty busy because of the Games, as it is a main meeting point for people going to see the football (i.e. soccer ;) ) at Wembly Stadium. I might have missed all the hype completely if it hadn't been for the sometimes frantically busy periods before a Wembly game. People also came to watch in the evenings, after work etc presumably. It has been a pretty good vibe though, everyone's gotten really into it. It's been very cool to be a part of that. I think I'll look up the tickets for the Paralympics and see if I can go see some of that.

My favourite part of the bits of closing ceremony I saw would definitely be the miniature London landmarks at the start, with Big Ben, the London Eye and the Gherkin building, then the stage in general as a Union Jack flag was really cool and worked really well for the whole show. It was great to sing along to all the hits with all of the pub. It was such a weird mash up of songs though, I think some didn't really mesh with the others. Great to hear at least one part of Oasis though!

Just a reasonably short post for starters....until next time!! :D