For me, most of the fun in a day out is in the planning. I have been called over-ambitious in my planning, and this time was no exception. I spent the majority of the weekend prior to Monday studying the Tube Map and pouring over websites with free tourists attractions.
I had compiled the most amazing list of things to do in London, and though some may have called it impossible or ridiculous, I merely saw it as a challenge. I was going to be the biggest tourist in the whole of London and see everything that there is to see in one day.
As it turns out, London is big.
There's also a lot to do.
However, my friend and I (lets call her Sara) did a lot, and I will tell you all about it.
The day got off to a spiffing start when I had left my newly purchased travel card by the magnetic fastening in my bag and it was then unable to be read. Great. So instead of going and finding a nice person in a booth and ask them to exchange it for me, I went and bought a new one. Because, you know, human contact... ew.
We got off at Baker Street, which as it turns out has a lot of exits. We started our London experience by gettin
g hideously lost when trying to find the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Literally, we walked around one block twice, and walked past the same Pret A Manger three times. The same family was sitting outside the whole time, and were just looking at us like we were absolute weirdos/tourists. Which we were. Eventually we realised that we had been walking in the complete opposite direction (neither of us has any sense of direction or map reading skills, so it wasn't really surprising), but we eventually found the museum, took some photos of it from the outside, and headed back to the station.
After all of this debacle however we were actually feeling quite positive. We felt that everything had gone wrong that was going to, and now it would all go according to plan. Surprisingly, we were actually right.
We then headed to Camden which is completely different to anywhere I have ever been before, but I actually loved it. It was one of those places where you just kept going through doorways to find more and more stuff. We didn't actually spend a huge amount of time there because of our ever so press
ing schedule, but it is definitely somewhere that I would like to visit again and spend the day there, really try and soak it all up. I just loved the creativity that oozed out of every single shop and market stall, it was amazing!I think that next we travelled to Monument Station which was actually very confusing because it had the different name Bank depending on what line you were on. We got there in the end, and with the end and with the help of GPS and Google Maps (which really saved our lives) we found The Thames. We did also find the London Monument, but I didn't actually notice it until we'd walked past it. Apparently I'm exceptionally unobservant.
This was actually probably one of my favourite parts of the day (though I loved it all). We got to London Bridge where we could see The Shard, Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast, and then walked along The Thames for a bit. Alt
hough it was quite cold (because February), the sun was shining really brightly and it was really windy and it was just really lovely and positive and beautiful. Also, London has some pretty cool architecture.
I have to say Westminster was probably one of the places I was most excited about because it is just so iconic, and I ended up taking about 4 trillion pictures.
We then headed to Downing Street which unfortunately was locked up with some very scary policemen outside. Although I was expecting this, I was a little disappointed as I had been hoping to march down to number 10, knock on the door, and ask them what the heck is going on. Seriously politics, sort it out!
We then headed to Trafalgar Square where we looked at the lions and admired old Nelson, though we didn't really dawdle as we wanted to get to Buckingham Palace before lunch.
As it turns out, the queen has got one heck of a driveway and I know this because I walked up it! She also has lots of lovely parks surrounding her home which we enjoyed walking through, so all in all, not too shabby your majesty!
By this point it was getting on for about 3 O'clock and we hadn't eaten yet, so we headed off to China Town and this amazing restaurant that Sara recommended, I think that it was called Wong Kei. It was super duper cheap, it was really fast and the food was amazing. I would really recommend it - I had the shredded chicken noodles, and the portion was the biggest thing I've ever seen!
We then wandered around a bit, as we were both quite tired by this point. I didn't really take any more pictures, but we went to Leicester Square and Covent Garden, both of which are really nice. We then had about an hour before we had planned to head home, so we caught a train to Oxford Street and went to Primark, because I'm a cheapskate and I like it that way.
I did buy a couple of things, but I'm planning on doing a Primark haul tomorrow, so you'll just have to pop back to see what I bought!
We then headed back to Baker Street where we hit rush hour (because we were super smart with our planning), but it wasn't as bad as I feared, and headed home!
I had an amazing day in London. I was so shocked by how easy it all was. Obviously we had done quite a bit of planning before because we knew what stations we needed to go to and what trains we needed to catch, but to be honest, the tube is so super easy to use. My favourite thing about it was that there was literally a train every 2 minutes, so you literally never had to wait for one to come. The tube map is also really clear and easy once you get your head around it!
We were also so lucky with the weather. The sun was shining all day which was so lovely and unexpected - seriously, it had been snowing the day before. We got through so much, and I'm really surprised and quite smug that we did, all you need is ambition, positivity and efficiency! All I would say is keep your travel card away from anything magnetic and you'll be fine! Oh and maybe invest in a map...
See you soon!
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