My account of two days spent in the 24 hour city, London.
Firstly, I have to start from the beginning, otherwise you miss out on the experience. I guess :P.
It started at a lovely 230am on Monday morning when I finally decided to go to bed.. Problem was, I was so excited that I didn't get to sleep until 430am. My alarm went off at 530am, no swearing or cursing, I actually got up and said, "I swear I will sleep on the coach."
But have you ever noticed, things never work out that way anyway?
So my Dad decided he would take me to my college, which was the meeting point for the coach. We didn't have to be there till around 730am approximately, but I got there at about 630am. Damn my father. He was actually complaining because he was going to make up extra hours at work because of this. I really needed the toilet by this time, so I told him to drive up to the Tesco's which is actually meant to be 24 hour.. But was shut.
The second person to arrive was this guy who is Danni's friend. I'm really, um, pressed to remember his name. He came at around 715am and by this time I told my Dad to leave and that I'd be okay on my own. I was complaining, "I need the toilet!" The people there (Ok, I didn't know any of them by this point) suggested that I try the college, which was locked.
So 730am came and I was still standing around, dancing like a fool trying not to wet myself.. Finally, when Mr Williams turned up, the college was opened by some caretakers and I got into a fabled toilet in the English corridor, which I now worship. *Gets on her knees and worships the toilet for being there.*
We were waiting around and finally some friends turned up.. Danni, Sagar, Jo, Adam, Mark, Oliver.. And the list goes on. Anyhow, we got on the coach and I ended up sitting next to Danni.
The coach driver was sound as a pound and had the Chris Moyles morning show on. The first time I've heard him on Radio 1 since he was moved from his very excellent afternoon slot. Needless to say, I wasn't listening *Gasp, shock horror* I was listening to my music instead. :P
The coach driver then told us he had some films: Just Married, Minority Report, Miss Congeniality and Daredevil.
I cried at the choice of three films, but one.. That was, of course, Minority Report.. But no, people whined and cried until Just Married was put on. Naturally, the volume on my CD Player just went up about five notches. :P
We hit a queue of traffic at the neverending roadworks of the Viaduct, like anything was new, eh? I estimated that the queue was about fifteen miles long since we were moving at about 30mph and it took us about 30 minutes to get out of the traffic. Once we got out of there, the coach driver obviously decided to avoid the infamous Spaghetti Junction at Birmingham and take a trip down past Stoke and Derby.
The coach stopped at around Donington Park, roughly three hours away from London. Coincidentially, Just Married had finished. It was around 1045am in the morning and we were told to have a break until 1130am. Anyway, we went inside to the extortionate motorway cafe and I decided that a Burger King was in order. So, I went and bought my Burger King *L*.. Me, Mark, Oliver, Jo and Adam were sitting around a table.. Hoping and praying that Kevin wouldn't walk over and sit by us.. Because Kevin is a bit whack.. After the break, we all hopped back onto the coach.
Thankfully, the coach driver put Minority Report on as, "You've seen the chick flick and now it's time for the man flick." He basically saved us all from the immediate boredom of Miss Congeniality. Danni asked to borrow my CD Player as she had seen Minority Report before and hated it.. So I let her.. But she borrowed my really strange 80's CD's that I burnt the night previous, also. Oh well, it's cool that she likes the 80's :D.
We basically got into London as Minority Report was ending.. When it had ended we were roughly in Central London, so to be honest it took about an hour to reach the outskirts to get into central London.. Anyway, we turned onto this road and we basically waited twenty minutes to turn onto Regent Street. Once we got onto Regent Street, we turned down another road to get to our hotel, the Regent Palace. Believe me, it was definitely no Palace as we were soon to discover.
We got set our rooms and I have to say, it was the most disgusting place I've ever had the pleasure of staying in. The main (and only) advantage of the place was it's location! It was in the south west corner of SoHo and you could basically walk five metres and be in Piccadilly. Great to catch a tube from.
I was sharing a room with Jo and two other girls who I didn't know.. I only know that one of them is called Vicky.
Me and Jo decided that we would meet up with her boyfriend, Adam, and run off to the tube and get to Knightsbridge which is where Harrods is. I was actually surprised at the value for money that a person can get from a Zone 1 & 2 Travelpass in London. �4.30 and it would be usuable for the tube, bus and even boats from 930am-430am.
We all got to Knightsbridge and decided to take a wander. Harrods was directly to the right of the exit of the tube, kind of scary really. We all went in and I wanted to buy some wine and some beer for my parents (And of course one for myself.) We wandered around, taking in all the sights.. The Egyptian Staircase, etc.. Finally by some miracle I found the wine place.. Bought two beers and one Claret.. It came to �11 and I was asked for ID.. London is crazy on ID we found out ;). Anyway, it was pretty amazing.. Saw stuff in Harrods that cost �3,000 and things like that. It's truly huge, too, and I don't think I saw nearly enough that I could possibly see inside there.
We came out and decided to get back on the tube to get to Hyde Park Corner. Decided to walk down one of the roads towards Buckingham Palace.. No, it wasn't the Mall, but I did get chance to walk down that road, as you will find out in the "dramatic and climatic" part of the story later.
The trip to Buckingham Palace was kind of short lived.. As Oliver had booked a table at the Wagamama in Covent Garden for us to go to at 730pm and it was already getting towards 530pm by this time.
So we basically walked right around the outskirts of Buckingham Palace then looked for the nearest tube. I think the tube we went on was St. James's Park but I can't remember now.
Anyway, we headed back to Piccadilly, Jo wanted to get changed and I had no fancy clothes so I went in my jeans and t-shirt.
We all met in the lobby of the hotel and got on the tube towards Covent Garden. When we got there I was amazed at these little bicycle things that these men ride around with people in the back.. It was cool, so I took a picture. :D
We walked through the market, then down this hill to the Wagamama, a Japanese Ramen restaurant. We all sat down and ordered and I decided to order a coca cola and a Chicken Katsu Curry.
I have to say, it was most possibly the most exquisite and thoroughly enjoyable meal I've ever tasted in all my life from a restaurant.
I was surprised also at how cheap it was. I was thinking, Central London, nice Japanese restaurant, it's going to be kind of ... Expensive.. But my meal and coca cola only turned out to be �8.70 and it was a really big portion as well. The price of the meal for the five of us was around �42. We all left a �1 tip for the nice service we had :P.
After we'd finished it was around 9pm.. We were wondering how on earth we were going to get drunk. Basically, I was the only one old enough and with ID to get into any places.. So we decided that it would probably be best if I bought some cheap wine from a wine store and head back to the hotel as it would be a wild goose chase to get into any nightclub as we'd all get ID'd every five seconds (and everyone was telling us the next morning just how difficult it was to get anywhere.. Some even walked a few miles before they found anywhere they could get into).
I basically ended up supplying alcohol for minors *L*.. Afterwards we were walking back through the Covent Garden market and were wondering what on earth was going on as there was this huge crowd by this monument.. thing. Anyway, it turned out to be a guy in a skimpy red thong, balancing on a tall unicycle, juggling plastic knives. Heh. I got a photo of that. According to Mark, this was, "Not for the entertainment value." lol.
We decided to hop back on the tube, where my ticket decided it just didn't want to work because it was kind of bent :/. Anyway, after a few times of putting it through the machine, it worked, I got clapped and we buggered off to Leicester Square.
Miracle occured here.. I saw my FIRST sex shop in London.. Even though they are everywhere *L*.
I saw the Odeon in Leicester Square.. I was like an obsessed tourist while I was in London. I swear. I found it very exciting for some odd reason even though it's just another city.
A few things I found amazing about London is how everyone brags about it.. I find the city to be quite dirty.. Not only the outskirts but places like Chelsea and stuff, too. I also found the speed of London overwhelming. Businessmen run at like 100mph to get to the next tube and god knows what. There's actual signs on the esculators that read, "Keep to the right" so that businessmen can run past you down the esculators. At one point I was standing on the Eastbound platform, and it was really busy. A businessman was running down the platform and the suit grabbed me by my shoulders, said, "Sorry, love!" And moved me to the right as he ran down the platform. I felt really odd because I'd never really experienced or seen things like this before.. And it's not like Liverpool isn't a big city.. It is, it's just not as hectic as that.
We went to a rather classy icecream shop in Leicester Square.. I bought one scoop of Kiwi flavoured ice cream which was �2.45, gobbled all that up.. Took a few pictures then left Leicester Square back to Piccadilly and back into the hotel.
We decided to camp it out in the boy's bedroom with the two bottles of cheap wine. We were all getting drunk and merry and stuff when we decided that we'd need more wine at about 1045pm.. So me and Adam decided to go out. Piccadilly Circus was ten times more busy than it was in the day, and the whole place was buzzing and noisy.. It was terrific.. A fantastic atmosphere. Me and Adam couldn't find any shops that had screw-top bottles of wine so we had to return empty handed.
When we got back it was kind of late and I was really tired so I went to bed at about eleven. I came in the room and one of the girls sharing the room with me and Jo asked me to escort her to the toilets as she was scared of going on her own *L*.. On the way back she told me that tickets to the cinema was �12.50 in one place and mostly �10.50 elsewhere. I found that very, um, extortionate.
I climbed into bed at about 1130pm.. And Jo didn't come back until about 130am.. I wasn't asleep by this time, as I just found it completely impossible. She walked in, kind of drunk and got into bed.. I didn't fall asleep that night.. As everytime I tried to I heard ANOTHER jumbo jet or ANOTHER police car siren..
At 7am the girls alarm in the room went off.. We all got up.. Jo proceeded to tell me that they had played a really crap version of truth and dare when I'd left.. That consisted of her drinking instant coffee mixed with wine.. We ate breakfast, packed up and checked out of the hotel after this.
We met another girl on the way, who I didn't know the name of that was complaining that she found a cockroach in her room.. Yuck. Then Jo told me that last night, the lads found a bottle of piss in a drawer in their room. Yuck.
Anyway, time for the educational part of the trip.. The reason we came (Yeah, right).
We walked all the way to the Houses of Parliament, passing 10 Downing Street on the way.. Big Ben chimed at 9am and I got a picture, yay! We entered the Houses of Parliament.. And we got to go on a tour around the Houses of Lords/Commons. In the Commons, I placed my hands on the despatch box that the opposition leader stands at. Yay. We then got to question the Southport MP, John Pugh, in a committee room. I will admit, I struggled to stay awake.
As we were crossing the road to get to Whitehall, two police motorcycles passed us.. Blowing whistles, I think, of some sort. Anyway, behind them was a big, posh, black car.. And inside was Princess Anne, right in front of my eyes. I thought that was pretty neat.
After this, we went to the Cabinet War Rooms which is basically where Sir Winston Churchill conducted World War 2 from. It was pretty educational, but I never really enjoy museums as such and I was out of there in thirty minutes, in the sun, playing with my phone while I waited a further thirty minutes for my friends to come out so we could go and get something to eat.
We ended up fetching the tube with a new ticket to get to Victoria again. We thought that Victoria may have something or somewhere nice to eat, but it didn't. The problem was, Jo and Adam wanted to get a bus that shown them the whole of London.. And the only bus that really done that was the 11. We bought a snack from a sweet shop and got on the 11 bus with our new tube tickets.. And off begun this journey.
Then suddenly, it got to Chelsea and just randomly stopped.
Huh? I was thinking. Anyway, we were quite far away from Piccadilly and we got off the bus. We were contemplating on getting on another bus but they were so goddamn unpredictable that we thought it probably wasn't worth it.
Anyway, we decided to plan a route to Earl's Court tube station. This took about an hour to walk to. We got there and my feet were killing me. I had blisters on my feet since I was wearing my new shoes.. My ankles kept getting some form of cramp if I stopped walking and started to walk after a bit of a break again.. And argh, I was just tired from my hurting ankles.
We boarded the train and entered the underground heading towards London Tower stop. We got off and I really needed the toilet, so we stopped at McDonalds to abuse their toilets.. Then we left and crossed the road to Starbucks when the unthinkable happened.
My blisters burst.
Ow. Ow. Ow. *Hop, hop, hop* across the street.. Limping and all that jazz *L* They bought some "thing" from Starbucks then we decided we wanted to take a boat around the Thames so that we could take in some of the landmarks that London had to offer. *Sigh* This meant a trip back to Westminster underground, which is where we started from to get to Victoria and that god forsaken bus!
I could use my �4.30 travelpass (Those things really are amazing!) to get some money off my boat trip around the Thames. I can't describe to you how good the boat trip was and if anyone is going to London soon, I really recommend it as I found it the best way to see all the landmarks that London has.
This would have usually cost �7.00, but due to the �4.30 travelpass it cost me �4.70. I got plenty of pictures while I was on the Thames and I also got a nice sunburn on my face *L*.
Anyway, as you can see, I really did see a lot.. After this though, we decided to head back and get going back to Liverpool :(.
But wait, final piece of drama happened!
We went back to Westminster tube to get to Piccadilly, when it was announced that Oxford Circus was closed due to overcrowding and that Piccadilly was now an exit only station. When we finally got off at Piccadilly a nice stroke of luck happened as Piccadilly completely decided to shut down it's station due to overcrowding after we got off!
This was because of the Formula 1 Parade which resulted in Regent Street being closed.
Now this caused a problem, because the hotel we were at was just OFF of Regent Street and therefore the coach couold not pick us up there. Anyway, the shocker to the system was to come after a bite to eat at a very busy Burger King in Piccadilly..
We picked up all our luggage when Mr Williams informed us that we are getting picked up at Hyde Park Corner. Now, Hyde Park Corner is about 2 miles away since we had to take the long route due to the closure of Regent Street.
He originally suggested that we walked to Leicester Square and that ALL of us get the tube. But me and Oliver confronted him over this as we saw a few nasty flaws in this.
Firstly, it was 630pm first of all which meant that a lot of people would be on the tube rushing to get home, at 630pm there's barely no room to stand, nevermind fitting 42 people with luggage onto the tube.
Secondly, due to the closure of Piccadilly Circus underground that meant that people would probably distribute themselves to Leicester Square using the same idea we had, making it even MORE busier than usual.
Thirdly, the tube doors open and close in literally seconds, we could have a situation where only HALF the students manage to get on the train causing all chaos and confusion and perhaps a general lack of safety for everyone.
Fourthly, everyone would have to buy a ticket for the tube. Who is to say everyone had the money to afford it and had not spent all their money already?
After hearing us out, Mr Williams decided that we were indeed, right. And there was a change of plan.
Of course, that change of plan probably resulted in me and Oliver being hated forever *L*.
It was decided that we would walk through the throng of 500,000 people towards Hyde Park Corner.. Which is a very long walk. Mr Williams went at the front, while the other two teachers stuck it out at the back.
We started to walk, dragging our luggage with us.. And my luggage was VERY heavy due to the booze that I put in it *L*.. Anyway, it wasn't soon before we completely lost sight of Mr Williams in that huge crowd of people. What panic. We were all on our mobile phones trying to get hold of him, it was impossible as everyone else around us were using their mobile phones and thus network coverage of the area was very poor.
Eventually, after a lot of shouting and standing in the middle of Piccadilly, we managed to get in touch with him. Turns out he went the wrong way and was behind us and would catch up with us.
Oh, we would have set off by this time, but some stupid idiot decided that during all this chaos, he'd waltz into HMV and buy an album ::)
When he came back out, we got this idea of holding up these flag things that were given out at the event so that we could all see each other and not lose each other as we walked through the throngs and throngs of people.
We walked down Haymarket, our eyes in the sky looking for those sacred flags *L*
Eventually, we had to turn a corner when Adam was standing on it with flags, people still managed to walk past him and ignore that he was pointing to the corner.. YES.. The crowds were -THAT- bad.
We eventually got onto the Mall and I was completely exhausted, but still plodding on with my sore feet and now sore shoulders from my luggage.. Sagar was offering to carry my luggage. Bless. But I'm too silly to accept help and still plodded on.
Mr Williams caught up to us and he was wondering what the hell I had in my bag.. He tried lifting it, and he was all, ok, rather you than me. lol.
We had a rest at the end of the Mall, I'd never seen traffic like it before .. The closure of Regent Street was causing so much havoc down the Mall.
Still, this was not the end of our journey and the coach driver, Simon, said that he was in Park Lane waiting for us.. Which is just a little further on from Hyde Park Corner. After more plodding on, and an accordion player playing a French song we got to the coach.
Horaah!
*Chucks the luggage on the coach with relief*.
We set off, took one break at a station for the toilet.. Then another one further on where I bought a Red Bull as I was severely sleep deprived and needed to stay awake to tell my Dad when I was close to Liverpool for him to pick me up.
I listened to music ALL the way back to Liverpool, I rested my feet as much as I could even though they were quite sore.. And this time Danni sat behind me instead of with me, ah well, we did have one less person since they had some business thing to attend. Anyway, they decided that the choice of movies on the way back would be Miss Congeniality.. But! Stuart bought a video called I.D. I think, which is about English football hooligans and therefore we watched that instead. We decided to have a collection for our coach driver.. I put a pound in.. He got about �20 and was really grateful.
I eventually got home at around 2am.. After leaving London at about 730pm.
How exhausting. I thoroughly enjoyed my sleep last night and resting my swollen ankles!
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the story :D
