When we got to London passport control was almost just as easy as getting out of London. Quick, painless, show your passport and continue on your way kind of existence. Liam didn't have any problem, as with leaving Brussels. We wandered on further and literally, as we entered the part that had our bags coming out of the carousel, our bags were already coming. Like, they were the first two creatures we saw moving down the infinite treadmill of bags. So clutch, and so infrequent that such an awesome occurence, well, occurs.
As we continued from the airport to the other part of the station where trains could be taken, we had to travel on a wee tram. In doing such it became so apparent to both of us that we had absolutely no idea where we were going, but we were both more confident, and more committed to travel stupidity than we had been anywhere, because for the first time all trip, everything was in English. It was a weirdly empowering moment feeling comfortable with our lack of knowledge, relying on our final lack of language barrier, playing around with the London vibe. Before we had left he fist terminal though we walked past this super old couple who was playing in individual computers. Like, computers from the eighties. They say their jamming their fingers at the keys, writing something. I thought it was funny, but at the time was making pretty loud zoidberg-like noises (from futurama) on and off. I kept doing it, and heard Liam laugh, unsure if it was the product of my stupid sounds or the old people on computers that I was also laughing about. I asked him, knowing that a level of comfort between us, so strong, had been reached that I could properly be like'yo, r u laugh urban Ng houses or something else?' It ended up being also the old people in computers. So weird, random, and strikingly similar. As it goes
We got to the next station and walked toward the area where the passes were sold and I was confused about what line to wait on So I waited on the express one whilst Liam waited ont he normal one. Standard procedure if you have two people, I'd say. I got to close enough that u could hear the questions that the people before me had, the same questions I had, and learned that although purchasing an express train led to no stops aside from Victoria, it was an extra five pounds each person, each way. Right now, that's like 9 extra dollars. Going from 15 pounds to 20 pounds, no thanks. I thanked Liam for waiting in the other line, though at many times he felt uncomfortable and tried to join me on mine, and went over to bounce in with him. We purchased our 2 one way trips and one return trip (for me, for the next day) and tried to figure out where to go
We went downstairs looking for the next train that stopped in Victoria and found one not too many minutes later. The train the arrived said 'express' all over it which worried me slightly. Was this a train we were meant to get o? Or would we have to pay the difference when someone caught us riding an express train with a regular ticket. Who knew.
I was bugging out for the whole train ride, as per usual (reference my trip from Berlin to Amsterdam if you have any doubt to how much of a worrier I can become when I'm not confident in my ticket related decision) but we got through no problem, with no one Checking our tickets. I tried to pay attention to time and guesstimate when we would be arriving, getting our bags on way too early to get out of the train, this time channeling the fears from missing our Brussels stop when we were coming over from Amsterdam.
We continued forward now in gatwick airport. That was the forest time in a very long time that I flew with someone I knew and cared for. The flight was really short so we mostly just slept for the duration, but coming off an having to navigate the area with a good friend was a weirdly positive experience. It made feeling extremely lost feel so much more comfortable. On the plane they were selling express tickets to Victoria and to heathrow and to be perfectly honest, j wasn't really sure where we were headed. Because of that, I was willing to grab the immigration customs cards, but less inclined to purchase, on board, some train to Victoria (like, wasn't even sure what nor where that was, to be perfectly honest). So we didn't, and we walked in further looking for whatever piece of public transit would get us close to our hostel. For this trip I was 100% reliant on the textual instructions I had screenshotted based on the confirmation email Liam had received, reserving our room in London. A quick few sentences, this was meant to get us from gatwick to hostel. The beginning suggested we get to Victoria. Fine. Should've bought the passes on the plane.
As we continued from the airport to the other part of the station where trains could be taken, we had to travel on a wee tram. In doing such it became so apparent to both of us that we had absolutely no idea where we were going, but we were both more confident, and more committed to travel stupidity than we had been anywhere, because for the first time all trip, everything was in English. It was a weirdly empowering moment feeling comfortable with our lack of knowledge, relying on our final lack of language barrier, playing around with the London vibe. Before we had left he fist terminal though we walked past this super old couple who was playing in individual computers. Like, computers from the eighties. They say their jamming their fingers at the keys, writing something. I thought it was funny, but at the time was making pretty loud zoidberg-like noises (from futurama) on and off. I kept doing it, and heard Liam laugh, unsure if it was the product of my stupid sounds or the old people on computers that I was also laughing about. I asked him, knowing that a level of comfort between us, so strong, had been reached that I could properly be like'yo, r u laugh urban Ng houses or something else?' It ended up being also the old people in computers. So weird, random, and strikingly similar. As it goes
We got to the next station and walked toward the area where the passes were sold and I was confused about what line to wait on So I waited on the express one whilst Liam waited ont he normal one. Standard procedure if you have two people, I'd say. I got to close enough that u could hear the questions that the people before me had, the same questions I had, and learned that although purchasing an express train led to no stops aside from Victoria, it was an extra five pounds each person, each way. Right now, that's like 9 extra dollars. Going from 15 pounds to 20 pounds, no thanks. I thanked Liam for waiting in the other line, though at many times he felt uncomfortable and tried to join me on mine, and went over to bounce in with him. We purchased our 2 one way trips and one return trip (for me, for the next day) and tried to figure out where to go
We went downstairs looking for the next train that stopped in Victoria and found one not too many minutes later. The train the arrived said 'express' all over it which worried me slightly. Was this a train we were meant to get o? Or would we have to pay the difference when someone caught us riding an express train with a regular ticket. Who knew.
I was bugging out for the whole train ride, as per usual (reference my trip from Berlin to Amsterdam if you have any doubt to how much of a worrier I can become when I'm not confident in my ticket related decision) but we got through no problem, with no one Checking our tickets. I tried to pay attention to time and guesstimate when we would be arriving, getting our bags on way too early to get out of the train, this time channeling the fears from missing our Brussels stop when we were coming over from Amsterdam.
Anyway, we made it. The tube station at Victoria was such a hot mess. There were so many people stuffed in, such long lines, and such widespread confusion. I thought it weird for being midday on a friday, but whatever. I had to figure out what type of card to purchase for transportation, and wait in line to get it done. I went with a day pass thinking that we'd take at least two subway trips that day, which somehow at nearly 9 pounds, that's the cost. Good shit britain. NOT FUNNY.
We got out of paddington station and made a right, which was the suggestion of the wee blurb from hostelworld that I screen shotted. The street was meant to change names, and then we'd hook another right on some other street. We were walkig a good while, losing faith. I was pretty sure that the exit from the station we took was the only exit, but i was incorrect. We found one of those touristy 'where are you right now' sidewalk maps and saw that we should've turned the other way after exiting the tube station. Rats. We turned, continued, adn not before long we found our hostel.
It seemed pretty nice! we dropped off our bags because we still had some time to kill before checkin, and asked for a good pub food recommendation. Beer and fish and chips felt incredibly necessary. The lady at the desk sent us to the 'pride of paddington.' Pretty close. The menu seemed kinda steep so we countinued to walk for a little because i noticed some other pubs on our wander around the area lost before. Not only were the price ranges all about the same, but I swear the menus were completely the same as well. Same layout, same typography... weird. We went back to the first one and I spent a while trying to figure out how to get connected to the wifi in the pub. We each bot drinks. Liam wanted a cider so went with that, and I intended on avoiding a cider, one of my least favourite dirnks, and ordered something called a 'strongbow.' he handed me this pee coloured bubbly drink and i was like, fuck. That must be the name of a cider. Liam should've stopped me, but he told me he thought I was just giving them another chance. Whatever. I drank a water and sipped a poopla cider, not even to its completion.
Liam and "I went with fish and chips, and chicken tikka masala, split them both. They were both fantastic. The fish was a much larger cut than I was used to in New Zealand with their newspaper wrapped fast food, flash fried fish and chips. We played a bit on the phones setting up a map of stars for our stay in London. One thing that sounded pretty cool was this winter wonderland that was happening in hyde park. We decided we'd probably go later. Liam was pretty knackered so when we got the chance we went back to the room and checked in properly, at one of the slowest reception desks i've ever seen, and went to have a nap. We shared the bottom bunk and slept for a long while actually. I was wanting to get up a few times, but figured laying and relaxing meant more to me at the time than necessarily sight seeing and forcing myself to look around London right then. A mix of people travelled into and out of the room as we were there, but that was fine.
Eventually we decided it was time to make moves, and Liam got pretty focused on looking up some things to prepare for storage of his items while he's off to SE asia. I cleaned out the little wine glass I had stolen from the italian cheap wine shop we had gone to in venice, and filled it with this strange eggy alcohol that I totally forgot i had purchased whilst in Bruges, at the last beer shop we hit up before leaving. The texture was pretty gelatinous and it was kind of impossible to get out of the tiny jar that it was living in. So gross. I pulled it out with my finger and then tried to drink it. Lickign little bits, it tasted okay, but as with highly alcoholic jello shots, the second I got any sizeable chunk in my mouth, I was completely repulsed and could not continue to imbibe. Liam felt the same way, So I flicked the rest into a trash bin, washed the glass, and we stuck to this half bottle of wine [that we purchased for the train ride from berlin to amsterdam] which I had completely forgotton was in my bag. In retrospect, at this point I relised that we should've kept the absinthe from prague, since there was obviously no troubles with flying with open bottles of alcohol in our checked luggage.
Once we were sorted and good to go out, we were heading off to the winter wonderland that Liam had heard about, and seemed to be worthwhile. It looked like about a 20-30 minute walk, which we decided to venture in to, but not without the helping hand of some beers from the minimart nearby. Now, we both had been speculating that there was some, awful chance that in London you're not allowed to drink in the public. Unsure about any truth to this statement, we figured it woudl be worthwhile to ask the minimart owner whilst purchaisng beers. We asked for the cheapest one, and settled with 4 tallboys of carlsberg. He also told us that you are in fact not allowed to drink in the public in London, but can sometimes get away with it in a park. He also seemed to think taht the winter wonderland was definitely not reachable by foot, and we should take some bus to get there. We didn't really listn to any of his advice as we walked towards the park, and pretty openly drank on our walk over.
So we had been seeing christmas markets all over europe at this point.. Almost a christmas market in every city. They had similar feels and were basically the same repetative notion of little stalls with unnecessary purchases, gluwine, and strange snacks. We expected the same, but this winter wonderland was totally a different animal. You could see the ferris wheel from a while away, and walking thorugh this giant light-up signage really made for a new type of entrance. The entire space was filled with carnival rides, live music, tons of food and drinks, and buttloads of humans, at a massively spanning age range. I think it was definitely worthwhile to check out after the sun went down, though to be honest, at this time of year, the sun is down more than it's really ever up.
The Winter Wonderland stayed open until 10 pm, so we hung around through till near the end of that. Liam got a cider and i got a mulled wine in the beginning, both being extremely overpriced and not terribly tasty. We kept the clups though and For our final to carlsbergs, I used the privacy of the bathroom to fill the cups back with some beer. We hung out briefly in this carosel bar, where everyone was standing on this platform that was slowly spinning. I thoguht that was really cool. Also one of the live music groups we spent a while listening to was really cool. They were a 70s cover band, playing all the best 70s hits, drawing a large crowd of excited people, semi willing to boogie. There was this one dude who kept trying ot get other people to dance, which I was not really having any of. He then danced like a crazy person for a while, a solid source of entertainment. We were joking about the amount of drugs he must be on... such a tripper, but then also discussed how it's fucked up that we find it to be so strange for someone to properly enjoy their boogie style. It should be accepted to do what you want.
After a while we walked through the stalls, were fascinated by wind mobiles [the super colourful ones] and were building up a hunger, so headed out. At this point, I figured we might as well venture towards some of the sites I had marked on my map since they were all pretty close by and I was leaving pretty early the next day.
We walked to buckingham palace first, hanging out briefly looking at the dark building, as liam imparted some more history on me. The next stop was big ben, and parliament. It's weird going to all these sites because it's just like, "okay. yeah. I can take a picture of this like everyone in the world before me has, but it'll still be shittier than any picture I find in google image search." Idk. I find this giant clock kind of silly. When we got futher to trafalgar square though, we sat for a little while at these wooden tables and Liam told me the whole store about the fight and the man depicted as a statue. He had read up while we were at the pride of paddington, and I much appreciated to better story telling and concise summary that he was willing to give me. Thank's liam.
by now we were pretty starving and hadn't passed any beer shops, so were losing wind. I was pretty keen on still going out, but Liam needed food and sleep so we went to a mcdonalds to figure out our next move. He got a big mac and a cheeseburger. I got 20 nugs, with all the dipping sauces. Liam finished his big mac while we stayed in this area filled with drunk 20-something year olds, and helped me finish the chicken nuggets. He p9cketed the cheeseburger for later [ew, right? That' was my first thought, but his counter argument of it not really even being proper meat, sorta made sense. Whatever man.] I waited to go to the bathroom before we ventured out, and subeequently ventured home. The line for the bathroom was a scene, with drunk people freaking out about some homesls woman who tried to cut them. I was being quiet, because I honestly didn't care, but the dude in front of me was losing his shit, and asking me questions about whether or not i thought I could also cut him because I was wearing a 'christmas' hat. I was wearing my prague hat, buddy. not a christmas hat. There was a guard controlling the flow into and out of the bathroom, this strange unisex room, and there was a surveilance camera in the sink area that we could see from outside to know how many stalls were free. I thought it was kind of weird, but I apologised to the guard for all the drunk people being such a pain, used the toilet, and left.
Getting home on the tube took a little while, but Liam was pretty tired so I didn't mind it. Earlier we had discussed whether or not we should squeese into a little bed again, since it was our last night together, but when we got back he was playing on his computer, looking some things up, and I drifted off into slumber.
At about 3 am I awoke from a terrible nightmare -i don't remember it, but I remember feeling like i needed to fully wake up and sort myself out before going back to bed. I woke liam, and joined him on the top bunk. He said he tried to wake me, but i was too far asleep earlier.
We woke up pretty early and ventured downstairs for the free breafkast.. More hard boiled eggs and toast mostly. There was a toating machine that was pretty shitty, and we had to send our pieces of toast in multiple times to get them, well, toasty. They had individually wrapped pieces of different kinds of cheeses, which I had with my toast. Prettttyy good. I'm glad they didn't have this everywehre though. Way too easy to indulge with. We were sitting in an area wehre there were music videos playing on TV, sort of how MTV used to be. I saw a few sam smith videos and then it was maybe 9:30 so we ventured out, towards the science museum.
It looked to be about a 25 minute walk, or 27 minute tube ride. Worth the walk. We got there a little before 10am, when it opens, so queued up outside with all of the adults and their young children. Completely the wrong age group to be there, but we had a really awesome time. It's 'pay what you wish' for museums in London, a concept I'm pretty fond of, so for free we entered, and ran up to the top floor. The door we appraoced seemed to be the exit, but sneaky Liam pulled it open anyway and we went into the interactive, top floor exhibit. Definitely the best place to start, since of all the exhibits, it was worth it to not feel rushed at this one. We were the only people int he room for a long while, fucking around with the crazy interactive toys. They reminded mo of the science section at the otago museum wehre liam and I once raced cars based on brain waves. Here there were things to complete circuits. magnetic and static experiments, periscopes, a heat sensor camera [this was pretty cool. you could see yourself infrarred, and if you warm up your hands and touch the wall, then your hand print stayed for a period of time] among others. The worst thing there aws this spinny item to help you feel like an iceskater spinning in circles. I couldn't get it started so liam took the liberty of spinning me on it. I was terrified and didn't know how to stop, getting more and more nauseated. Awesome. I was able to stop it, but ugh. Still regret.
We continued arund the rest of the museum which had a history of medicine, walk through the creation of different scientific apparatuses, a study of different materials, and a section on energy usage. The history of medicine was okay, kinda of gross/scary. The crazy appartuses were really cool. A lot of old microscopes and telescopes and different tools taht seemed out of the ordinary and amazing for their time. Materials was pretty wahtever, and taht was by the end, and the energy usage section was kind of interesting. Tehre were a lot of interactive games and tasks set up for the user to fuck around with and 'save the city' or 'earn about making informed choices.' I couldn't save the city. There was this one thing in the middle that said not to touch and then explained that it was a piece to check if the user would be willing to touch that which says not to touch, especially after knowing that touching it would administer a small electric shock to the participant. I eventually tried. I don't think it was working that day.
I was a little rushed by the end of our journey at the museum, worrying about seeing everything before heading off to the airport, so not too much longer later, we got to a nearby tube station, off for the millennium bridge, by the tate museum. During this tube ride, Liam took out his pocketed cheeseburger and finally ate it. Ew. He offered me some, but I politely declined.
We got to the stop and I was having trouble orienting myself and figuring out wehre we should go to get to the millennium bridge,. We walked the wrong way a bit, but then figured it out. I'm a huge fan of the millenial bridge for a few reasons. Firstly, its an awesome design. It's strange and looks oddly bendable. It's also very modern looking, feeling like a strange piece to be sitting so close to such other magnificant, old structures. The other love for it comes from the fact that in one of the harry potter movies, it blows up in the beginning. Now the bridge is starting to get the same lock-treatment that a lot of bridges and fences in Europe are undergoing. We didn't put a lock on anything we went to, which I'm a bit upset about, but maybe next time. I think on the millenial bridge the locks look stupid, and from the bendable nature, I'd say the locks are probably not the safest of ideas.
I didn't think we had enough time to checkout the tate, but we crossed over to go to the christmas markets in front of the tate. It was at this point that I was really reminded about how all of the christmas markets look the same, and it was highly unnecessary for us to venture out there for that. Oh well. We walked through it and then ehaded towards the london bridge, the next site marked on my map, close to where we were.
So we were looking at it, thinking it was impossilbe for it to only be a 5 minute walk, like my phone was suggesting, from wehre we were. No way, man. We were pretty deep into the walk, kind of far from the water by the time that i saw the enterence to get onto the bridge. We walked up, and at least for me, this was the realiation that the london bridge is just some standard bridge. The tower bridge is the one I wanted to go to, and yes, it was way further. We got the recquisite photos out of our experience and continued on. What a weird disappointment haha, but mostly just my stupidity.
We took the tube off to camden market, an area that I thought was pretty cool the last time I was in london. Interesting shops and lots of people and food. Liam was kind of freaking out about getting a cell phone, and it looked like there were no shops of that type in this area. i felt bad but also didnt care to go to a cell shop and waste time that could be done after I leave for the airport. Oh well.
We wandered around and sampled different foods as we moved. I was looking for this shop called CyberDog that sells club/rave clothing and is a brick and morter club like experience. Couldn't find it at first, but eventually it popped up out of no where, so we waited on line [waited ON LINE] to get in. The place was crowded and bumping as much as I rememberd it. Liam really liked it, and i thought it was a worthwhile stop. We made it out, and i wondered what the rate of turnover for that store must be. I can't imagine even one out of every hundred people that enter the store purchase something. It's so expensive and so impractical.
We went towards japanese food after and sat on a bench splitting our noodles and mixed chicken. Pretty good, standard street food. By this time, the clock was not on our side and we headed towards the station. The station was incredibly packed, and it was impossible to navigate wehre to go. I made a guess, and picked the wrong direction. We had to get off the train we were on to switch lines. It wasn't entirely the wrong way, but the line we were using has a north and a south part. I went south, should've gone north.
Two changes later we finally stressfully made it back to the hostel, to quickly gather our things and make moves. Liaim was staying in london that night, but at a different hostel, so while I was off to the airport, he was going to his new little home. We hugged before putting on our packs, and traded sweatshirts. I gave him my favourite upenn sweater and got his sailing holidays quarter zip fleece instead. I also gave him that weird towel I had, since it's small and pretty useful and I can easily jsut order another one off of amazon the next time I go for an adventure.
We picked up two waterbottles from the minimart nearby before getting on the tube. I was feeling super dehydrated and thought water could be useful for the plane ride.
Our stops were two away from eachother, on the same line, so we sat together, sad, saying goodbye until Liam got off at south kensington. I definitely shed a tear or two before I landed in victoria, lost again and looking for the train to gatwick.
Unlike my last express gatwick-victoria train, the only way to get into the area where express trains went was to have an express ticket, so this time I had to be a normal person and take the slow train. It was fine, though I was sad the whole way and feeling pretty lost, but I made it to gatwick quite quickly, with a lot of time to spare.
I went to check in and the woman told me that my bag was to be considered oversized luggage because there were straps hanging from it [which really makes very little sense], so I brought it to that area and then continued with the security process. This was pretty new. Instead of being ushered to a line to wait to fill your basket for security, you were sent to a spot, which was already among the line you were going to, to fill a basket and send your shit down into the xray machine. It was quick and super hectic feeling, but there was way less downtime and it seemed a million times more efficient. Whern the items came back otu the otherside, everyone was also a bit more frantic and it was kind of stressful getting my things back on my person, quickly enough. There was an easel'd note pad at the end to write your comments. I wrote that it was stressful and efficient and I liked it.
I walked through the airport and saw that the internet only worked in 45 minute chunks, so assumed that it would be impossible to find tali, who definitely already went through her 45 minutes. I sat, texting liam for my first 45, plugged into the wall. Then I was movign around a bit. Walked to the gate, walked back, turned on the 45 minutes on my other phone, and then at a bar, quite obviously drunk, I saw tali. She had made friends over there and apparently had been drinking for the past couple of hours. I sat there briefly, spent my last few pounds, and then we raced towards our airplane to get on before they took off. I spent my actual last few pounds on a bag of doritos and a malteasers bar. Great dinner for the airplane.
we sat together on the plane and I had to keep quieting her down during the security video because she wouldn't stop yarning about her trip. Too drunk. Eventually she passed out, adn I wrote a little, watched "Crazy Stupid Love" and then watched "The Great Gatsby." Some sleep was had, but I was mostly just sad and confused to have said goodbye, and to be getting shipped off back to home, to JFK.
When we landed, it was the longest customs Line I've had to wait on in yaers. It took easily over an hour and there was an entire electronic part wehre you had to fill out your infomration on a little computer and then get a print out slip that you brought to the passport control window you were interacting with. Pretty weird, and I'd say extremely inefficient since no one knew wehre to go with their tickets, most of the computers were not in use, and there was just overall commotion. At least by the time we got out, all the bags were already moving on the carosel so finding mine was a breeze, and we were off to venture back to nyc.
Once we were sorted and good to go out, we were heading off to the winter wonderland that Liam had heard about, and seemed to be worthwhile. It looked like about a 20-30 minute walk, which we decided to venture in to, but not without the helping hand of some beers from the minimart nearby. Now, we both had been speculating that there was some, awful chance that in London you're not allowed to drink in the public. Unsure about any truth to this statement, we figured it woudl be worthwhile to ask the minimart owner whilst purchaisng beers. We asked for the cheapest one, and settled with 4 tallboys of carlsberg. He also told us that you are in fact not allowed to drink in the public in London, but can sometimes get away with it in a park. He also seemed to think taht the winter wonderland was definitely not reachable by foot, and we should take some bus to get there. We didn't really listn to any of his advice as we walked towards the park, and pretty openly drank on our walk over.
So we had been seeing christmas markets all over europe at this point.. Almost a christmas market in every city. They had similar feels and were basically the same repetative notion of little stalls with unnecessary purchases, gluwine, and strange snacks. We expected the same, but this winter wonderland was totally a different animal. You could see the ferris wheel from a while away, and walking thorugh this giant light-up signage really made for a new type of entrance. The entire space was filled with carnival rides, live music, tons of food and drinks, and buttloads of humans, at a massively spanning age range. I think it was definitely worthwhile to check out after the sun went down, though to be honest, at this time of year, the sun is down more than it's really ever up.
The Winter Wonderland stayed open until 10 pm, so we hung around through till near the end of that. Liam got a cider and i got a mulled wine in the beginning, both being extremely overpriced and not terribly tasty. We kept the clups though and For our final to carlsbergs, I used the privacy of the bathroom to fill the cups back with some beer. We hung out briefly in this carosel bar, where everyone was standing on this platform that was slowly spinning. I thoguht that was really cool. Also one of the live music groups we spent a while listening to was really cool. They were a 70s cover band, playing all the best 70s hits, drawing a large crowd of excited people, semi willing to boogie. There was this one dude who kept trying ot get other people to dance, which I was not really having any of. He then danced like a crazy person for a while, a solid source of entertainment. We were joking about the amount of drugs he must be on... such a tripper, but then also discussed how it's fucked up that we find it to be so strange for someone to properly enjoy their boogie style. It should be accepted to do what you want.
After a while we walked through the stalls, were fascinated by wind mobiles [the super colourful ones] and were building up a hunger, so headed out. At this point, I figured we might as well venture towards some of the sites I had marked on my map since they were all pretty close by and I was leaving pretty early the next day.
We walked to buckingham palace first, hanging out briefly looking at the dark building, as liam imparted some more history on me. The next stop was big ben, and parliament. It's weird going to all these sites because it's just like, "okay. yeah. I can take a picture of this like everyone in the world before me has, but it'll still be shittier than any picture I find in google image search." Idk. I find this giant clock kind of silly. When we got futher to trafalgar square though, we sat for a little while at these wooden tables and Liam told me the whole store about the fight and the man depicted as a statue. He had read up while we were at the pride of paddington, and I much appreciated to better story telling and concise summary that he was willing to give me. Thank's liam.
by now we were pretty starving and hadn't passed any beer shops, so were losing wind. I was pretty keen on still going out, but Liam needed food and sleep so we went to a mcdonalds to figure out our next move. He got a big mac and a cheeseburger. I got 20 nugs, with all the dipping sauces. Liam finished his big mac while we stayed in this area filled with drunk 20-something year olds, and helped me finish the chicken nuggets. He p9cketed the cheeseburger for later [ew, right? That' was my first thought, but his counter argument of it not really even being proper meat, sorta made sense. Whatever man.] I waited to go to the bathroom before we ventured out, and subeequently ventured home. The line for the bathroom was a scene, with drunk people freaking out about some homesls woman who tried to cut them. I was being quiet, because I honestly didn't care, but the dude in front of me was losing his shit, and asking me questions about whether or not i thought I could also cut him because I was wearing a 'christmas' hat. I was wearing my prague hat, buddy. not a christmas hat. There was a guard controlling the flow into and out of the bathroom, this strange unisex room, and there was a surveilance camera in the sink area that we could see from outside to know how many stalls were free. I thought it was kind of weird, but I apologised to the guard for all the drunk people being such a pain, used the toilet, and left.
Getting home on the tube took a little while, but Liam was pretty tired so I didn't mind it. Earlier we had discussed whether or not we should squeese into a little bed again, since it was our last night together, but when we got back he was playing on his computer, looking some things up, and I drifted off into slumber.
At about 3 am I awoke from a terrible nightmare -i don't remember it, but I remember feeling like i needed to fully wake up and sort myself out before going back to bed. I woke liam, and joined him on the top bunk. He said he tried to wake me, but i was too far asleep earlier.
We woke up pretty early and ventured downstairs for the free breafkast.. More hard boiled eggs and toast mostly. There was a toating machine that was pretty shitty, and we had to send our pieces of toast in multiple times to get them, well, toasty. They had individually wrapped pieces of different kinds of cheeses, which I had with my toast. Prettttyy good. I'm glad they didn't have this everywehre though. Way too easy to indulge with. We were sitting in an area wehre there were music videos playing on TV, sort of how MTV used to be. I saw a few sam smith videos and then it was maybe 9:30 so we ventured out, towards the science museum.
It looked to be about a 25 minute walk, or 27 minute tube ride. Worth the walk. We got there a little before 10am, when it opens, so queued up outside with all of the adults and their young children. Completely the wrong age group to be there, but we had a really awesome time. It's 'pay what you wish' for museums in London, a concept I'm pretty fond of, so for free we entered, and ran up to the top floor. The door we appraoced seemed to be the exit, but sneaky Liam pulled it open anyway and we went into the interactive, top floor exhibit. Definitely the best place to start, since of all the exhibits, it was worth it to not feel rushed at this one. We were the only people int he room for a long while, fucking around with the crazy interactive toys. They reminded mo of the science section at the otago museum wehre liam and I once raced cars based on brain waves. Here there were things to complete circuits. magnetic and static experiments, periscopes, a heat sensor camera [this was pretty cool. you could see yourself infrarred, and if you warm up your hands and touch the wall, then your hand print stayed for a period of time] among others. The worst thing there aws this spinny item to help you feel like an iceskater spinning in circles. I couldn't get it started so liam took the liberty of spinning me on it. I was terrified and didn't know how to stop, getting more and more nauseated. Awesome. I was able to stop it, but ugh. Still regret.
We continued arund the rest of the museum which had a history of medicine, walk through the creation of different scientific apparatuses, a study of different materials, and a section on energy usage. The history of medicine was okay, kinda of gross/scary. The crazy appartuses were really cool. A lot of old microscopes and telescopes and different tools taht seemed out of the ordinary and amazing for their time. Materials was pretty wahtever, and taht was by the end, and the energy usage section was kind of interesting. Tehre were a lot of interactive games and tasks set up for the user to fuck around with and 'save the city' or 'earn about making informed choices.' I couldn't save the city. There was this one thing in the middle that said not to touch and then explained that it was a piece to check if the user would be willing to touch that which says not to touch, especially after knowing that touching it would administer a small electric shock to the participant. I eventually tried. I don't think it was working that day.
I was a little rushed by the end of our journey at the museum, worrying about seeing everything before heading off to the airport, so not too much longer later, we got to a nearby tube station, off for the millennium bridge, by the tate museum. During this tube ride, Liam took out his pocketed cheeseburger and finally ate it. Ew. He offered me some, but I politely declined.
We got to the stop and I was having trouble orienting myself and figuring out wehre we should go to get to the millennium bridge,. We walked the wrong way a bit, but then figured it out. I'm a huge fan of the millenial bridge for a few reasons. Firstly, its an awesome design. It's strange and looks oddly bendable. It's also very modern looking, feeling like a strange piece to be sitting so close to such other magnificant, old structures. The other love for it comes from the fact that in one of the harry potter movies, it blows up in the beginning. Now the bridge is starting to get the same lock-treatment that a lot of bridges and fences in Europe are undergoing. We didn't put a lock on anything we went to, which I'm a bit upset about, but maybe next time. I think on the millenial bridge the locks look stupid, and from the bendable nature, I'd say the locks are probably not the safest of ideas.
I didn't think we had enough time to checkout the tate, but we crossed over to go to the christmas markets in front of the tate. It was at this point that I was really reminded about how all of the christmas markets look the same, and it was highly unnecessary for us to venture out there for that. Oh well. We walked through it and then ehaded towards the london bridge, the next site marked on my map, close to where we were.
So we were looking at it, thinking it was impossilbe for it to only be a 5 minute walk, like my phone was suggesting, from wehre we were. No way, man. We were pretty deep into the walk, kind of far from the water by the time that i saw the enterence to get onto the bridge. We walked up, and at least for me, this was the realiation that the london bridge is just some standard bridge. The tower bridge is the one I wanted to go to, and yes, it was way further. We got the recquisite photos out of our experience and continued on. What a weird disappointment haha, but mostly just my stupidity.
We took the tube off to camden market, an area that I thought was pretty cool the last time I was in london. Interesting shops and lots of people and food. Liam was kind of freaking out about getting a cell phone, and it looked like there were no shops of that type in this area. i felt bad but also didnt care to go to a cell shop and waste time that could be done after I leave for the airport. Oh well.
We wandered around and sampled different foods as we moved. I was looking for this shop called CyberDog that sells club/rave clothing and is a brick and morter club like experience. Couldn't find it at first, but eventually it popped up out of no where, so we waited on line [waited ON LINE] to get in. The place was crowded and bumping as much as I rememberd it. Liam really liked it, and i thought it was a worthwhile stop. We made it out, and i wondered what the rate of turnover for that store must be. I can't imagine even one out of every hundred people that enter the store purchase something. It's so expensive and so impractical.
We went towards japanese food after and sat on a bench splitting our noodles and mixed chicken. Pretty good, standard street food. By this time, the clock was not on our side and we headed towards the station. The station was incredibly packed, and it was impossible to navigate wehre to go. I made a guess, and picked the wrong direction. We had to get off the train we were on to switch lines. It wasn't entirely the wrong way, but the line we were using has a north and a south part. I went south, should've gone north.
Two changes later we finally stressfully made it back to the hostel, to quickly gather our things and make moves. Liaim was staying in london that night, but at a different hostel, so while I was off to the airport, he was going to his new little home. We hugged before putting on our packs, and traded sweatshirts. I gave him my favourite upenn sweater and got his sailing holidays quarter zip fleece instead. I also gave him that weird towel I had, since it's small and pretty useful and I can easily jsut order another one off of amazon the next time I go for an adventure.
We picked up two waterbottles from the minimart nearby before getting on the tube. I was feeling super dehydrated and thought water could be useful for the plane ride.
Our stops were two away from eachother, on the same line, so we sat together, sad, saying goodbye until Liam got off at south kensington. I definitely shed a tear or two before I landed in victoria, lost again and looking for the train to gatwick.
Unlike my last express gatwick-victoria train, the only way to get into the area where express trains went was to have an express ticket, so this time I had to be a normal person and take the slow train. It was fine, though I was sad the whole way and feeling pretty lost, but I made it to gatwick quite quickly, with a lot of time to spare.
I went to check in and the woman told me that my bag was to be considered oversized luggage because there were straps hanging from it [which really makes very little sense], so I brought it to that area and then continued with the security process. This was pretty new. Instead of being ushered to a line to wait to fill your basket for security, you were sent to a spot, which was already among the line you were going to, to fill a basket and send your shit down into the xray machine. It was quick and super hectic feeling, but there was way less downtime and it seemed a million times more efficient. Whern the items came back otu the otherside, everyone was also a bit more frantic and it was kind of stressful getting my things back on my person, quickly enough. There was an easel'd note pad at the end to write your comments. I wrote that it was stressful and efficient and I liked it.
I walked through the airport and saw that the internet only worked in 45 minute chunks, so assumed that it would be impossible to find tali, who definitely already went through her 45 minutes. I sat, texting liam for my first 45, plugged into the wall. Then I was movign around a bit. Walked to the gate, walked back, turned on the 45 minutes on my other phone, and then at a bar, quite obviously drunk, I saw tali. She had made friends over there and apparently had been drinking for the past couple of hours. I sat there briefly, spent my last few pounds, and then we raced towards our airplane to get on before they took off. I spent my actual last few pounds on a bag of doritos and a malteasers bar. Great dinner for the airplane.
we sat together on the plane and I had to keep quieting her down during the security video because she wouldn't stop yarning about her trip. Too drunk. Eventually she passed out, adn I wrote a little, watched "Crazy Stupid Love" and then watched "The Great Gatsby." Some sleep was had, but I was mostly just sad and confused to have said goodbye, and to be getting shipped off back to home, to JFK.
When we landed, it was the longest customs Line I've had to wait on in yaers. It took easily over an hour and there was an entire electronic part wehre you had to fill out your infomration on a little computer and then get a print out slip that you brought to the passport control window you were interacting with. Pretty weird, and I'd say extremely inefficient since no one knew wehre to go with their tickets, most of the computers were not in use, and there was just overall commotion. At least by the time we got out, all the bags were already moving on the carosel so finding mine was a breeze, and we were off to venture back to nyc.
End
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