Returned from three nights in London yesterday, and am here to update you on our escapades in the great city. We trained it up to London on midday Tuesday, and found our way to the outskirts in Hammersmith where our accommodation was. Clean, which is all you really want, but with funny quirks, like instead of having the toilet paper in the loo, they supplied rolls of it to you in your room... Which was crap because in the bleariness of the morning you would often stumble to the toilet only to find you were missing the essentials! But otherwise nice, close to the tube station and only a quick ride into the centre of London. By the time we settled in we had a quick dinner at a local Italian restaurant and back to the room.
Wednesday morning we went to Westminster Abbey, and did an audio tour. The abbey was founded in 960, and has been the coronation church of Britain since 1066, which is just mind boggling as parts of it are almost 1000 years old... It is stunningly glorious, and full of so much history...everyone is buried there, from Catherine and Mary, the battling Tudor sisters, to Charles Darwin the creator of evolutionary theory. A must do for fans of English history! The abbey is right near the iconic houses of parliament and Big Ben too, so got a couple of snapshots of that too below :) quick lunch and a bit of a sit down in St. James's park and then on the train to the Warner Brothers HARRY POTTER STUDIO TOUR! I thought I was going to piss myself in excitement. When you go in, the first room is a cinema where you sit down and watch a quick movie where Dan Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint introduce the tour and tell you a little bit about production of the movies. At the end of the short movie, they say something like "follow us into the world of Harry Potter," and disappear through the doors of the great hall. Then the cinema wall LIFTS... And you're looking at the actual doors of the great hall, which they then open into the fully standing set. I almost cried, it was so dramatic and so damn cool! They invited us in, and you get to walk in the actual set as it was, tables all set, decorations... Oh god it was amazing, like being sucked into the world of HP. The rest of the tour was phenomenal, we got to see sets like the Gryffindor common room, the potions classroom, the Burrow, Diagon Alley... And much much more. Not only that but they had lots of props, costumes and set pieces, and showed you the making of it all-- it really makes you appreciate the amount of effort and detail that went into the making of these movies. But enough blabbering about Harry Potter, for those of you interested you can see all the video footage I took when I get back :) You should have seen the souvenir shop at the end of the tour though, you could tell there were people spending hundreds of dollars on robes and wands, honeydukes sweets, you name it, they bought it. I did purchase Hermione's time turner for myself, can't wait to display that on the mantelpiece when I get home! Moving on...
Thursday we met up with the esteemed J.C. Cornwall at Piccadilly Circus (London is like walking around a monopoly board), where we had a terrible lunch in a pub, but enjoyed talking shit and catching up. We then headed over to Madame Tussaud's, where I have several photos of Harry and Josh doing disturbing things to celebrities, and more fairly normal ones of me kissing everyone from Henry VIII to George Clooney (got that one for you, mum!). The place was incredibly crowded and there were several waxes you couldn't even get close too, however I did elbow my way through teenage girls to get photos of myself with Justin Bieber for you, Michaela!! That took a couple of hours, and then off to Covent Garden for a quick drink before Josh had to catch his train home. Harry and I weren't ready to end the evening yet, so we tubed over to Knightsbridge to visit the ever-famous Harrods. To be honest, it is the most upscale, posh place to shop, and entirely intimidating. The majority of women wandering around were in burqas, and I just know underneath all that those women are wearing expensive Chanel clothes, buying Gucci sunglasses and Prada handbags! It certainly was an experience to have though, just for the icon that is Harrods itself. Back to the room, dead tired so maccas for tea (which is not as good as in oz) and into bed.
Friday morning we only had a couple of hours to kill before our train back early afternoon, so we decided on the museum of natural history. We got there right on opening which was lucky, as it just got busier and busier as the hours wore on. Great collection though, their dinosaur exhibit was amazing, definitely worth a visit. The building itself is a piece of architecture to behold, not old on the scale of the abbey but certainly beautiful. We only had two hours there, which was enough after pushing through hordes of school groups, but you could definitely waste a whole day exploring all the exhibitions. Trained home from Waterloo (I was defeated you won the war... Sorry, had to) back to John's, and collapsed exhausted on the bed. But onward march, quick trip to the supermarket to pick stuff up for tea, eat, and on to a gig of John's down in Bournemouth with his old bandmate Stuart. Fabulous live! Had a couple of drinks with housemates Cat and Captain, lovely time all round. Collapsed into bed and spent all today doing nothing but sleeping and eating. Bliss. Winding down now, and looking forward to the next stage of our trip in continental Europe, which begins Tuesday. You may not hear from us for another week or more, off to Paris on Friday, there for 5 days. Will definitely endeavour to do a post at least half way through so as I don't forget it all! Please keep emailing us and letting us know what you're up to xoxox
No comments:
Post a Comment