London - Day 6

Internet café @ Clink; Royalty; Lene @ Thornton's; Camilla suited up

Day 6 - Wednesday

Since today was our last day in London, we spent most of the morning packing and checking out, and thus we didn't wander about as much. We did, however, still have time to go to Oxford Street one final time. At Uniqlo, I was able to peer pressure Camilla into buying a suit. In all fairness, it did look amazing on her, though. Suit up! We also went to Thornton's, where we bought some Thornton's toffee and chocolate. After that we went back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and we just had to take some pictures with the Prince William and (at that time Princess-to-be) Kate Middleton cardboard cutouts in the reception. Then we headed off to the airport.

Taking the bus from King's Cross St.Pancras to Liverpool Street, from where the airport express bus would take us to the airport, was easier said than done. We had no trouble finding the right bus, but as we were seven people, with the luggage of at least seven people, it got a bit cramped. Even more so when two baby strollers entered the bus. Finding the bus stop at Liverpool Street was slightly harder, since there was some kind of construction work going on, making the bus take a new route. Fortunately, an old lady sitting next to me told us not to get off at the first stop named Liverpool Street, and even though it looked like we were going far and/or in circles, we did get there in the end.

Of course, when we finally got there, the bus was late. When it finally came, though, there was lots of space, and barely any passengers at all. We all got to the airport in one piece, and in one group, but by then we were a bit late, and were told to stand in a priority queue, so we'd make it to the plane. After checking in (and shopping at the duty free), we ran most of the way to the gate (which was surprisingly far away), and even though Margrethe fell behind, we all made it on time. As it was Ryanair, we did, however, have lots of time despite the fact that boarding was ending in five minutes. That's Ryanair for you.

Phew. That was all from my trip to London. From now on, there'll be sporadic posts about my dull student life (and my trip to Edinburgh in June).

DFTBA!

London - Day 5

Soho, Totoro, milk tea, scooter seats, Soho is watching you.

Day 5 - Tuesday

Today, we returned to Oxford Street, Soho and Lomography where I bought a Diana Flash for my film cameras. Then we walked to the end of Regent Street, almost to Piccadilly Circus and stopped by Lush to by some lotions. Luna tried to return a ring for a friend, but it turned out you had to go to the exact shop where you bought it, meaning we'd have to go to York. That being unlikely, we went to Camden Lock Market again, though unfortunately, I did not get the chance to look around the Horse Tunnel/Stables Market, since it was already quite late. I did however buy a delicious cup of milk tea, complete with tapioca. Yummy!

DFTBA!

London - Day 4

St. Paul's, Tate Modern, Niko, the TARDIS, the Clock Tower, Tower Bridge.

Day 4 - Monday

We started the day by all going to St. Paul's Cathedral, where only Knut was willing to pay the fee to enter. The rest of us sat down at a Starbucks nearby and had some coffee/tea. We bought some lunch at the shop next to it, and when Knut came back we started walking towards the Thames. We then split up, once again, and Nikoline, Lene, Margrethe and I continued on our quest to find a river bus/boat tour. After a bit of walking, reaching the river, crossing Blackfriars Bridge, and walking further down the river (past the Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe), we finally found a port that was open for business. We took the boat a bit downstream to the St. Katharine's Pier, and then up to Westminster Pier. On our way there we passed under Tower Bridge, London Bridge and Waterloo Bridge (among others) and sailed past the HMS Belfast and The London Eye, before ending up right below the Clock Tower (also mistakenly called Big Ben, which is in fact the bell within). We snapped some pictures and then set off to Leicester Square to find some cool shops and a purikuri machine near Chinatown.

We found a total of three cool and nerdy shops (Orbital Comics & Collectibles, The Cinema Store and Forbidden Planet), with a variety of fun stuff. My favourite was Forbidden Planet, simply because it had a TARDIS replica inside, and also a great selection of Doctor Who merch. I ended up only buying a TARDIS mug (no, it wasn't bigger on the inside), which made me giddy with excitement and also proud since I spent less than £15 in the shop.

After fulfilling our nerdy needs, we had a snack at a cupcake shop, and then went to look for the purikuri machine. It was well hidden, but at last we found it, and after a lot of talking from the Chinese lady in charge of the machine, we got to take some pictures and decorate them. When we had spent more than enough time editing our pictures, we headed downstairs to look at a very Chinese/Japanese shop, and I bought a tiny Totoro figurine. Finally, we walked into Chinatown, and had Japanese(!!!) curry for dinner. Great service, decent value for money and delicious food.

Next blog post (day 5) soon.
DFTBA!

London - Day 3

Hyde Park x2, Chinatown, Hyde Park x2 and the Natural History Museum.

Day 3 - Sunday

Since Sunday was Easter Sunday, and all the big shops were closed, we decided to all go to Hyde park and then to the Natural History Museum. We walked through the park, past The Royal Albert Hall, and continued for quite a while, before we ended up at the museum. We walked around for an hour or two before going back to Hyde park again, but this time we took a bus. We ended up on the east side of the park (while we had walked north to south earlier), and being a bit tired from all the walking, we found a nice spot and sat down. We sat there for long time, basking in the sun.

In the late afternoon Camilla, Luna, Knut and I went to Leicester Square, hoping we would find Chinatown, which Luna claimed was near the station. Luna was, in fact, right, and the four of us shared a Chinese combo meal (or whatever it's called). Both the food and the price was a good contrast to the bad experience we had had in the Indian restaurant the night before, and we left Chinatown happy.

London - Day 2

Day 2 - Saturday

King's Cross, Regent Street, Morris dancers? and Regent's Canal in Camden

On our first full day in London, we decided to split up. We were, after all, seven people travelling together. Luna, Lene, Margrethe and I went to Oxford Street to check out the shopping possibilities. We ended up spending most of our time off Oxford street, wandering the smaller streets of Soho, and among other things checking out a camera shop that Margrethe knew. She had shown us one of her cool little analogue cameras, and I was intrigueg, so when we entered the shop I fell completely in love with Lomography (the name of the shop). I ended up buying two cameras, the Fisheye 2 and the Diana Mini, as well as two packs of films (3 rolls of 400 ISO for cloudy days and 3 rolls of 100 ISO for sunny days). Luna also bought the Fisheye 2.

When we walked out of the shop, we found ourselves next to a crowd who were watching some dancers. I'm not completely sure what kind of dance they were doing, but it looked like a traditional dance, and since it was St. George's Day, my guess is they were Morris dancers (not that I have a clue).

After watching some dancing, we took the tube up to Camden and walked through the market. Lene and I got separated from Luna and Margrethe, and when they got tired and went home, we decided to go check out the Camden Lock Market, which Lene had been to once before.

In the evening we had Indian food, which was not only overpriced, but also billed us for the bread we got before the meal (which they didn't tell us wasn't free). (Meanwhile, Nikoline, Knut and Camilla had been to a micro brewery, and when we met them again they were quite tipsy.)

Tomorrow: Day 3 in London.

DFTBA!

London

Picture courtesy of Lene (borrowing my Canon 450D).

This easter I went to London with some friends. It's the first time I haven't been with my family during easter, just like this New Year's Eve (2010-2011) was the first one with friends rather than family. I am a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to celebrating holidays, so it was weird not being with my family both at the start of the year and this Easter. It was a lot of fun though.
So, as I said, I went to London, which was quite different from my previous Easters in the mountains, when I've been skiing. The weather was a bit better than in Oslo. Most notably temperature-wise, as it was more summer-y with around 20 degrees centigrade (compared to 15 in Oslo).
I will try to blog about one day at a time, so that there won't be one massive post today, and none tomorrow and the day after and so on. Today you'll have a short intro to the trip, and then my first day in London.

Day 1 - Friday
The first day was the day we left Oslo, and arrived in London. Not a lot happened, since we landed at 23.00. But we did ride a classic London cab from Liverpool Street station to our hostel Clink78 close to King's Cross station. And when we came into our room, someone had taken one of the beds we were given (yes, they had given us certain beds, rather than letting us choose).

Tomorrow's post (Tuesday) will be about my second day in London.

DFTBA!

Rice

So, as I was saying in my last post (or rather writing in my last post), I was doing a bit of cleaning. While hoovering the floor, I managed to knock over my rice cooker, and it fell down from the kitchen counter. At first it seemed like the only damage was a dent in the bowl, which made it near impossible to insert it into the cooker "body", but when I decided to make sushi last night it didn't work. I turned it on, and started slicing cucumber, avocado and salmon, but it just didn't get hot. So I looked at it, moved it round and wiggled the plug and it worked! But when I turned it back round it stopped working.. In the end, I put the handle of a knife under the plug to support it, and even though there was a gap between the bowl and the lid, the rice got cooked.

I <3 sushi!

DFTBA!