London Part Deux

Yes, Gary aka Krl, the deux was for you.

Well kids my last entry only took you up through my first couple of days in London.  Well I did the majority of things those first couple of days.  I spent Saturday walking around a bit I did Piccadilly Circus and down the street.  I hit up a couple of little side markets and bought a really cool amber ring for myself.  'Then I had High Tea at a restaurant called Richoux.  Yes, finger sandwiches, tea, scones with clotted cream and pastries.  It was wonderful.  Since I was by myself I took the opportunity to catch up on my journaling.  Yes for those of you that didn't know in addition to the blog I keep a daily journal of events. So I journaled and ate and people watched.  I then scooted over to Harrod's and took a look see.  It's of course gorgeous and I found my very own material girl Mecca in the women's shoe department.  Oh yes, Prada and Gucci, and Chanel Oh My!!!  I looked and drooled and was smart enough not to try any on because then I would want to buy and that would bust my budget.  But I did find an adorable pair of ankle boots that were only 95 pounds (roughly 200 $) and I considered trying them on then dismissed it knowing I would really want to buy them so I kept chanting to myself "Save for Australia, Save for New Zealand".  It did the job and I made it out only buying a bottle of water in the food section so I could get a Harrod's bag.  After that I ran back to my hostel via the wonderful tubes and changed clothes and then went out to the theater district to go see the London production of Wicked.  And yes it was fabulous!!!!!!!  My Aunt Katie had told me it was a good show and I have wanted to see it since I went to New York so now I got my chance.  I splurged and got a really good and expensive seat.  But let me tell you it was well worth the money.  The woman that played Elfaba was amazing and gave me goose bumps when she sang a couple of the songs.  I give the author of the book and the playwrights kudos for coming up with a very creative twist on the Wizard of Oz.  If you haven't seen the musical or read the book I highly recommend it.

So that was more or less my Saturday.  Sunday I spent walking through Knotting Hill and the Portobello market.  A girl at my hostel had warned me that Portabello market had some good stuff and some junk and she was right.  There were some cool booths that had hand made jewelry and trinkets and some others that were pretty much garage sale items.  Classic Vintage next to last years styles.  But it was entertaining to see none the less.  I got a crepe to snack on during my walk and when I had seen all a caught the tube back to Trafalgar Square which I had yet to see.  It was a shame I hadn't gone earlier in the week as on Sunday a concert was going to be played there that night so it was all blocked off.  I gave and went back to the British Museum to finish off the rest of it.  I really had to go back and see the Rosetta Stone.  Any anthro/history/archeology majors know it is a monumental piece that helped Champllion (spelling?) crack the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the early 19th Century.  Up until then no one was able to read the Hieroglyphics so abundant in Egypt.  So that was amazing.  But let me tell you that thing is huge!!!!  I knew it was a tablet and only half a table at that but it's like10-12 inches thick and a couple of feet tall.  After that I was running out of time so I ran through the Assyrian section and some of the Egyptian stuff before I got kicked out.  I went back to the hostel and met up with one of the American girls I had over the last couple of days we decided to grab some dinner and a beer together and had an enjoyable time chatting away about home and college and such.  I was back in my room by 9:00 pm to get ready for bed because I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a taxi to the train station and then the train to the airport to catch my 7:20 am flight to Frankfurt.

And yes, I was actually up at 3:30 I got my taxi at 4:15.  It was my one and only London taxi ride in one of their world famous taxis.  I caught the 4:55 express train to Stansted airport and got in about 5:50.  I then checked in for my flight and had to pay overweight fees, again.  But the nice lady at check in only charged me for 4 kilos instead of 5.  So I paid yet another 50$ for my heavy suitcase and then attempted to go through security only to be told that they had a strict one carry on only policy so I couldn't take my backpack and purse.  Since I couldn't fit my purse in by backpack I had to go back and check my backpack.  The same nice lady at check in checked my bag or me without charging me for it.  Once I got through the pain in the butt security (Yes my bracelet set off the metal detector and I got frisked, again) I made my way over to the closest coffee stand which happened to be Starbucks and got coffee and a blueberry muffin.  Then went and hung out at my gate.  Just to show you how tired I was I feel asleep before take off and didn't wake up until over half way through the flight.  When I did wake up it took me a minute to realize we were already in the air and I had slept through take off.

I made it into Frankfurt Hahn without any problems and caught a bus into Heidelberg which is my next stop.  Stay tuned for more on Heidelberg coming up next.

All in all London was fab a special thanks to Juliana, Teresa, Jimmy and Nick who I had a great time getting to know in London.