London Ding Dong

I guess I’ll just pick up where I left you all on the previous post. Friday night we got the majority of the exchange group together and went out. There seem to be two “clubs” here where everyone wants to hang out. The Litton Tree and the Pure. On the way there I had already noticed that all of the pubs had hired doormen to check for ages and considering we were with a big group I could already smell trouble. Needless to say I was right. The first club we went to, the Litton Tree, the doorman didn’t want to recognize an ID card which had the date spelled out in a way he didn’t see fit. So the group moved on to Pure, where the doormen were actually nice and didn’t even feel the need to check out ID’s.

So our group was in, 4 Dutch, 2 Portuguese, 2 Swedes, 4 French, and I have the feeling I might have forgotten about some of them, if you’re one of them don’t be offended. We had a blast there; we drank a lot and made fun of the locals. It’s probably because they are locked on an island, but the British sense of “style” can hardly be classified as style. I won’t go into too much detail but it seems to be very popular to wear less when you are more, hope that makes sense.

After arriving home at 3 am, my Saturday was wasted basically. I spend most of the day sleeping and other than that I didn’t do much. I went to bed early as well again because the following day we were off to London! We had arranged that we would meet at the train station at 9:15 Sunday morning and the Portuguese people, who had been here since September, offered to give us a tour of London.

So Sunday morning we all took the train to go and see London. It was about half an hour before we were in London and then we took the tube (metro/underground) to Piccadilly Circus. When you see a map of the underground system in London it will look like just a couple of lines crossing each other at random places, but once you start using it you see that there’s actually a system to it, and that the system works. I must say though that even on the Sunday all the underground trains were packed, only at night did it calm down a bit. So yeah we were at Piccadilly Circus and only once you walk up from the underground do you realize where you have gone to. A big city, with lots of big buildings and a lot of traffic.

From the Piccadilly Circus station we then went off to see Buckingham Palace. On the way there we came across randomly scattered groups of people dressed up in 17th century battle outfits, complete with pikes, spears and swords. We thought that they would go off to do something interesting, but we didn’t get to experience it, although we came across them later on in London as well. So we arrived at Buckingham Palace and there were large groups of tourist waiting around and the police had blocked of the main road we decided to stay around for a bit and see if anything interesting would happen. After about half an hour of standing in the cold weather (it was sunny, but still very cold), a marching band passed by in what I guess what traditional clothing, followed directly by about 20 men in what appeared to be WWII nazi uniforms carrying machine guns. So what we had witnessed was probably the best protected marching band of Britain. Right after they had entered the gates of Buckingham palace we did see some big black hats walking around in the distance so we had also witnessed the changing of the guard from a distance.

We continued on into London and walked through a park, I must admit though that I can’t remember the name and pretty soon we were staring at the “Big Ben”. Walking up to it I don’t really know why they call it the Big Ben, I didn’t really find the size of it that impressive, they could have just called it Ben I suppose. We spent a good half hour taking pictures of the Big Ben and the rest of the group really got into taking pictures of themselves in the, I guess famous, red London phone booths. I found the temptation great to do it as well, but I ended up not doing it because it didn’t seem as original anymore. Oh and all the pictures I will just put at the end of the blog this time because I think it’ll be quite a lot of them and might keep this easier to read and follow. So from the Big Ben we continued on a little bit to see the Thames river and the London Eye from a distance. Only then did I get an impression of the size of London, all along the shores of the Thames was London and it literally was as far as you could see.

Now, as I am writing this I’m not completely sure of the chronological order of everything anymore. I might get things wrong and leave parts out, but that was just because there were so many impressions in one day. So basically what we did was walk through London the whole day. I think we saw everything there is to see basically for the typical tourist route through London. We had lunch in an Irish pub in what seemed to be the China town of London, they wanted us to pay for our food and drinks before we had actually gotten them, which was weird but it ended up being a real good burger and a very tasty pint of Guinness. I think it was after this that we went on to see the Tower Bridge and the London Eye from a bit closer. We did end up walking across the Tower Bridge, which really was an impressive bridge considering the size of the towers in the middle of the river. And right after we had gotten to the other side of the bridge we got in the bus because all of feet started to hurt. Public transport is arranged really good in London I think. We bought a 10 pound ticket which was good for the train to and from London, and it also included the tube and bus transport throughout London.

We ended up in Convent Garden at the market place, which has a really nice feel to it, with lots of shops and a really cultural and lively atmosphere. Here we watched some street theatre comedy act, which wasn’t really all that funny but they were working the crowds properly so it was definitely worth our time. By now it was already 17:00 and we continued to stroll around London and sat down somewhere to eat and have a drink and then continued strolling and ended up back in Wycombe around 21:30 so we had spend close to 12 hours exploring the British transport systems and London. All in all I got the impression that after this day I already know what London is, but not yet who London is. I have gotten a taste of everything but haven’t yet explored deeper into some of the more cultural things that the city has to offer. I am sure I will though.

I will leave you now with some pictures, and hope I will be a little quicker with my blog entries in the future. It’s a really busy life though, to the pub, to the pub in London, to school, to the pub, and then to the pub again… Life’s tough isn’t it :P



(These are the crazy war dudes that didn't even really fight. Dit waren mensen die zich omgekleed hadden tot soldaten van zo rond de 17de eeuw, ze hebben alleen niet gevochten, jammer.)


(The road leading to Buckingham Palace. De weg naar Buckingham Palace, waar de Engelse konigin woont.)


(Buckingham Palace)


(So this is the might Big Ben. Dit is de Big Ben.)

(The London underground, the tube, a system that works and is really usefull. Dit is een van de borden van de Londense metro, een heel goed system die het erg makelijk maakt om door heel Londen te komen.)




(The group have lunch, almost everyone got the house burger :) Hier gingen we met de groep even lunchen, bijna iedereen had de hamburger genomen, die trouwens ook wel heel erg lekker was.)


(Me and two of the Dutch girls infront of London Bridge. Dat ben ik met nog eens twee andere Nederlandse meiden die hier ook op uitwisseling zijn bij de London Bridge.)


(So this is the group of exchange students, there we 2 Portuguese, 2 Americans, 2 French, 1 Swede, 2 Finns and 4 Dutch. I won't go listing the names, all the nationalities should be impressive enough. And yes I know that if you add these numbers up there's one missing in the picture, but that's the one taking the picture ;) Dit is de groep mensen met wie ik naar Londen ben geweest. Het zijn allemaal uitwisseling studenten en we hadden daar 2 Portugezen, 2 Amerikanen, 2 Fransen, 1 Zweed, 2 Finnen and 4 Nederlands.)


(Ofcourse the famous double decker, thought I'd share it with you. Dit is de beroemde Engelse dubbeldecker.)

This post was created under the influence of RX Bandit's 2001 Progress.