mardi 11 mars 2008

west end girls: london day 1.

Another long weekend in London, how lovely! C. left at the same time as me. I literally watched her drive away in the taxi then headed straight off to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar train with Lucia.

Still felt sick and crappy, but I didn't really care, I was going to London. Boarded the train, no problem. We got into St. Pancras around 11, but neither Maek nor Lorraine would be home until 1pm to receive us. I got lunch at the station since I was hungry, but Lucia ate on the train. Got a tasty Caesar salad, and after could not stop coughing for the life of me. I couldn't even talk, either. It would just make me cough more and my throat all itchy.

While Lucia watched our stuff, I went to a tea and coffee place. Wrote down what I wanted in my Moleskine and showed it to the server. It read: "Peppermint tea, please. Sorry, I can't talk." The server was super nice, almost abnormally nice. Drank my tea and for an hour or so, Lucia and I sat at the station, which is super nice, by the by, and planned out our weekend. We brought my Let's Go book to help us. We wrote down possible itineraries, the metro stations for each place we planned to visit, and just all the things we wanted to do.

Afterwards, headed toward the Tube station. We talked to one of the Underground tube guys, and he was helping us decided whether we should get a week pass or 4 daily passes. He was super nice. He did the math all for us, and we ended up gatting 4 daily passes straightaway. From there, we headed towards Maek's, only changing trains once.

Got out of the station, and a nice newspaper vendor asked us if we needed help, "Don't be shy, girls! What street do you need?" He ended up not knowing where we should go, so we bought a map at a little corner market, the "A to Zed" map. To say the letter "Z", they say "zed", and not "zee". God love the Brits. The guy kept saying, "Ay to Zed? Ay to Zed?" And Lucia and I kept looking at each other with this same look like, "What the hell is this guy saying?!" And then when I saw the map, I finally understood.

We found Maek and Loz's easily, and Maek was home and we got to rest and he made some tea for us. Then we headed back into the city. Went to Trafalgar Square and into the National Gallery, which is free. Saw "Sunflowers" and some Saurat. Got some fish and chips at a small little restaurant. So good.Took the Tube Went to nearby the River Thames and walked across Millennium Bridge to go to the Tate Modern, also free. Passed some protesters in front of the Scientology building wearing V for Vendetta masks, and they were actually really nice, not threatening at all. Asked us if we wanted some propaganda, and we kindly declined although now I wish I took some of it. Saw some modern arts which I'm starting to appreciate.

We took lots of pics throughout the weekend, which is great, and not the stand in front of this monument and just smile kind, which I'm kind of getting tired of. I mean, we did take some of those, but not a lot. Luckily, Lucia didn't think me weird of asking her to take a certain kind of photo, to frame it in such a way or that I didn't look into the camera. Took lots of silly ones as well.

Went home totally beat. Slept like babies that night.