It’s me again! There is one thing I did not write about in my London – Day 4 post because it didn’t really fit there, but it is important to understand what will happen next. When we arrived at the hostel my friend and I, we only found a note of my two other friends saying they had gone looking for some famous people in the city. We were like, really? They really went after all? Well yeah, they did.
But the worst was that, when they came back, not only both of them were tired, but they were broke, too. They had spent all their money at Oxford street. Because of that, we were a bit limited in the activities we could do.
City of London
There was no way we could avoid going to the city, right? I mean, it’s emblematic. We learnt about it in class and all. So we went. The weather was not really agreeable that day, but it’s London after all. I noticed something interesting about The City… there are clocks EVERYWHERE! Seriously, I took pictures of them – not all of them though, because we could have lost too much time – and it was funny to see how many they were.
St Paul Cathedral
We didn’t visit it. Though we wish we could, it was so expensive! In France, we don’t pay to visit a church, so that’s always a bit surprising to have to give way £15+ (I don’t remember the exact price) for that. We just entered it but had to stay near the door. For what we saw, it is a beautiful Church. Photos are forbidden, of course.
After this, we were looking for a place to eat. It was super difficult to find one. The City is expensive, and we did not really want to take the Tube again. Finally, we found a “Eat” and, well, ate there. I recommend “Eat” a lot, because the food is good, cheap and healthier than Burger King’s or other usual Fast Food chain. Since two of my friends didn’t have money anymore, it was a good compromise.
Tower Bridge & the Thames
It’s a must-see in London, right? So we went. The four of us even took a picture in front of it (on of the rare 4-shots we got during those holidays. Asking someone to take a picture is always a bit like… “will they run away with my camera?”). Then we lost ourselves walking along the Thames. Like, really lost. We arrived in weird places and there was no metro, though there were signs announcing one. We passed by awkward people, and one of them was obviously drunk since he insulted us (mainly because two of my friends are asians), which surprised us a bit. Until that moment we had thought that Londoners were actually quite polite and respectful, but in the end, there are rude people everywhere, right?
Camden Town
Another shopping place. You want to buy cheap souvenirs? Go to Camden Town. There are plenty of veeeeery cheap ones. It was a funny experience. The buildings were all decorated and there were huge bronze horses in the middle of the shops. You can really find many stuffs not too expensive, however a lot of shops had the same products, which is a bit disappointing. And remember, we had no money, so no shopping, just looking!
Famous People Hunting
Then it started. The craziness of my friend has no limit. I don’t know how she did it, but she knew where to find the studio, so I went with her while the two other were tired and went back to the hostel. Unfortunately, we didn’t find anything interesting. It was a residencial area and people were looking at us as if we were out of place. Well, we were out of place! But even if it was a complete failure, I was happy we saw this area, it was beautiful.
We came back at the hostel around 7PM, with a crazier plan in mind – if that’s even possible. At 9PM, we left the hostel again, direction Mayfair. I dreamt to visit Mayfair, but it wasn’t part of the program so of course I was happy to go there, even that late. We were going to spy a club entrance to see one of my friend’s favorite star. Once again, it failed. But you want to know? The worst is that we stayed there from 9:30PM to 1AM! Yes. That long. In the night. The cold. Everything. It was quite interesting though.
Mayfair is AMAZING. Beautiful cars everywhere! I love cars. Really, I do. There were plenty of luxury stores too. Cartier, Dior…. and the people. Like. We were even ashamed of ourselves! Guys were all wearing suits, girls had beautiful fancy very short dresses and no tights. We were a lot more covered, to face the cold, you know. But seriously, those girls had to wait hours in the cold to enter in the club. And they were all saying “I’m gonna die!” or “It’s freezing!”. Well, OF COURSE it’s freezing! It’s 11PM, in February, in London! What did you expect?
But the funniest part… was around 11:30-midnight. Amazing. They were all drunk already. Not a bit drunk, but, reaaaaaaaally drunk. Laughable. Those girls who were looking so great a few hours earlier, it was a complete mess. One of them even fell on the ground, others were screaming, or staggering. One guy even regurgitated on the pavement. So not classy.
In the end, we failed. We didn’t see the guy we had come for, but we still saw another celebrity, so it was 50/50. We also had the opportunity to talk with a paparazzi guy (not exactly a paparazzi, in fact, it was more of an informer), who explained us his job and all. It was fun!
Getting back at 1AM
That. was. impossible! We were stupid though, we weren’t paying attention to the hour. In Paris, there are metros up to 2AM, so we were not used to the London system where the Tube stop at 0:30. Honestly, why so early?
We didn’t have money to take a cab, so we thought we had come back with the bus. What a mistake. We took no one, bus SIX buses to finally get back to the hostel. We ended up in weird places, at 2AM, it was really scary. Be careful with it. We should have asked someone for help, but we really thought we were going to find easily. Well, that made a good story to tell everyone when we came back!
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