Saturday, August 14, 2004

Can someone get a mop and wipe me off the floor ?
Heh, I'm absolutely exhausted today. You know how when you're about to fall asleep and every single muscle in your body relaxes all at once and you jerk/flinch because it feels weird ? Even after 9-10 hours of solid sleep my body does that. But then again, that's what I get for being up more than 24 hours and being on the move.

So. I'm not the best story teller, but let's see if I can fill you in on how the trip was. And yes, I shall shamelessly copy Shin's technique by inserting a line break and other stuff *flinches and eats a Rollo*

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Tuesday, August 11th - 2004

5.15 am: Wake up call that either wope me up or reminded me I was awake. I can't remember which, haha. After eating some breakfast and making sure everything was packed, dad drove us to the bus and train station in Gothenburg.

(And if you've remember an early post you'll react to the fact that dad drove us. Why ? Because the car was broken. Which poses the question of how it could take us anywhere. Well, it magically got fixed in an expensive garage/repair shop/whatever the place you get your cars fixed is called.)

The bus ride to the airport (Säve, not Landvetter) went just as smoothly as the car ride had. [... In fact, the entire trip to London went like a clockwork....] After waiting in a very stuffy room for our departure, we got on the Ryanair plane and took off 20 minutes after supposed take off. So you can't really talk of any delays there.


The security check at Stansted airport went super fast and we didn't have to wait that long to get our luggage. Though I almost took someone elses suitcase >_>;

(You see, it's pretty new and I haven't travelled a lot, so I hadn't really thought about how it looked. To me it was just blue and rectangular, haha.
So when a rectangular darkblue suitcase came up at the belt I grabbed it. Then the comedic thought that it might not be mine entered my mind, which I would've laughed about if it hadn't been for the fact that I simultaneously found it strange that the color of the suitcase seemed off. Should it really be that shade of blue ?

I decided to play it safe and quickly put it back on the belt, thinking it would be funnier to laugh at the fact that I almost took someone elses luggage than to spend my stay in London with nothing to wear. Shortly after that my suspicions turned out to be justified, when my lightblue suitcase slauntered its way towards me on the belt. I'll never forget the color of it now XD)

It felt good to know that I wouldn't have to spend my money on getting new clothes and we proceeded to the express train that would take us from Stansted to Tottenham Hale. There we got our/my second scare of the day.


(There are two platforms there and the announce board said that the train that already stood on the second platform when we got there wouldn't go past Tottenham Hale. It didn't read "Stansted Express" on the carriages either. But when my sister looked again, after noting that some people from our flight got on the train, it suddenly said it would go past that station. Meaning we got on it and just as the doors closed we saw a train roll in at the other platform with "Stansted Express" written on it....

So there we are, sitting on a train we don't have a ticket for and not sure if it'll take us where we need to get to. Great way to start our trip in England, no ? After some nervous laughs about the situation and attempts to look at the situation as fun and adventurous, we found out from the conductor that we were indeed on the Stansted Express that would be stopping at our desired destination *BIG SIGH*)


My third scare was going on the tube for the first time. [Not the first time ever, but for a long time.] I cannot remember it going that fast and for a while it satured my desire for a theme park visit, lol. And it was soooo hot/humid/stuffy, something I wasn't physically prepared for. Sure, people had said it would be but it's one thing to know it and another to actually feeeeeel it ^_^;;;

But anyway, from Tottenham Hale we took the Victoria Line on the tube to Finsbury Park and switched to the Piccadelly line to get to Hammersmith. After going outside and realising we had no clue what street to take (because I had looked at a map on the internet and read that the road our hostel was on would be right outside the tube entrance/exit... which it wasn't), my sister cleverly suggested we go back inside and look for a map.

(It was actually thanks to her that travelling was so easy, since she had looked up routes, to most things we were meant to get to, on the internet.)

Sure enough, there were pamphlets of both the tube and the Hammersmith area available inside ^_^
After taking the wrong street for a short distance (and having a guy walk straight into me, haha) we found the right street and the hostel pretty much immediately afterwards. That was a bit tricky though, because the reception and breakfast area was in a separate building from the rooms. Main thing is we found it without killing ourselves/each other, heh.

The hallways in the hostel was even worse than the tube, with no circulation at all to speak of. That got us a bit worried about the room and we wondered just hot unbearable it would be to sleep there. It turned out that it was really cool in the room (the sun never hit that part of the house, luckily) even though there was no wind outside nor aircondition inside. The condition of the room wasn't high quality, with wallpaper flaking off and damp stains here and there (there was a huge hole in the bathroom ceiling, which I've taken a picture of), but there were no cockroaches or icky insects around. All in all it was a decent place for the price tag it had: 41 £ each for 2 nights in a room with ensuite. That price included breakfast.

(Originally we planned to stay 3 nights but because the plane left so early on Friday morning, and I had no intention of wandering the streets of London during the night, we decided to spend the last night at the airport. We hadn't cancelled it before we got there, so we expected to pay in full but the lady was nice enough to give us a small deduction on the price ^_^)


After dumping our luggage in our room we headed back to the tube and to Victoria station. The plan was to meet a friend of my sisters there and hang out with her + her baby. Only problem: no set meeting place had been decided on. It turns out that they had just said to meet at Victoria station (which is rather large). Whee.

At this point it had been almost 9 hours since I last had anything to eat .... and with my delicate blood sugar system (despite not being diabetic, haha) things turned out pretty badly for a while. By the time we met the friend, I was feeling horrible (that word is such an understatement by the way, I need a more powerful word but I'll settle for this one for now).

Not only was I feeling queasy, weak and fading but a major panic/anxiety attack had come over me. Oh joy. When you're overcome by an inability to breathe properly and you feel like you're about to die, running around London isn't the first priority on your list. I was close to breaking down and run back to the hostel and hide, but being incredibly stubborn made me stick it out. After eating a little bit of baguette, drinking plenty of water and sitting down for a while and trying to breathe properly (which is so difficult when you actually have to do it, lol) I felt brave enough to start moving around.

(At this point I'd like to note that people with baby carriages don't have it easy when travelling on the tube. The stairs are troublesome to get down and people are in such a rush, you feel like an asshole when you inadvertently block their path.)


Our destination for the day was Kensington Gardens. It took ages to find it, even though several people gave us directions, and we had to make some stops for the friend to buy baby stuff in a shop, which slowed things down further.

But boy, oh boy, was it ever worth it.
That place completely erased my panic/anxiety attack and if it were up to me I'd still be there, haha. It's not easy to talk about it without going on tangents and end up with a smaller novel, hehe.

The squirrels were fun, though not entirely easy to take pictures of. They'd freeze for a split second and then be in a completely different spot. Zoom, baby :p
A friendly tourist gave us some peanuts to help me get a shot of the furry things, so let's hope they turn out ok (I haven't developed the roll yet).

There were a lot of dog walkers there too and this one older gentleman caught my eye. It looked like he was walking on his own, but he kept whistling and stopping to turn around. At first I thought the little dog that trotted behind him was just following him around. It took some observation (ie lovingly staring) to determine that it was his dog and they made the sweetest pair I saw in that park.

A little later on we crossed paths again and I simply had to ask him if I could take their picture. The gentleman was very cooperative and he even got the dog, whose name was Daisy, to pose for me ^______^

Our main reason for going to Kensington Gardens was the Peter Pan statue, which was incredibly hard to find. At least it was when you weren't sure how far away it would be and if you were going in the right direction (there were signs here and there, but I feel they pointed in a weird angle and thus made me unsure).
I had been appointed "sign reader" and the responsibility laid heavy on my shoulders, heh. It's one thing if you get yourself lost but when you have others to think about it's not quite the same. In the end we got where we needed to get and after taking a picture of the statue we fed the birds in the lake that was just beside it.

When the time came to go and grab some dinner (and consequently leaving the park *sobs*) I felt relaxed enough to try out my English. So I did that as we retraced our steps back to the entrance/exit. My accent was horrible, coupled with the fact that I was so relaxed my brain wasn't working properly, but hopefully it was possible to make out what I said -^_^-

(It was more fun/enjoyable to listen to the person I was talking to, which didn't help me to speak, haha.)


Dinner took place at Pizza Hut. *watches people who hate that place shudder to death* I ended up eating pizza all the three days we spent in London ! Twice at Pizza Hut and once at a place called Pizza Express. So even though I didn't get those pizza slices I've been craving, I'm not going to complain ^_^;

Once dinner had been taken in, we made our way back to Victoria station and saw the friend + baby boy off. Then it was back to the hostel for some more unpacking of things and sleep.


This is when I discover that the lock on my suitcase won't open ..... Everything I needed was in the suitcase which would not open .... That meant I would be forced to buy new clothes, toiletries (fun word) etc, the next morning .... in clothes that were heavily affected by the hot and sticky weather. Not the best way to end the day or start another one.

BUT luckily my sister came to the rescue and got it to open up. After figuring out why it had been refusing to open (the hooky thing had been pressed down too hard and had to be pulled up slightly before agreeing to dislodge from the rest of the lock) I deemed it safe to lock it and open it up again, to check if the coast was clear or not. Thankfully it was. A crisis was adverted and we both got a good nights sleep, ending the day on a good note ^_^

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That was Tuesday for ya, more or less :p
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