London

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So I've seen London! Yay!

But it's more 'Yay!' because I got to spend more time with Mark, than London itself.

Booked a Ryan air flight directly from Zadar to London, payed just a bit over 100 e for return ticket and one bag. Pretty cheap tho it can be even cheaper. Flight was OK, seats are a bit too tight together (I had trouble with knees, 164 cm high) so changing pose isn't as comfortable but it's a short flight. Put headphones on and enjoyed the flight listening to my Josh Groban-Nelly Furtado-Gloria Estefan mix. Couldn't help but noticing horrible horrible uniforms that stewardesses have to wear...Guys do something about it! Cheap can look better than that.

Anyway, landed at Stansted around 22.20, got wet from the plane to the gates because it was, naturally, pouring. Queuing in non EU residents line brought me another shock after cold shower outside - I had to state an address of staying in this form. Come to think of it, it's an OK question. Only, I didn't know Conor's address! I did ask before leaving if I need to state anything else at the arrival, but they said I'm perfectly fine with my passport and ticket. So an address never occurred to me as I didn't need one on my prior Europe travels. Lucky enough I've checked my mail through cell and found that Mark sent me his new cell number so I got the address in time. The lady was ready to take me and a bunch of others who knows where...

Happy!!! Together again 😊

Got wet again on the way to the van. Saw a fox for the first time. With some fellow rabbits. Strange picture...But nothing really mattered, Mark was holding my hand...I'm cheesy but what can you do?

We decided not to drive back to London, but found a place and parked just off the road. In bushes. (I could actually write a 'guide' book of how to pii in bushes'...)

Day 1

Late in the morning we headed off to London, to Conor's. Walked around a bit, basically just waiting for Conor to get home from work so we can shower and Mark check his mail for van questions (quest was selling the van before 22 May). Went shopping with Conor (for me even Tesco's is expensive!) and made a killing dinner crepes with mushrooms and beans, and sweat ones with nutella or sugar+lemon juice. Yummy! How I wish I had my camera close to take a picture of Sky's face when she saw mushroom crepes 😊 But she was a brave girl, tried them and stole one from us.

Day 2

Conor's subtle banging on van's door woke us up (we slept parked in front of his place), so we had breakfast in the house and about noon met some guys who wanted to see the van. After that, we set out to Goring (near Reading), to go see Nick (he's staying at Emily's, his ex). Ride was great; I got to see London surroundings. Villages are lovely; I specially liked this part where Goring is. Stopped for a picnic in a forest along the way, and finally reached Emily's place - WOW! Really nice. Nick was alone so we spent a bit of time with him and then set out to see a guy about the van in Reading. And he didn't show up. We still decided to go for a walk around the city and than headed back to Goring for Emily's b-day party.

Drinking started of by Pimm's coctails and 4 of us, then mixing Pelinkovac (Croatian bitter liqueur) into Pimm's, and after others started gathering it was mixing all :p

‘Party’ (it was fun, but just sitting and talking made me sleepy really early) went on till dawn but me and Mark went to bed (van again) first.

Day 3

Woke up first, sneak into the house and shared a shower (…) and made breakfast which made pretty much everybody come down and eat. Sally was funny, kept saying she couldn’t believe how much we’ve ate, and then ate 2-3 eggs with bacon mushrooms and fried tomatoes…

And then - off to London! First to see some other guys about the van, and then into the city - it was my sightseeing day!! Parked somewhere in Kensington and walked to Notting Hill to meet Mark’s friend (sorry girl, completely forgot your name!). After coffee we walked through the market place, nothing special but we got the sweetest hello from a Rottwailer, licking us all over. And i’ve just said hello! to him :D

I was amazed by Big Ben and Westminster, and really liked the parks, which are literally everywhere. Downside of our walk was no waste bins, no toilets in bars (!) and dirty dirty streets. And fashion…it was chilly, with really refreshing wind and I was really cold in the evening, but we still saw some really weird dressed groups - like, 3 girls more than half naked, mini (but really mini) skirts with nothing underneath, and strapless tops and sandals, and 2 other with them wearing winter turtlenecks, boots and coats! Strange…

After Trafalgar, we sat down in this Italian restaurant near Piccadilly (I think) and had a great tuna pizza for dinner, followed by yummy tiramisu and pana cota. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as expensive as I expected from the prices we’ve seen along the way.

Needless to say, we’ve forgot where we’ve parked so we were walking around Kensington for 2 hours! But it was OK, except I had to pii… So we got to see Kensington South, Kensington West, Kensington Olympia and one more, I think. But finally found the van and started looking for a place to sleep, which was pretty close - parking lot of Morrison’s shopping center, near Camden market. Actually, I'm not sure how close it was because I fell asleep lol

Day 4

Spent the morning walking through Camden market - awesome! Pretty much everything can be found there, whether you’re into Indian clothes or wanna get a piercing. And, food everywhere! Though mostly Thai, Chinese and similar, girls are calling you from other side of the street to come and try their food. Found just one Italian place (it’s basically stands or some kind of ‘boots’ inside the market). Pizza guy was Spanish; great pizza (done in 7 mins!!!). Could listen to him talking the whole day, some Spanish tourists were in front of us. I specially liked fruit stands - had more raspberries then ever! I suppose they’re easy to grow in England.

Oh, almost forgot, I got to pii in a toilet! Public but still a proper toilet. And funny thing - a Croatian song was playing in the toilet!! ‘Put putujem’ - Magazin, for those of you who know about it. Lady working there turned out to be from Croatia :D

After we had enough of Camden we went back to the van, did some groceries and drove further into center (it’s free on Sundays) to see Tower bridge, St. Paul’s and go for a ride on the Eye of London.

It was a loooong walk, but was worth it. Tower bridge is beautiful! And that castle near it. Many places to sit and enjoy the view, and not too many people on streets because of weekend so it was really nice. St. Paul’s didn’t amaze me as much, beautiful building but as I’ve seen many similar before it’s nothing special. And I can’t believe they charge entering the church, except on Sundays!!! How rude!!! Not all should be commercialized.

Eye of London cost us 15 £ each. That’s cheapest ticket guys, everything else is 20+£. But we saw London from above. Enjoyed fish eye effect. You have to watch where to stand; otherwise fish eye is all you get. But they don’t overfill it with people so you can move around. I’m glad we did at least that since we couldn’t afford entering anything else.

After a whole day walking, we got back to the van to discover Mark's bike was stolen. I suppose that was 'welcome to London', just a bit late. Went back to Conor’s, had dinner, shower and slept like logs 😊

Day 5

One of Conor’s roommates locked us out of the house so we couldn’t go in to check mail and stuff, so we went back to Camden again, walked a bit more and set off to Stansted as my flight was at 17.10. I don’t wanna gooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh. It was a quick goodbye, again (in Slovenia the train was waiting just for me…). After going through indescribable que (it took almost an hour to pass those 20 metres) and 6 points of security, after x ray I ended up in a free shop. WTF?! You have to go through the shop to get to the other part and find a way to your gates… And my gates were some 20 mins walking from there. I started thinking I’m gonna be late for my flight. I was there just in time but my flight was late. And nobody remembered announcing it. We could’ve had an hour together more! Sigh again.

To finish, I got home an hour later, poor dad died waiting for me at the station. All in all, I was happy. We had 5 days together and I saw (a bit of) London. Now I have to survive next 5 months alone and keep my fingers crossed to get a visa to go to New Zealand…

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Photos

Westminster
Beautiful!!! I was really amazed.

Big Ben
My favourite

English yellow rose
Found it in some garden while waiting for Conor to come home

St. Paul's
Cathedral

Tower bridge
I could live in it. Just not over Thames.

Eye of London
Blurry Eye of London ;)

London from above
Eye of London ride