seeing as i'm going to germany this weekend, i guess i'd better get this post out of the way before i have even more to write about. some of you many have already noticed, but the photos from the trip have actually be up for quite a while now.
oh well, i didn't make my own deadline, but i really didn't like direction my writing was taking on friday so i left it for after germany (i.e. now).
anyway, i started my trip really early on friday morning. the idea was to take the earliest flight so that i would have as much time as possible to see london. because it was early i took a taxi to the airport (frequent public transport does not start till after 5), and i was dropped off at the main terminal. this terminal was in fact the wrong terminal (i forgot to read the ticket properly), as my flight carrier actually operates in another (cheaper) terminal some 300m away.
this would not normally be a problem, but i had timed my arrival to check-in to be under 20-30 minutes and this walk to etiuda [en|wiki] (the cheaper terminal) cut out a huge chunk of this time (seeing as i wasn't exactly sure where the information lady from the main terminal had directed me). but this was not half as stressful as standing in the check-in line in etiuda (which was longer than any of the lines in the main terminal), waiting to get to the counter before my flight finished checking in. let me explain this a bit better; in the main terminal, each carrier and each flight has it's own dedicated counter, so the queue you are standing in is purely for the flight that you want to check-in for. at etiuda, on the other hand, there is only one queue for all the available flights for the one flight carrier (namely whizzair [en|wiki]) and not all flights finish checking-in at the same time. therefore, you end up in a really long queue, not sure if they will finish checking-in the people in front of you (destined for later flights) before your flight stops checking-in.
in the end i checked-in with 5 minutes to spare. at this point, in a normal airport terminal, you would say goodbye to your luggage only to be reunited again at your destination airport. this is not the case in etiuda. the terminal is so stripped down of services, that you are required to take your own luggage with you, and before going through the security check, you place your own luggage onto the scanner before it is taken to the plane. i thought this to be rather "unique" as far as airports go. all in all, i'm not complaining, because the money saved from the reduced airport taxes literally cut my ticket price in half.
on the flight, there was no complimentary tea and coffee (or water for that matter) and anything that you wanted had to be purchased at what seems to be cost + 300%. i guess kulula [en|wiki] is the same, but i think with them you still get tea and coffee for free (but i stand to be corrected). otherwise the flight was uneventful and i managed to get through quite a bit of my book.
when i arrived in luton, there was an amazing looking sunrise visible from the stairs leaving the plane. my general impression of luton airport [en|wiki] is that it is a nice, clean and new airport, but not really all that special. what i mean is that it has no interesting architecture and is basically a big metal hanger. after getting my luggage, i took a free shuttle to the train station [wiki] and made my way to london proper.
i got off the train at the kings cross thameslink [wiki] station and entered, for the first time, into the streets of london. i was slightly disoriented at first, but after getting some directions from an old man, i made it to the london underground [en|wiki]. my first impression of the streets of london was of how difficult (or should i say, impossible) it is to find a rubbish bin. i noticed this because of the fact that i wanted to get rid of my chewing gum that i had started chewing just after my take off in warsaw. needless to say it had lost it's flavour by then and it had to go. i never did find a bin and ended up spitting the gum out :/. it seems that there are no rubbish bins in london because of the possibility of a terrorist placing a bomb in one of them.
my first port of call was charing cross station [wiki] as this was where i could drop my luggage off at the left luggage company [en] for the day. and finally from there i started my sight seeing from oxford circus. for anyone interesting in the route i took, you can find it here (i didn't get through all of it tho).
below are some of my thoughts of the more interesting places i saw:
- i quite liked china town. i reckon it's the only place in the uk that has chinese road signs :). you can get all your favourite chinese wares there in the various chinese stores after which you can stop off for some crispy duck before you set off again. mmm... yummy :P
- st james park is really nice. very beautiful, but full of tourists. i particularly liked the mall road with the british flags running along it. that and the sun chairs on the lawn. i didn't expect that you had to be rent them tho, and at quite a price at that. and they have some massive albatrosses that have demarcated one of the benches as their own and i think we would have fought anyone that would try and chase them away.
- westminster abbey is really amazing. i'm not really big on churches as such, but this one really made an impression on me. firstly is the sear size of the place. then there is detail in the construction of the building itself (especially poets corner). and the fact that so many actual british kings and queens are buried there makes it all that much more interesting. the abbey seems to be comprised of several small churches, almost each of which have some king, queen or famous person buried in it. all in all, a great place to see while in london. i recommend getting the audio tour as well (and take some earphones) as you really get a lot more information out of it.
- and lastly, i suppose a trip to london would not be complete without a ride on the london eye. for those of you who have not click on the link already, the london eye is a big ferris wheel construction with closed capsules from which you can see almost the whole of london. the queues are quite long, but if you're feeling rich (as i was at the time), you can get an express ticket at 25 pounds as opposed to the standard 15 pounds. and let me tell you, the extra 10 quid is sooo worth to not have to wait in the queue. if you plan on taking photos, i recommend going at noon where the sun shouldn't be a problem for the full 360 degrees.
on saturday we spent the day indoors, preparing ourselves mentally for the sa-england rugby final. the guys managed to get some green amstels (you get a brown version in the uk as well) which we had with our boeries during the game. as you all know, south africa won, so that was great. shortly after the game we started on our way to camden town for the paul van dyk party.
the party location was awesome. it was in a club called koko [en|wiki]. koko was originally a theatre, so apart from the main dance floor below, there are about three terraces that over look the main floor. this makes the venue really interesting. as you might expect, beers and alcohol there are quite expensive (especially if you convert to pln or zar) but the music was awesome so that didn't matter.
on sunday we spelt in late (as late as was possible that is). later in the afternoon gareth and i made our way to his house in chippenham [en|wiki]. we got back quite late, so we watched some movies and called it a night.
on monday morning we set out into the country for a bit of a drive. we drove around the chippenham area and we stopped by the town of lacock [en|wiki] for a pub lunch. to go with our lunches we had some blonde ales which are actually quite nice despite the fact that they are almost (if not completely) flat. but at least they were cold :P. the beer tap even works differently for ales than that of a normal draft beer tap; in that draft beer is under pressure, whereas ale is actually pumped using the tap handle. lacock is also the location of some of the harry potter movie scenes. i didn't know it at the time, but i overheard some lady at the bar talking about how they are filming again.
after lunch, gareth and i drove back to chippenham where we had one more beer before i had to catch my train back to london.
back at luton i almost missed my flight. well not really, but it felt like it. i was in the duty free area quite some time before my flight was to leave so i stopped to have a quick dinner. it was only towards the end of my meal that i noticed (by noticed i actually mean strained to see the flight board even with my glasses), that my flight was doing its final boarding calls. anyway, i paid for dinner and got on to my plane with no problems.
all in all it was a great weekend. i got to see some london sights, paul van dyk live and most importantly my friends from cape town. i'm sure they will be seeing a lot more of me in the future.
oh, and as a last thing... last week warsaw had it's first snowfall. it's still a bit warm for the snow to stay, so when it does snow it just melts away. but i hear this winter will be quite cold so there should be some decent snow coverage :).
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