As is my habit, I like just… walking. I’ve been to London umpteen times (nice place to visit, don’t want to live there) and there’s always something new to see and do, usually for nothing. As well as the other stuff that’s stupidly expensive.
This morning at 10:30 (after a £2.50 breakfast that absolutely stuffed me) I left Clink-261, turned left, walked to Kings Cross, turned left onto Euston Road… and kept going. Well, I stopped at the Wellcome Trust that I’d missed on many occasions. I was just in time to get a little tour based around “what happens to our bodies in space?” before wandering around their current “Psychology of Magic” exhibition on the ground floor. Great stuff and all free.
My aim was to head down to Westminster as it’s been a long time since I walked past the Parliament Buildings and the Cathedral. It took me a good while to get down there, passing through the Magnum ice cream shop that’s opened up on Leicester Square, down a few smaller streets because the looked interesting and so on. I dodged the people giving out free cold cans of Pepsi Max because it tastes like stale money piss (why don’t you give out cans of proper Pepsi? Oh, that’s right, it’s because people actually like it so you don’t need to foist it on them to get rid of your excess stock), and finally made it to Downing Street which has a lot of security for what is now effectively a literal monkey house. Ook, ook, Boris. You mop-headed gimp.
From there to Westminster where I’m still impressed by the scale and architecture of both the political and religious structures, though both are currently largely shrouded in scaffolding which is a shame. Democratically elected morons and people who believe in fairy tales aside, they’re both fantastic buildings visually. A shame they’re both inhabited by those with destructive egos.
Down to the River and over one of the many bridges to the south side as I wanted to pass by the Shard. No reason other than I’ve not been there before. Again, a nice wander looking at nice buildings, and a quick stop in at a museum of art and science where I again lucked out by arriving when a little tour had just started. The exhibits were pretty cool – mainly focused on the current topic of dark matter – if more arty than science-y. There was a woman in our little group who had two children with her, a boy of around 8 and a girl maybe 4 years old. He was very observant, and his little sister asked incredible questions. I passed a little comment to her mum at the end and told her never to stop her doing so – a little girl with a mind like that has the makings of being a brilliant scientist in her own right!
On past a large railway carriage covered in gigantic ants (yeah… I know, odd) and then to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London itself. I crossed here knowing, because my memory remembers shit like this from 20 years ago, there’s a KFC in an underground location near the Tower that sells beer! Well. Budweiser. But hey. I found it with not trouble, but was disappointed to find that they no longer sell beer. Boo! I was hungry so ordered a meal… only to find that they also didn’t sell any drinks with sugar in! So, erm, no. Order cancelled, I walked off and looked for a McD’s instead.
I didn’t find one. Seriously, I walked all the way past the rear of St Paul’s (there’s a joke there somewhere) and all the way back to the hostel without passing one! Incidentally, I’d aimed to get from where I was back to the hostel by 5pm. I walked through the door at 17:00. On the dot. I also hadn’t stopped for anything to eat or drink since I set off in the morning. Oops.
As it happens, there was a McDs a 2 minute walk up the road so I splurged £1.99 on a Big Mac and chips before meeting Jonathan for dinner (well, his dinner) and drinks round the corner. Jon, I checked – it was 2001 the last time we met! Bloody hell.
A great night was had between two bars and several pints before he headed off and I collapsed into the 18-bed sweat-pit.
On an additional point, I’ve found London very pleasant on this visit especially given the hot weather which normally makes people short tempered. Sure, the drivers are all dicks (what’s new), but everyone else has been lovely and polite. I even had two people compliment me on my (pink rainbow Death Metal) t-shirt!
