Brown Girl in London

The Aftermath

Well, Nella's gone back to Canada and it's just HD & I again in London. She left on Friday - the way the departures at Heathrow is set-up it didnn't allow for alot of time together before she had to go through security. It was a quick, sad good-bye.

The last two weeks were just awesome. To me it felt like it was non-stop, a whirlwind of things going on. As soon as I got home from work we'd be off sightseeing or doing other things. We did so much walking my legs sometimes felt like jelly, but what great exercise?

Anyway, where I left off on our adventures...

On the weekend (Oct 14) we went to Oxford to visit Supa and attend of one his parties. We left Saturday afternoon and took the coach up, always a nice relaxing ride. Except for Nella who sat on her seatbelt a little too hard and got bruised up. Anyway, the party was fun, as usual. We mostly stuck together and Nella made friends with a French boy named Fahd. On Sunday we did a mini pub crawl with Supa who took us to a few different ones on the way to catch the bus to London - I slept the whole way home. A pleasant weekend and I'm glad we got to show Nella another area besides London.

On Monday after work Nella & I went to visit Kensington Palace. It's been the home of various members of monarchy since 1689 when it was bought by King William III and Queen Mary II, including since then, Queen Victoria and Princess Diana. Some minor royalty still lives in the part of the palace that was off limits. We kept trying to look for them but didn't see anybody. There were exhibits of clothing over the ages, whole rooms decorated the way they would have been when the King was entertaining, Queen Victoria's bedroom she slept in until she was 18, (when she became Queen and moved to Buckingham), and a display of photographs taken of Princess Di by Mario Testino when she was selling off some of her dresses for charity after she split with Prince Charles. I'm glad I saw that, I thought the photos were beautiful. The tour was pretty good because they gave us audio guides to walk around with and we could listen to an explanation of what we're seeing. It makes you stop and really examine what you're looking at instead of just glancing by and missing the details. Once done with the inside we walked around palace and took so pics of the gates. Then down a street of massive and gorgeous houses that I think were all embassies or consulates or something official. Nella took some pictures of the Russian one at the end of the street and the security guards signalled to me that there were no photos allowed. Oops.

Then we went to Oxford Circus to go to the souvenir shop and stopped at Starbucks for a Mocha with whipped cream.

Tuesday - another day of walking. This time I took Nella to the Victoria & Albert museum (South Kensington tube) and we walked and walked and walked around it. It's very low-lit so the pics didn't come out too great but at least we were able to take some. Anyway, the V&A was quite nice, it's so calm inside. Much more hush-hush than the British Museum. So, this one was founded in 1852, very old and mixes the old and the new. There was an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci's work, I'm not sure exactly what work, but we didn't go to check it out since it was 10 quid. Instead we checked out ancient India, the impressive Islam wing, evolution of fashion, the cartoons of Raphael - huge paintings depicting the Acts of St. Peter & St. Paul, and just a myriad of other things. We amused ourselves with pretending to jump on a bed, pirouetting in a ballroom, and pretending we were head sculptures. Once we were all museumed out we met HD at Harrods and Nella did her souvenir shopping. For dinner we went back to Finsbury Park and went to Nando's.

Wednesday - Another walking tour of London by the Thames. This time to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We took pictures and split a sandwich from the French cafe by the water. Then on the tube to St. Paul's Cathedral - designed by Christopher Wren who also adapted Kensington Palace for the monarch in the 1600s. St. Paul's is magnificent - this beautiful, massive, old structure - stained glass windows, statues, memorials. I lit a candle for 30p. HD met us there and after we were done we walked across the Millenium Bridge. It's the first pedestrian crossing bridge built over the Thames in a century. The bridge connects St. Paul's with the Tate Modern so once over we all went in for a quick walk around. Then to Covent Garden, found a bar that sold only Dutch beer so we each tried a fruit flavoured one - I got apple - and then home to chill.

Thursday - Nella packed during the day and when I got home we just did a bit more souvenir shopping down at Oxford Circus. In the evening the three of us went to Leicester Square and had dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant on Wardour St (but I don't know the name of it). Then to All Bar One where we stayed until about 11, got on the tube, went home, and stayed up as late as we could before turning in for Nella's last night at the flat.

Friday - Heathrow airport at 10:30am and Nella through the departure gates and into security after 11am. And that was it - HD & I made our way back to the tube for the hour long journey back to FP (I fell asleep again) and just spent the rest of the day doing nothing.

posted by RC @ 9:21 AM