London calling

Royal Observatory

When I reached my bed and breakfast accommodation for London the night after driving from France, I was greeted by my hosts with an enthusiastic welcome and a warm hug. Once again it was an amazing relief to reach a bed and a shower after a full day on the coach, plus hauling my luggage up and down stairs in London’s tube stations. My room was quaint and furnished with a nautical theme, and quite comfortable. I decided to make myself at home in my room for the next few days by allowing my belongings to explode across the floor, where they mostly remained for the duration of my stay.

For the first time since flying overseas, I was able to wake up naturally, without setting an alarm. (Thankfully I tend to wake up in the mornings at similar times anyway – no sleeping until the afternoon). I chose to spend that morning heading out to Greenwich to the Royal Observatory and the prime meridian line.

It was an almighty struggle to reach the Royal Observatory. Since it’s situated in the centre of some massive parklands, the idea is to catch the tube there and then walk directly through the park to the Observatory. But of course, London is apparently preparing for some minor sporting event thing called the Olympics, so they’re busily renovating their city, including the parklands. Large parts of the park were blocked off, forcing me to walk for much longer around the park, rather than cutting through it.

And it was hot. I never realised London could get so hot and humid. I cursed my jeans and ankle boots that day as the sun poured down, drenching everyone and everything in an oppressive Sydneyish heat. I hiked around the park until finally, finally reaching the road that led to the observatory.

Naturally I went straight for the prime meridian line, stood with one foot on either side of it, and posed for a photo. I then offered to take a photo of the couple that took my picture for me, and as I leaned back to get the shot, I heard a strange exclamation of ‘whoa!’ behind me. Apparently I’d been crapped on by a bird. It was just my lucky day.

I briefly had a look at some fancy clocks and timepieces while I was there, before heading back for the long walk to the station. And it was while I was walking through an open section of the park that I saw my first squirrel.

I guess Europeans and Americans don’t understand the squirrel fascination held by many Australians. But it was probably the highlight of my day, seeing such a cute mammal with a fluffy tail peering at me from around a tree trunk. I watched it for ages, fascinated and overwhelmed by the cuteness.

When I finally made it back into central London (or thereabouts), I walked past St Paul’s Cathedral and over the Millennium Bridge towards Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. I didn’t go inside either of them – I felt like I didn’t have time – but it was enough just to walk by and see them from the outside.

Although London seemed to be mostly recovering from Jubilee celebrations, there were still more than a few traces of jubilee fever in the city. As part of festivities, upright pianos had been set up in public areas for anyone to play if they wanted to. One such piano was on the Millennium Bridge, and an absolutely beautiful piece was being played by a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and plenty of eyeliner. I stayed to listen until the end, and even went up to ask the name of what she’d just played (which I immediately forgot).

Then I saw the beard stubble. I’d just been listening to a transvestite with a French accent play a gorgeous piano piece on an outdoors piano on a bridge in the middle of London.

Travel. You so crazy.

Since I was staying at a B&B, I needed to stock up for a couple of days with some food and snacks, so I popped into a Tesco store. Tesco is amazing because everything is so cheap, even when you convert prices back from pounds to Australian dollars. I went a bit crazy after finding that I could buy at least two punnets worth of strawberries there for only £2. Normally they’d be $5 a punnet back home. Win.

Dinner consisted of being the only person in a Thai restaurant near the B&B, eating chicken and vegetable stir fry on my own. I felt truly lonely that day, especially after spending almost every hour with a big group of other people on the European tour. It was the first time I’d really, properly started to miss home: my family and friends, the washing machine, and not having to wonder where I’d find my next meal. The food was good, but I’ve never experienced such a quiet and lonely dinner in my life.

Since it was still ridiculously light outside despite being close to 8pm, I chose to walk and see the other buildings on my to do list: the London Eye, houses of parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. My feet have never ached so much, and I still had two days’ worth of walking to do.