Back from London. Cheers. ...The best CITY vacation I've EVER had! <333333333
THURSDAY - AFTERNOON/EVENINGThis was my first flight since my trip to Italy seven (!!!) years ago. My ears got blocked and the turbulence scared the hell out of me, but it was nice to fly again. X3333 I
swear something in the clouds above London is totally wrong... they kept making the freaking plane bob up and down...
Anyway, we got to Anchor House (a B&B hotel) at West Heath Drive, Golders Green without any problems... and the friendly staff was exactly like what all the reviewers had said (extremely nice and welcoming. A guy working there was handsome and I loved his dialect. <3 (There CLEARLY was a dialect. I mean, who on earth pronounces, as in phonetic transcription, "bænk" as "benk"?).
Well, we asked the staff about good places to eat. There was this amazing Italian place on the same street as Anchor House.
Good food and awesome staff. And I think I nearly developed a crush on one of the waiters. He looked very Italian and he had a very pretty smile. I was always nervous because I was afraid that if he smiled at me, I'd do something embarrassing. >.> Another waiter looked like a hybrid of Speed from CSI and the somewhat small jumpy guy from Grey's Anatomy. The place was called "Charlie's Pizza" and there were pictures and statues of Charlie Chaplin everywhere. The owner of the place was called Charlie (I don't think it was his own name) and he looked a wee bit like an older Chaplin. XD He also tended to fool around by walking just like the famous vagabond (my parents and I joked that he needed to get Chaplin clothes complete with the hat and stick). On Saturday evening he also sang along to a karaoke video in the restaurant and damn could he sing. o_______o Every time my parents and I left the restaurant (or entered after our first visit), Charlie took my and my Mom's hands and kissed them. XD And he bearhugged my Dad. XDDD Now I understand why my Mom loves the Italian people so much.
And yeah, in the restaurant I ordered a seafood dish that sounded really interesting. I didn't even know what I was getting, because I didn't know the Finnish word for the fish (it was "seabass", which is "meriahven" in Finnish). And naturally due to my intuition, I ended up choosing a very tasty, perfect dish. My Mom is always amazed by my uncanny ability to choose a good-tasting dish, even if I didn't know anything about the restaurant or the food it produces. I guess that's my 6th sense. XD I also have a 7th sense if you remember that I can predict things sometimes. Now, when will I awaken my 8th sense? XP
OH, and the the hotel was at a good location, too. We had the tube- and bus station of Golders Green nearly at our doorstep. X3333
And even though the bed was a bit hard, it was very easy for me to sleep. <3
FRIDAYThis was the time of... SIGHTSEEING! On an open-roofed, two-floored tourist bus! X3 We sat on the open roof (I loved the wind in my hair, so refreshing). We had first entered the Northern Line on the tube (I was surprised that I actually got used to the system after a short while... the map is actually very easy to understand) and gotten from Golders Green to London Bridge. There we entered a bus and our first big "sight" was Tower Bridge. It was simply amazing, to travel on that magnificent contraption. And then we moved on and drove through Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, saw Buckingham Palace's gates and wall (not the palace itself, sadly)...
And we hopped off the bus at... WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
I was like "O_______O" when the bells began to play a beautiful tune and the red-coated guards in their bear-fur hats stood in a line in front of the abbey (there were also many, MANY police all around the yard). And I went even more "O________O"-ish when high-ranking people began to pour out of the doors. And even MORE "O_______O" came into play when Australian, New Zealander and Canadian soldiers popped up all of a sudden, in their green (Aussies), blue (Newsies) and WTF-colored (Canucks) coats. Later I found out something called "The ANZAC Day" had ended just then. O_____o
See here if you want to know what the event was.My parents and I waited for the event to fully end and went to the Abbey shop. I ended up buying this beautiful (IMO) letter opener in the form of a claymore. <3
Then my Dad took off (he gets pissed off really easily if he has to wait in line for something or generally just walk around "too much to stare at old dusty buildings") and me and my Mom waited in line to enter Westminster Abbey. Finally we did (my feet started to ache real bad and really, the building wasn't really as amazing as I thought it would be. St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City is a whole lot grander). But OMG! I've actually stood next to the tomb of Geoffrey-f***ing-Chaucer! X333333333 And Charles Dickens, George Händel, Rudyard Kipling, Laurence Olivier, Alfred Tennyson and a whole lot of English royalty.
After a long tour we left and boarded another sightseeing bus of the same company (of course with my Dad. He doesn't understand English so he'd be helpless if left alone in London. XD)... and took off towards Charing Cross Road, my favorite spot of the vacation. You know why? ...Charing Cross Road is a renowned BOOK SHOP STREET.
I was fairly surprised to find Borders in London (well, it's American, after all. Oh, and there's no Borders in Finland. D8). I've never been there, obviously, so I wanted to go. It took us a long time to find the f***ing road, but finally we managed. And I went to Borders and bought 4 books, all fantasy. One by Janny Wurts (because Shaina/Stayka at SaintSeiyaFan likes them so much, I wanted to see what they were like), one by Mercedes Lackey (yes, Tress, wanted to see what they were like, too), one by Roger Zelazny ("The Chronicles of Amber") and one by Poul Anderson ("The Broken Sword"). Afterwards I was as happy as a pig in the mud. <33333333333
Well, after THAT tour we took the Northern Line from Leicester Square back to Golders Green and went to a Chinese Restaurant. And I chose a good dish once again (my Mom was all "O___O ...Again?" when she tasted it. XDDD). Wait, what was that dish again? ...Oh yeah! Shark-fin soup with crab meat! It was GOOOOOOOOOOOOD. My Mom also wonders about me always selecting dishes no one around my age (or even older) would ever think about trying. XD I mean, does shark-fin soup sound so appalling to you? It WAS good...
SATURDAYDon't EVER mention Portobello Road to me. It was absolutely horrible to walk among that s**tload of people. I don't like crowds and foot-ache. D8 And we didn't even buy anything... plus the road itself was so fugly. Well, the tube from Northern Line's Golders Green to Holborn and on to the Central Line and Notting Hill Gate was rather nice.
Everything went better after we took off to Ladbroke Grove's tube station (it was the line of Hammersmith & City). From there we drove all the way to King's Cross - St. Pancras and switched to the Piccadilly Line and went to Covent Garden. ...COVENT GARDEN. ZOMG, IT WAS SCHWEET.
From Covent Garden we actually walked to Leicester Square and boarded the Northern Line tube train back to Golders Green. And we went to an Indian restaurant to eat this time. ...I ordered a dish called "Balti Tandoori Chicken Bhuna". It was absolutely wonderful. (You can guess my Mom's reaction. XDDD)
SUNDAYWell, this time we just milled around London. First took the tube from Golders Green to Tottenham Court Road and switched to the Central Line and ended up going to St. Paul's Cathedral, but since it was Sunday, there was no sightseeing. >_______< Dammit. Oh well, I managed to buy a book from the crypt shop. It shows where London's place names originate from.
After that I wanted to go to Piccadilly because of a certain reason: Waterstone's (a British book shop chain). We got onto the Central Line again, stopped at Holborn and switched to the Piccadilly Line and drove to Green Park.
The shop took FOUR building numbers (203-206) on Piccadilly Street! It was HUGE! O________O And it had 250,000 books (my kind of heaven!). And once again I bought books, of course. Fantasy again, naturally. Wait... 4 by Mercedes Lackey and 1 by David Eddings. X3
Then we walked to Piccadilly Circus and saw this weird motorsports fair at Regent Street. O_____o We took the tube on Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square, switched to the Northern Line and went to Hampstead. My Mom and me wanted to see the town.
Anyway, at Hampstead I went to my first ever Starbucks! <3 Good mocha, good indeed! Why are there no Starbucks in Finland?! TT__________TT (Oh well, Wayne's Coffee and Robert's Coffee will do just fine. Good mocha, too.)
And then we took a bus to Golders Green. ...And I think we had a rally driver working the bus. D8 Good thing we didn't hit a wall on the way back.
And went to a Japanese restaurant to eat! I ordered my FIRST EVER sushi set! X3 It was awesome. And when I noticed this green stuff, I told my parents "I think that's wasabi". I tasted it and went "It HAS to be wasabi!". ...It was so strong that my eyes watered the first time. XD After a while I got used to it and even began to like it. ...I guess I might be one of the few people who love wasabi.
Oh, and that was also the first time during the whole vacation that I spoke a whole line of English. I asked a Japanese waiter "What is this green thing?". When he told me it was wasabi, I said "I knew it.".
And when we left the restaurant, I even told a waiter who accompanied us on our way out "Arigato gozaimashita"! And he replied with the same sentence!
(I must have made a Japanese person happy by actually knowing a sentence of his language. X33333)
MONDAYWell, back home. And no, Heathrow's security check didn't involve body searching. ...But we did have to take off our shoes and put them in an X-Ray machine. XD (Mind you, we don't have that kind of thing in Finland. We only have a baggage X-Ray machine.)
So, my catch: 10 books and a sword- letter opener. <3
PS. Also got an English-Japanese dictionary at Helsinki's airport, so it's really 11 books.
PPS. Oh f**k. I forgot the pub at Golders Green. ...We went to a pub there twice. During the first time we watched these men play chess. The guy who was losing kept swearing like all hell had just broke loose and nagged about every little detail ("Gimme that piece, I won this move.", etc.)... but all in good humor. XD
I noticed on the very first time that the pub was actually Irish. ...What the hell is an Irish pub doing in London? O_____o
Lovux would really like to hear your opinion, Hakuke. 
? O__o (I'm very curious about that)
You being reading about her trip to London and so forth.
I was like "O_______O" when the bells began to play a beautiful tune and the red-coated guards in their bear-fur hats stood in a line in front of the abbey (there were also many, MANY police all around the yard). And I went even more "O________O"-ish when high-ranking people began to pour out of the doors. And even MORE "O_______O" came into play when Australian, New Zealander and Canadian soldiers popped up all of a sudden, in their green (Aussies), blue (Newsies) and WTF-colored (Canucks) coats. Later I found out something called "The ANZAC Day" had ended just then. O_____o