My first weekend in London

Wow! I think I am in love with London already! It has completely blown my mind and is cooler than I ever imagined possible. They say first impressions count and let me tell you all now, London has impressed me.

I have been very busy (and cold) since arriving here and to be honest a lot of it has felt a bit like a dream. It is a very odd thing seeing places that you have only ever seen in pictures or on the television for the first time. I had many moments throughout the weekend where I had to pinch myself to check that what I was actually seeing was real.

My first night was a bit of a nightmare but I won't dwell on that for too long but do have some advice for you; never fly with the Russian airline, Aeroflot, unless you are Russian and never stay at Heathrow Lodge. As soon as I left Heathrow Lodge things got a whole lot better and I managed to get to the city with my suitcases using public transport (train, underground and taxi) for a good price. Back home I had many sleepless nights worrying about how I was going to do this and now wish I had of slept because it was so hassle free and easy. I could not believe how helpful everyone was, any question I had they'd happily answer and point me in the right direction. After I'd dropped my bags off at the hotel I went to meet with my teaching agency in Covent Garden (GREAT spot) and as I was going there on the bus I had one of those 'is this a dream?' moment as we casually drove past the London Eye. I was lucky enough to get an appointment with a bank and set up a bank account and then for the rest of the afternoon was free to explore London by myself. I had a great time looking in all the shops (they blew my mind), stopping in at cute cafes but one my best achievements of that day was locating the British Museum. I only got to explore for a few hours but for me this was like hitting the jackpot because I was seeing things I had spent years at university studying and had only ever seen in books. I kept talking to myself and doing small fist pumps which I'm sure must have looked odd but man was I so happy. It's a very hard feeling to describe.

Outside the British Museum

Parthenon marbles - OMG!

Pediment sculptures from Parthenon - amazing!

I can see myself spending many hours at this museum so was lucky when 3pm came around because that meant I had to leave and start making my way to find Jade. Jade, for those of you who don't know, is my lovely friend from Norwich (east England) who I meet in Thailand. She is one of the loveliest people in the world and her and her partner, Rich, came and spent the weekend with me. I navigated the tube to meet her and it was nice to see a friendly face in the mass of  people at the station. That night, we dined at a lovely Italian restaurant before Rich met us. The three of us then went the Shrek musical. I had never been to a musical before and I was completely blown away. I just sat there awe struck the entire time. It was a great show and I can see myself spending a lot of time in that part of town. It wasn't just the show that was amazing but the theatre itself was so beautiful. Rich made some comment about it been three times older than New Zealand and he was right, it was built in 1663 and is the oldest working theatre in the world. My mind was blown. Another thing that was mind boggling was the amount of theatres that had shows on, there must have been at least ten we saw and probably more with their lights flashing. This part of the city was just buzzing. During the interval we got to enjoy a cupcake from a cute little shop we found by the theatre. I got a carrot cake one and let's just say, my first carrot cake in London scored a 10/10. Delicious!

Jade and I outside the Theatre Royal

I managed to take a quick snap of the stage before the show began

Selection at Primrose Bakery

Mmm carrot cake cupcake

I managed to get a good nights sleep on Friday and that was lucky because Saturday was a very full on day. Our day started with a stroll along the Thames to the Tate Modern Museum. This is a museum that is in an old coal factory that has been opened up and it is massive, unbelievably massive. The art inside was interesting and there were a few pieces I really liked. I just couldn't get over the size of the building. We then headed across the bridge to see Big Ben, Parliament buildings, Westminster Abbey, strolled through a park where I saw a SQUIRREL to Buckingham Palace and then ended up in Trafalgar Square. We also tried to go the Museum of Natural History but the line was enormous (like wait 3 hours plus enormous) so we trotted on and had a brief look in the Museum of Science. A lot of sites and a lot of smiles. Jade and Rich were fantastic tour guides, they knew all the spots, could navigate the tube (I picked up a few tips from them) and I could always count on Rich to share interesting facts about the different places we saw.

Inside the foyer at the Tate Modern Museum

Painting of Vietnam War inside the Tate

One of the weird people statues along the Thames

Many weird statue people along the Thames (London Eye in the background)

Look how close I am to the squirrel - great shot Rich!

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey with cool bus

Guards with bear fur hats

Rich and I climbed up by this lion in Trafalgar Square - look to the left of pic, that's how I looked when I tried to get up ;)

I got to have a quick visit to Harrods too! I saw watch selling for £42,500! I knew it had a reputation as a high end store but really £42,500 for a watch?!? We only looked around one level but I was quickly drawn to the chocolate room. We were lucky enough to all be given a sample tasting and all I can say about this is wow, wow, WOW!

Sweet treats

CHOCOLATE!!!

Yum!

I had been having a craving for Indian and had mentioned this in passing to my friends and they managed to find a place with great reviews in a place called Whitechapel so we headed there for an early dinner. It was worth the mission out there and it was great to see another spot of London. I'm pretty sure this is where a lot of the Muslim people hang out because as soon as we got off the tube it was like we walking around in a Muslim country with market stalls, huge mosques along the street and banks like the 'Islamic Bank of England' on the corner. It was fascinating and apparently there are lots of pockets of communities like this all around England, e.g., all the French hang out in one area. Here's an interesting fact from Rich; if you took all the French people out of London and put them into a city it would be the fourth biggest city in France. That's a lot of French people!!!

We had to have an early dinner because we were going to Rich's older brother's 30th birthday bash. His brother, Mike, hired out an old BBC studio and got in a Quiz master to run a quiz. It was a great quiz and after that we played bingo. Jade was lucky enough to scoop up a prize (Rich said she always wins) and was the only one on our table to do so. She won some gold cardboard crowns that she made up for us to put on. Rich had warned me that at times his brother could be a bit eccentric and the next part of the night illustrated this. Mike got in some djs, Sly and Reggie, but they were people he'd never met before and had just emailed him to see if they could play at his gig. They got his details because Mike is the Councillor for the Pontypool Ward (250,000 people) which I think means he looks after a certain part of London, so he is quite a public figure. Sly's rapping about libraries and JK Rowling's new book 'Casual Vacancy' caused a few confused looks around the studio but all in all it was an authentic London experience and I had a great night. I slept like a baby after such an eventful day.

Dj Sly - we never figures out why that noose was there?

Jade and Zara

The gang with their golden crowns

For our last day together we went out for brunch and I got a Full English Breakfast, a right of passage for all those who come to England and after that we had a browse around Spitalfield market. It was there that I picked myself up some cute ear warmers, something I was in desperate need of because my ears were getting very cold. Thanks to Jade and Rich I had a great introduction to the big city and now have all the apps/websites stored on my phone that will help me out while I'm here. They're off to Brazil in a month and when they get back I am going to go up to see them in Norwich and I can't wait for that!

I am also thankful to them because they helped me get back to Paddington Station so I could catch my train to Reading, my new hometown 30 minutes west of London. My suitcases were so full and to illustrate this point further when I left HCMC my suitcase weighed in at 22.8kg and I was allowed 23kg. Hehe talk about a close call! Rich wheeled my big suitcase to the station and the guard at the station even let him through the barriers to put it on the train for me. When I got to Reading station another nice person helped me with my bags which was good. Jim (I'm living with a husband and wife team, Jim and Holly) met me at the station and before I knew it we were in the car and on the way home.

The thing I think I was most nervous about with this big move was finding a place to live. But everything has fallen into place perfectly and I am living in the cutest little place imaginable. At some stage I will get some photos of the exterior but the interior is gorgeous. It's a little 3 bedroom, 2 story English house, I'm not really too sure how else to describe it. It has quite a cottage like feel to it and it really does feel like a home. I think I'm going to be VERY happy here. I only got to meet Jim because Holly was at work (she's a cop and was doing night shift) but she'd left notes around the place for me, a really nice touch. In my room she'd left a nice bunch of flowers and a lovely welcoming card. I'm already in love with my room. I have everything I need and was very impressed with the apple TV and ipod dock because I was going to invest in some speakers quite soon but now there is no need. It was so nice to unpack and put my own little touch in the room.

Yay, a big bed!

Nice tv ;)

Lovely touch

Close up of the flowers for mum

So it has been a very busy but fantastic couple of days and I am about to get ready to go and see Zoe, Harry and Kate and stay with Zoe's family down in Brighton. They're forecasting snow so I'm going to have to wrap up warm.

Take care everyone and will write again soon xoxox