Monday 16 April 2012

First days in London

Hello everyone :)

I have been so busy the past couple of days I haven't had time to sit down and type everything I wanted to talk about. I am slowly settling into London life. Getting to know my way around my hostel and know some of the staff and regulars I see each day. I still only have a small group of friends but they are great people. Chris and Christina are the couple that are living in my room with me. Chris is British and his girlfriend who I hardly see as she works in a Scandinavian restaurant is Danish. It's great to come home and talk to people about their day or sit and have a chat in the common room with people you feel comfortable with. I have also met another guy called Colin who is from a town in England called Devon lol funny!He is someone who is very different to me but knows so much about everything and is looking for work in London. I went out on my second day in Earls Court on a mini pub crawl around the pubs here. It was funny getting to know them better over wine and beer ha We had a fun day/night and started drinking from 3.30pm lol I have been learning lots of new slang and information about London from these two guys.

We watched a very famous horse race over here called the 'Grand National' we all placed bets and of course I didn't win anything ha But omg dad you would have thought it was so weird because I did. There were 40 horses, none of them started in barriers they used a string that they had to put their noses up to=weird. They jump steeples of grass and some of them fall over and jockeys get stomped on=weird. Only 10 out of 40 horses completed the race because they either fell over or the jockey fell off and two horses died in the race=weird!I was horrified that the horses were falling over but everyone here thought it was normal lol

My first few days have been interesting!I have caught the famous London red double decker buses into Oxford st in the centre of London. I wanted to see the sights but also buy a jacket and a handbag as it is freezing!!!OMG people here are all rugged up and I arrived very unprepared ha I managed to buy a nice but inexpensive jacket and hand bag. I wanted a handbag that didn't make me look like such a tourist as I was using my Kathmandu backpack baahaa so not me!I will use that on my tours though....I am staying in Zone 1 which is only about 20-30mins from London's centre. I had no idea which bus to catch but asked a lady at the bus stop and she told me which number bus to catch. When I got into the city it was amazing.There were huge shops and so many people. I felt like I was Babe pig in the city lol But I managed to find what I was  looking for. I tried to get my phone unlocked at a huge Apple store but they said that Optus has not contacted them etc so I have to contact them and get it unlocked. The stupid lady at the Optus shop in Dubbo said it was already unlocked which was WRONG!grrr If it is locked it means I can't use another local sim card to contact people :( I will try and contact Optus in the next few days!

Shopping/Fashion:
The shopping is London is amazing!So many cool things to buy and the fashion here in the shops at the moment is Spring so there were lots of cool dresses and trendy things. Soooo hard not to want to buy anything when I wanted to buy everything!I'm telling you next year in Australia look out for fluro and printed dresses. Lots of colour!Everyone here has a trendy yet stylish look!Clothes are around the same price as in Australia though. Some basics like tank tops and tights etc are lots cheaper.

Language:
I have only met two Australian people briefly in the common room and one girl at the bus stop in the whole time I have been here lol It is very strange to hear everyone talking in different languages when all I am used to hearing is English. The thing is most of them can speak some or fluent English but I can't speak anything else ha It is interesting trying to work out what people are talking about and I have been picking up small phrases from some of the people I meet which is fun!

My hostel room:
When I arrived in my room there were 3 French and 2 British people there. People come and go all the time. There has been a guy from Romania which I have never spoken to as he works all the time and we are asleep lol A Spanish guy that stayed one night. The French people only left today after being here from before me. I liked a guy called Lambert and he spoke to me a fair bit but all the couple did was lay in bed and watch movies. They also like to smoke lots of weed which I hate so found disgusting!You could see them rolling joints and they would grind up their stuff in the room ewww So I'm very glad they are gone plus I get the bottom bed !A new black guy moved in today and has been talking religious crap to himself since he got here!Annoying and he seems crazy so hopefully he doesn't stay for too long!Everyone at these type of hostels gets moved around lots to cater for group bookings so app I am being moved on Wednesday to another room....Our room is very squishy and app one of the smallest in the whole hostel so it could be a plus!

I met a new friend named Khadeem randomly after my pub crawl with Chris and Colin and was a little upset and feeling homesick in the hostel. Khadeem was in the kitchen and offered me a cigarette so we started chatting. He said I was very brave coming here alone and he was interesting and knew lots about London too. We added each other one facebook and decided randomly to go and see the London eye together the following day!He was a great help and showed me how to use the tubes into London. There were lines closed on the weekend so I was so glad he knew what he was doing. He uses google maps all the time Brad like you!lol There tubes are very small and everyone faces each other and squeezes into the sections on the train. The trains seem to come alot more frequently then they do in Sydney. At each station they have huge escalators which you take back up to the street. I stood to the left and got some dirty looks as everyone here stand to the right lol I got to see some different parts of London through getting off at stations around London and the buildings are unlike anything I have ever seen!They are so old and huge!I felt very small in comparison to them. We had to walk through a suburb called Bank which was the business centre and had amazing buildings and architecture!So cool :)

The London Eye:
When we got into the city after about 2 hours of finding out way around the tube stations and catching buses we got to the London eye. It was amazing and so big!We got our tickets and joined the huge line to wait to get into our little egg like section of the Eye. It takes around 30 mins for the London Eye to turn. We got in with around 10-15 people I think. Once inside I felt like I was in a movie as I was seeing everything I'd only seen on tv and heard of for real. I could see the River Thames which is a beautiful river that flows through London. I saw Big Ben,Houses of Parliament, London Tower etc omg amazing!!The view was soooo good!I could see everything and it has a view of the whole city. Once at the top we had a 360 degree view which was something amazing!

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