Our journey beginsTake Off, AustraliaTransit in SingaporeThe place where the books are black.London on footOxford, United KingdomNever again, so long as I may live.Markets and musicals... cliche much?Last days in LondonIch bin ein Jam-DonutI like your Altstadt better than your NeustadtBrezl bigger than your head!Ze castle of ze crazy KingMalvenue à Paris!Tuesday? What Tuesday?!The Louvre in 30 secondsThat Spears bird has given Brittany a bad name...Let the wine flow freely!A very Gaudí dayMontserrat, SpainValencia, SpainMadrid, SpainThe moment of truth!Restaurant Gordon RamsayThere... and back again.
Embed trip
View in Google Earth
Rss news about this trip
GPX Track
Journal
Location
Notting Hill, United Kingdom
We had high hopes for the next day, including a planned 7:30 wakeup, so we could be at our first destination by 9. That plan was promptly thrown out the window when I saw 10:48 on the clock as I woke up. I haven't slept in that late in Australia in months- typical that it should happen while we're on holiday. All in all though, I think the late start actually worked out well. Without any real plan, or specific times and places to be anywhere, we just let ourselves wander at our own pace, and had a really great day.
We started off heading to Leicester Square to organise our entertainment for the evening (we couldn't have held our heads up high if we spent a week living in the West End without seeing at leaset one show). After walking past several "Official" half price ticket stalls, we finally found THE official booth and managed to nab 8th row centre tickets to "Avenue Q", which was a lot of fun- think of the puppets from Sesame Street, as controlled by a group of bawdy undergrads. The lead role was played by a reality TV runner-up, and despite how bad that sounds, he (and the production) was really good. In Australia we have our Idol winners getting dodgy record deals and SYTYCD winners getting to audition for something-or-other, but here "Any Dream Will Do" was searching for the next West End lead for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat..not bad. Not that I'm surprised, mind you. After all, this is a city that will turn anything, and i mean ANYTHING into a musical, and run them all at the same time. In our week here, we've seen ads for (and this is the abridged version) *deep breath* Grease, Lord of the Rings, Avenue Q, Marguerite, Blood Brothers, Take That, Jersey Boys, Mamma Mia, Phantom of the Opera, Billy Elliot, Wicked, Zorro, Hairspray, Lion King, We Will Rock You, Spamalot, High School Musical, Sound of Music, Le Mis, Chicago *gasp* and I know there's more we're missing.
After buying our tickets, we made our way (despite the obstacles put forward by the Underground) to Borough Markets, made famous (to use at least) by Mr Pukka himself, Jamie Oliver. As much of a twat as he may be, he does have good taste in Markets, and we could have spent hours here- filled as they were with french cheeses and wine, spanish cured meats, freshly baked/made/roasted/cooked breads/meats/coffees/sweets. The only reasone we didn't was the fact that we had no way of cooking anything we bought, as well as the realisation that no matter how great the markets were here in London, we'd BE in France and Spain in the next few weeks to try the real thin for ourselves. So, continuing with our "when in Rome" philosophy to food (which has seen us suffer through bangers and mash, fish pie, bacon sandwiches, and full English breakfasts) we waited in line for about 20 mins, before eventually getting to feast on a Wild Boar, and an Ostrich sausage sandwich as big as our heads. Tasty, though the resulting mess caused by the mixture if pig fat and flour wasn't exactly pretty.
Filled with meat products as we were, we waddled our way to the Tate Modern gallery, which was AMAZING. It was a tough choice, only made at the insistent screaming of our feet, to leave some 4 hours later. A sprawling mixture of paintings, sculptures, installations and such, the gallery was really well organised, and explained. Normally, we don't go for the "Audio" tours, and especially after the debacle that was our previous experience with organised tours, I'm suprised we took this one, but really glad we did. For non-"arty" types such as ourselves, it was awesome- heaps of information on the artists, their backgrounds, life stories, as well as pictures of similar works, and timelines so you actually put the works in their place without sounding like an utter prat. Then again, a golden blob of metal was described as "realising the innate essence of fishness" so I guess we could sound like utter prats if we really wanted to.
Thats about it for now... we're a few days behind with our entries, so the Portobello markets, and the London Eye from the photos will have to wait until the next entry. For now, we need to make our way back to the B&B for our bags and head off to Gatwick for our flight to Berlin. Next time you hear from us, we'll be surrounded by Germans!
K&B
Comments |
Log in to add comment |
No comments