You alright? I've arrived in London Town and I'm absolutely knackered. Bloody hell the journey here from Australia takes donkey's years. I have to say though, first impressions of London are that it's bangin innit.
Ok ok enough role play, I managed to pick up some British slang during my time in London and thought I'd test it out....don't mind it you know. Basically what I was trying to say is the journey to London from Australia takes yonks and I was bored shitless, but she'll be right.
Seriously though, 2 flights and 24 hours of travel is pretty brutal - I've deliberately not included any selfies of me on the way over, don't want to give you a jump scare :)
I arrived in London on a Sunday afternoon. Being the beginning of November, I didn't have high expectations of how the weather would perform, but I was pleasantly surprised and can report that the rain held off until the day I was leaving. Massive win.
First on the list was to navigate the tube system - let me tell you that thing is like sitting in a washing machine that has been stuffed too full of clothes. BUT in saying this, it got me from A to B pretty bloody quickly, and more importantly safely. We had a slight hiccup, the first of many on this solo adventure, in which the directions on Hostel World to travel to the hostel I was staying in from the airport were wrong and I didn't have any internet on my phone yet. Luckily I found a local London chap who was able to help me, but minorly stressful when your phone is virtually useless and you're lost in the underground.
Anyway, I finally made it to the hostel, and guys let me tell you if you ever find yourself in London and need a hostel to stay in, make it the OneFam Waterloo Hostel. I truly couldn't have asked for a better place to stay for a first time solo girly very far from home. They are so good at facilitating social activities - they have a free day trip that changes everyday, followed by a free vegetarian family dinner every night, drinking games in the hostel and then a mission to whichever is the chosen club to dance the night away. So easy to make friends and so much fun.
So let's get into some of the things I got up to and some of my recommendations.
As I said, I arrived in the afternoon on Sunday. I was so tired, I forced myself to stay awake until the family dinner, made friends with a lovely Canadian girl and called it a night to get a good sleep. Day 1 - basically a write off to jet lag.
I woke up bloody fresh as a daisy, it was incredible. Rolled out of bed and headed downstairs to work out what my plan for the day was - my first proper day as a solo backpacker! My Canadian friend trudged downstairs and guys, I'm going to be honest with you, she had definitely seen better days. Poor girl was in the clutches of a very rough hangover. Anyway I walked her to the local Tesco's for some hangover cures and we decided that we would join the day trip with the hostel, which happened to be a trip to the Camden Markets. Here comes my first recommendation...
When in London, please hit up the Camden Markets. The markets are a permanent setup that is situated in an old stable ground within Camden Town. It's super easy to get to on the tube if you're staying somewhere within the London city centre. It has everything - food stalls, jewellery, book stores, extravagant candy stores (my fave was the Hansel and Gretel theme), clothing stores, gaming stores - you name it, it's in the Camden Market. It was a super fun afternoon just wandering around all the little nooks and finding different stores to window shop in. The best part is, The Hawley Arms Pub is right nearby - the pub that Amy Winehouse frequented and performed at during the early 2000's! Once you're all window (or real) shopped out you can cruise over for a pint(s) and watch the town of Camden go by with your new hostel friends. Special mention also to the book store in the Camden Market - if you've seen the British show Black Books you absolutely have to visit this book store. It reminded me so much of the show and even better that we were in London surrounded by British accents. I'll leave a little market photo dump below:
Mitch and I chatted about book series' and decided to hit a few more book stores together after the market trip, which also meant we got to explore some more of London on foot. We walked through the beautiful autumnal streets, surrounded by a sea of orange and brown leaves falling from the trees. It was gorgeous and made me feel really grateful to be able to see this place at such a beautiful time - there is absolutely nothing wrong with visiting a place in the off-season. Sure there was some danger of rain, and I wasn't walking around in shorts, but the streets were a little quieter and the scenery was gorgeous. Absolutely no regrets.
Anyway, I digress. If you're a bookworm, here's a few reccos:
First, get your butt to Piccadilly. The underground takes you to the Piccadilly Circus stop which is right outside a street lined with book stores. My favourite here was Hatchard's.
Hatchard's really made me feel like I was in a movie - Posh London accents discussing plot twists and favourite authors filled the air, you are greeted by a grand staircase as soon as you walk in, exclusive Hatchard's editions of popular series and 5 levels filled to the brim with every title you can think of. Anyone who's anyone in the writing world has their book on the shelf in Hatchard's Piccadilly, and this bookstore has the title of oldest bookstore in London. I couldn't resist and I bought an exclusive hardback edition of Paddington Bear, complete with unique illustrations and even a special Hatchard's Book Store stamp on the front page.
Another very strong contender was Daunt Books over in Marylebone. This setup was 2 stories and very much reminded me of the style of buildings seen in Hogwarts (Harry Potter). Large darkened oak bannisters, a huge arch window at the back of the store, and wall-to-wall bookcases around the entire room.
If you are looking for grand bookstores that will transport you to a magical book land, make your way to the "rich" areas of London. We found that the best bookstores were located in Marylebone, Piccadilly and Mayfair, where we could aimlessly walk the streets and there were bookstores galore.
The next day I was wildly hungover from a big night of partying with my hostel (remember aforementioned drinking games and club nights ^). Anyway, no time to be hungover, and I obviously chose well in the friends I made because Mitch and Drew waited patiently downstairs for me to get my shit together so we could all go on a fun tourist day. First stop was a big fat English Brekky to tackle the hangover - we went to the Black Penny Southbank, highly recommend. The big breakfast cured me and it is right in front of the London Eye so perfect to start a day which we planned to wander and hit all the tourist spots on foot.
Not a lot to report here in terms of recommendations as we really were massive tourists this day - London Eye, Big Ben, the red telephone box.
With the telephone box, there is one that is in front of Big Ben and so obviously would be a cool photo, BUT the line to take a photo in front of it was crazy long. If you head around the corner the street is lined with the same telephone boxes but there are no lines, so if you don't mind having your Big Ben and telephone box photos separate I'd highly recommend wandering round the corner. I'll leave my telephone box pic down below and you can decide whether the line is worth waiting in - personally I didn't think so.
We trekked to Buckingham Palace where you can see the changing of the guards but we decided to carry on to some different spots instead of hanging around to see it. We walked through Hyde Park where the squirrels were sooooo cute! We don't have squirrels roaming around in Australia so I entertained myself for a long time in the park. We saw Kensington Palace, the London Tower Bridge and ended up in Mayfair looking at some beautiful Christmas stores (don't break anything, to have to buy it would be to break the bank lol).
We caught the tube back to the hostel after a massive day - I think I clocked 32,000 steps. The whole way back, Mitch is in my ear trying to convince me to go out again with the hostel. Despite my best efforts to tell him I was already hungover and we had to leave the next day, he wasn't having a bar of it.
In the end, don't tell him I said this, but it ended up being one of my most favourite nights of my whole trip. This is where my final recommendation comes in - Salsa in Soho.
Salsa, believe it or not, is a Salsa bar in the middle of Soho. I actually had a good feeling about this bar, because Soho is known to be a very hip place to eat and drink. It's very popular among young people with a great diversity of restaurants and apparently excellent night life. I actually wish I had more time in London to better explore what Soho had to offer.
Anyway, Salsa was the chosen bar of the night. I skipped the drinking games at the hostel to give myself a little more time to try and sleep off the scaries. Unfortunately it was a pretty bad case, but I reminded myself I was in LONDON on my first ever SOLO trip, so I dragged myself downstairs to see Mitch and Drew jumping up and down making remarks of the nature "I knew you couldn't say no to a party", "I never believed you for a second" etc etc.
Off we trotted to Salsa bar, still feeling sorry for myself. My friends immediately start handing me cocktail after cocktail - pina coladas, porn star martinis, salted caramel 360 backflip twists (I don't know, they had a lot of extravagant names, you get the idea). Then all of a sudden Mitch spots a sign..."6 Tequila Shots for £10" and he gives me a look. Anyways, I'm sure you can guess that next thing you know I'm multiple tequila shots down and I'm thinking Hangover?? Don't know her.
The rest of the night was soooo much fun, you have to visit if you're ever anywhere near Soho. You down some liquid courage from the menu of very fun and unique cocktails/shots, then head to the dancefloor which is full of people who actually know how to salsa. All you have to do is pretty much stand there looking a little lost and someone will come over and ask if you'd like them to teach you to salsa dance. You can dance the night away being spun around like a princess (if you're a girl) or learn to lead and impress girls (or boys) with your princess spinning skills (if you're a boy), interrupted only for a drinks break of salted caramel tequila shots - absolutely the most fun ever.
In the interest of you getting a feel for how much fun I was having, I'll leave a video of me learning (!!!) to salsa dance with a kind German man...
We danced the night away, and with that came a close to the first leg on my big UK/Europe adventure. I went to bed WAY later than I was meant to (you'll hear this a lot lol) and created a nice little challenge for myself the next day to be up, showered, packed and out the door in time to catch the train to the airport....onto my next adventure! With this, I leave you with a little photo dump for you to see our big tourist day taking very tourist photos.
See you in Europe!
Comments
Post a Comment