After
a sleep-less flight from New York City, a 2 hr immigration line, a
pulled shoulder heaving all the luggage through Heathrow Airport and a
tube ticket in the direction of Cockfosters (try not laughing at this
when sleep deprived) we arrive in LONDON!
First stop. Clapham
South. We step out from one of the steepest escalators, the icy breeze
hitting our faces to the Australian ridden suburb of Clapham South.
Once
locating Karla's apartment (thanks to my personal GPS system and former
resident of the Clapham area, Dave), we are greeted by one of many
dossers* crashing at Karla's pad. A shower and a sleep and I was as new
of a woman I could be on a good dose of jet lag. Karla and Heelena had
organised a dinner date at a Mexican restaurant in Clapham, followed by
a bombardment of former Charles Sturt Uni mates at the local pub.
It
is amazing you can run into more people you know in London than you can
in any city in Australia. After a few cidars and pints and a lot of
catching up with old friends all in the midst of travels i was ready to
crash and crash out I did.
We had a weekend of unusual sunshine and warmth.
So we made the most of the weather and the Thames Festival action down on South bank.
As
we weaved through music acts, gourmet food stalls, buskers, drinking
crowds and happy shining people and many of them I got a great view of
South Bank in all its glory and some of the major architectural icons
of London- including the Thames building, the Gerkin and London bridge.
The
warmth and sunshine continued for Miss Karla's birthday, so we headed
for Clapham common to have a picnic and blow some bubbles...
The
party continued with drinks out in SoHo and an old Irish friend of
Dave's to liven things up. We shotted (very expensive and exactly
portion controlled shots) through the night, danced up a storm, caught
a tuk-tuk to an "offie"* to buy copius amounts of beer (we never end up
drinking) and bribe the store attendant into giving Karla a birthday
present (we end up with a chocolate bar!) then hope in a black cab back
to Karla's pad.
The
last day in London town...Dave took me into town and we hoped on one of
the classic red double decker tour buses to get a fly-by look at the
icons of London. Unfortunately the weather had turned ghastly chilly.
Determined however to ride on the double deck of the bus we cuddled up
with the cool wind hitting our faces as we managed to snap a few pics
of Big Ben, the London eye, Buckingham Palace (well the gates at
least), Hyde park, Trafalgar square, Piccadilly, Park Lane, Oxford
St...a regular game of monopoly really.
After we couldn't take the
drizzle and wind anymore we hoped off and warmed up with some Indian
(very popular cuisine in London) and a pint before catching the tube
home.
