LONDON! Part 2
(part 1 here)
Day 3: Saturday August 6

I know it looks like the exact same English breakfast as yesterday, but.... I had one more sausage and.... a piece of brown bread! Omnomnom.

We took the Tube to Notting Hill, where we followed the crowd to Portobello Road...


On the way we passed a house where George Orwell lived.


Portobello Road: huge market, loads of people. o_O


Creepy street artists without heads!


Not as many spectacular shop fronts as Camden, but still pretty cool:)


The buildings featured in the movie Notting Hill (in the middle the actual Travel Bookshop;)


We found a bus that took us all the way back from Portobello Road to Piccadilly Circus. We didn't get to sit up front this time, but still had a great view of London:)


We went to Empire Cinema for Horrible Bosses, which was a fun afternoon film.


Such a pretty cinema - with great chairs for relaxing before another round of shopping \o/


Goodies from Boots. What? We don't have that awesome Aussie shampoo in the Netherlands, nor Johnson's baby powder, which is equally delicious. And I always have to get some quirky showergels. Mmm, vanilla biscuit.


After freshening up at the hotel, we went back into town and picked up our theatre tickets at the Haymarket Theatre.


We had a quick dinner at Byron, a very well designed burger restaurant; look at that amazing wall of London and the lights at the ceiling in the shape of the Underground Map.


I had a very tasty Byron burger (after I removed the unnessecary lettuce and tomato; what the hell, give me MEAT)

Sadly I didn't take a photo of the tastiest dish; we had the most delicious waiter. Omnomnom.


We sat on the third balcony, but besides having a perfect view of the ceiling, we also had a great view of the stage for Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Delightful play.


Of course I ended the day with another luxury bath \o/


Oh, forgot to mention we went to Hamley's where I found a funky cow rattle for nephew Ruben:)

Day 4: Sunday August 7
Our train back to Brussels didn't leave until 4 p.m. and after breakfast we left our luggage in storage at the hotel, so we could spend our morning at the cinema. We found a place where the normal 2D version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 was playing. A bit out of the way of the centre, but we should be able to make it back in time to get our bags before catching the train...


This is Green Park station where we switched trains to get to North Greenwich (South London)


This is the O2, right outside the Underground station, where I thought the Odeon Cinema was situated... it wasn't...


Look at those clouds (don't worry, I'll get back to the story shortly;)


Love this building. (Okay, fine, I'll continue...)

Inside the O2 was a Vue cinema that wasn't showing Harry Potter, but luckily a security guard knew how we could get to the Odeon. We had to take a bus! All in all it took us another 20 minutes to get to the cinema.


But we got there with time to spare, even though the guy who sold tickets took his sweet time to open up the register. Pfff.


I was amazed that we got half an hour of commercials and previews. THIRTY MINUTES. Ridiculous. So the film lasted a bit longer than calculated.


Look! A plane! (Tan found it amusing I got so exited about all the planes flying so close to the ground, but hey, I don't get to see that at home;)

We discovered a bus that would take us right back to the street of our hotel and we decided to take that instead of getting back on the Underground. It would save us changing and walking.


This time we did get seats right up front and I made some touristy pictures during the hour(!) on the doubledecker bus \o/


We're sitting high and dry:)


Another bus! Like looking in a mirror!


Yeah, think bike!!


London Eye.


View from London Bridge: see Towerbridge in the distance?

And notice those dark clouds? Right when we arrived at the busstop it started pouring down, and even though we didn't have that long a walk, I was soaked when we got to the hotel. Luckily I had time to change into a dry blouse and put on my rainjacket for our walk to the Underground, where we only had to travel one stop to the King Cross/St. Pancreas station to catch the Eurostar to Brussels.

There we had a connecting train to the Netherlands, that also stopped in Antwerp where I said goodbye to Tan.


I had time to get some dinner when I changed trains in Rotterdam and got home around 23.30.

---The End---
But not quite: on Monday morning I had another English Breakfast/Brunch with strawberry scones Tan had given me and a left over Welsh cake.

Mmmm :-)

LONDON! Part 1
Last Thursday I took the train to Brussels, where T. was waiting in front of the Eurostar entrance to start our four day trip to London. Here's a selection of photos of our adventures...

Day 1: Thursday August 4

My bicycle and me, happily waving, unaware of the journey to come...


View from the 'Silent' train compartment; train from Zwolle to Rotterdam. This train was on schedule and I arrived in Rotterdam well in time to catch the 10.55 to Brussels. Except that train was cancelled for unknown reasons. I didn't panic; I still had my back up train from 11.55, that would get there on time to go through Eurostar check in and customs. Except that train turned out to be delayed:


AAAAAAArgh. /o\ Twenty-five minutes late meant that I had less than the required thirty minutes by the time I arrived in Brussels. So when I got there I ran to the Eurostar, hoping to be allowed on. I did panic a little when I didn't see Tan at the entrance, but fortunately she had only stepped in to ask the staff what we should do if we missed the train.
Luckily we were still able to check in and customs was faster than usual too, so we managed to catch the Eurostar after all. Pfew.


Arrived in London exactly according to schedule, yay!


After checking into our hotel, we took the Tube into town, scored theatre tickets at half price and went to Covent Garden for a bit of shopping. (no icecream, but I loved this sign;)


We had dinner at Brasserie Johnstons. I had a apple-virgin-mojito, T. had wine!
Food was delicious too; T. had the starter Vichyssoise (Chilled leek and potato soup) and we both had the main course: Pork fillet served with prune dauphinoise and apple jus. For dessert I had a fresh fruit plate with lemon sorbet. Omnomnom.


While we walked to the Trafalgar Studios we did some sightseeing...


The entrance of the CharingCross Station


Detail on unknown building at Trafalgar Square


Nelson's Column, day time (scroll down for night time view;)


The theatre where we saw the musical Bewixt in a tiny tiny basement that would fit about 90 people, we sat second row with an audience of about 60 people. It was awesome! Great performance, with fun lyrics, dancing and amazing actors. Recommended!


Nelson's Column, night time (scroll up for day time view;)


I ended the day with a luxury bath. (With sensual pearls, mmm)


Today's loot: goodies from Lush, a filled up Oyster card for public transport (brought from home;) and program of Betwixt.


Day 2: Friday August 5

English breakfast \o/


Our hotelroom


Before going into town, we relaxed in Russel Square Park. We saw squirrels :-D


Detail of the gate of the British Museum, which we passed while we walked to Forbidden Planet (Shaftsbury Av.)
After shopping there, we took the Tube to Camden, where T. scored a pair of pretty shoes and I bought a really cool notebook. But we mostly just walked around, enjoying the atmosphere;)


Storefront of Aldo.


More cool shop designs


Camden Stables

From here we walked up north to a cemetery that T. wanted to visit and to have lunch on Parliament Hill. Unfortunately we got a little lost and got tired of walking, so once we found out where we were, we hopped on a bus to Hampstead Heath and pretty much sat down on the first parkbench we found.


So much walking, but eventually we sort of managed to have our picnic;)


In the -almost- middle of nature ;-p

After relaxing, reading and eating we took the bus back to our hotel to prepare for another evening in the theatre.


Goodies day 2: present at Forbidden Planet and very cool leather notebook.


We took the Tube to Waterloo station and walked to The Old Vic theatre to pick up our tickets (I had bought them in January!)


I had reserved premium seats for Richard III with Kevin Spacey (directed by Sam Mendes)


Before the play, we bought pasties and potato-skins and ate them in a park nearby.

The play was brilliant: over three hours of Shakespeare at his best:) Very overwhelming.

We got back in our hotel around 23.30.


Did I already tell you we had a separate toilet and bathroom? We also had a bidet. How fancy is that?


Another luxury soak in the tub; this time with a bubbly Ma-barr from lush.


More goodies from day 2: I not only bought a program, but also a poster and the script with extended notes. (had delicious icecream at intermission: caramel, vanilla with honeycomb.)

:-) To be continued! Part two here!