Monday April 7 - London!

Alright... here's the blog for today!

Anika and I had talked last night about what we were going to do today and after debating and doing some research into things we ended up with a plan:

- Wake up
- go to Camden market (hour or so)
- British Museum (hour or two)
- head to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian
- dinner/ go back to Hassan's
- London Eye
- ????

Well... that is what we had settled on. Now to what we actually did - which was similar but also quite different!

First off, we had planned on getting up around 9 am or 10... giving us time to get ready and enough day time to see things. Well, even though I woke up a few times around then - I noticed Anika wasn't awake yet and was in no mood to get out of bed.. so by the time we both were awake and ready to get up - it was almost noon! OOPS!

So we got up, got ready for the day. That was interesting in itself! Hassan has recently moved in here and Anika and I are sleeping in the living room. Well there's something going on with the bathtub (note - no shower or even shower attachment!) so the process is to fill the huge plastic tub inside the bathtub up with water and use that to bathe with via a small pitcher to pour water on you. That was an experience, let me tell you! And it didn't help that the bathroom was really cold too! But anyways we had gotten going, and were about ready to head out when Hassan had gotten back. He has an odd sleeping schedule - going to bed around 10 or 11 and waking up around 4 am... so he had already been out that morning. He didn't work today so as he made us breakfast of eggs and toast with cereal, we told him what we thought of doing and invited him along. He had other stuff to do but we told him we planned to be back around 6 or 7ish and figure out dinner and stuff.

Quick note: Hassan made us breakfast both yesterday and today, and even had brought back dinner yesterday ... which we didn't ask for but I know I at least feel awkard as he is doing all of this and not really taking any help in doing so or leaving us other options such as getting dinner ourselves... but we bought stuff to make a meal and will probably make it tomorrow hopefully or if not we can find some other way to offer help or do something for him (part of the idea of Couchsurfing is helping out, or sharing with your host meals and things and sometimes, though not required, a small gift as well. The concept is to get an insider's view to cities and a view into the lives of those living in the cities, as well as making new friends too!)

So, as we sat eating breakfast, we discussed our new plans for the day as we were starting off quite later than expected! We decided we could do the Camden Town markets for an hour or so, hit the British Museum, and then head over to Greenwich for the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian. It would be after the observatory is closed but it looked online like we could see see the Prime Meridian and everything so it didn't matter as we really weren't interested that much in the observatory. Then we would head back and see what Hassan was doing for dinner, maybe do a pub or something and perhaps see if the line for the London Eye was like it was yesterday and if the weather was nice. So with that in mind, Anika and I set off on the tube for Camden Town!

We got there, and were a bit lost at first but a policewoman directed us up to the market which was just up the street! The tube station is at a junction of 5 roads (common thing in Europe!) so it was easy to get lost. Once we started walking along there it was quite obvious - oops! But anyways, there were many small shops along the main road - some were touristy shops with London souvenirs, others were clothing shops and all sorts of miscellaneous shops! Then we came to the first of the six Camden Markets - the Camden Market itself! It was really cool - really a huge open area that had rows upon rows of stalls set up selling things and it was kinda covered as well. This market was mostly clothes and accessories so there were many things hanging up along the different aisles and it was all rather packed in too! The styles seemed to be a mix between "hippy," punk and some goth though it felt a little more like the "hippy" place to go.

After that, we kept walking up the street a bit, I stopped in a few shops and got some souvenirs as it was away from the major attractions so there was not much inflation to get tourists. Then, we saw the huge green covered rail passage that said Camden Town on it, and came upon the canal itself! It was cool because on the one side there was a ship just resting in the lock on the canal and at the time they were lowering the level of water in the lock! It is right here that the Canal Market was but it is currently closed. This was the site and the market where the fires hit back in the beginning of February. But we then discovered a ton of other stalls and shops in the other various markets in Camden Town... which were really bizarre at times! There were tons of goth/alternative clothing stores... tons of Asian stores, many random jewelry stores and even Cyberdog which is a cyber/futuristic clothing store. There was even UV clothes in there - really was odd! But it really was cool in all at the markets!

We quickly realized that as time was passing and we had more things still to see and shop for in the markets - to cut the British Museum and spend more time at the market. I had only wanted to hit the British Museum because all the museums are free and to see the large mummy and Egyptian exhibit! So we did just that - and grabbed some Moroccan food for dinner as it was getting on 4:30 pm. I had picked up a few things and actually found a kilt that Matt had wanted me to buy when I was in Scotland for really cheap - only they were all too small so I passed on those. But I got him a birthday present still :-p

Since it was getting late, and I knew we had a decently long trip out to Greenwich, we left Camden around 5 pm via the Northern Line to Bank. From there we headed further underground to get on the DLR which we were told would take us all the way to the Cutty Sark station in Greenwich which is within walking distance of the Royal Observatory. So we got on board, and started our journey. It was a very crowded train though and soon we were above ground - it also moved very slow! We went a few stations and then the train went one station further than our path was supposed to go - so we got mixed up for the first time. Though this was quickly corrected as the driver went to the other end of the train to drive it and we had to switch tracks. So we go a few more stations and then all of a sudden we start going backwards again - only this time the train is saying that it's destination is where we had originally came from! Something was wrong! So we joined almost a train load of people in the same situation and ended up having to go underneath to get another train going the direction we wanted to go. So we finally got on the right train, and got to our station.

On a quick note - the day was really nice and sunny out - though a got to be a bit chilly later on.

But we got off at the Cutty Sark station and without aide of a map or anything - we finally found our way past the National Maritime museum and into Greenwich Park which is where the Royal Observatory sits atop a rather high hill. So we walk up through the paths and the park was gorgeous as the sun was just setting and everything. We finally get to the top to an amazing view of this area of London and can even see St. Paul's Cathedral and the Gherkin from there! Though one thing that was disappointing was that the marked line of the Prime Meridian was just behind the closed gates of the Royal Observatory. :-( So I took pictures, as best I could through the gate and threw out the idea of getting a picture straddling the Prime Meridian. However, when I was getting ready to leave, I noticed that on the wall beneath the leveled area above that had the Prime Meridian marked out, was another vertical and horizontal line that listed the two sides - and it was on a small path too behind what first looked like a gate. Though when I looked at the gate closely, I realized there was no lock! In fact, it was a gate that you had to swing closed first, go inside the circular end cap, close the gate and then move into the pathway. So naturally I hurried up through there and got my picture straddling the Prime Meridian! It's not in front of the elaborate statue above but it still works!

There was also a clock there on the wall that keeps accurate time within a second - so of course I stood there and synchronized my watch to match it! I'm odd like that! Haha! But after that, we headed on around the observatory to find the bathrooms - only to find out that they were closed. So we decided to head back to the DLR station and find a bathroom in a store or restaurant along the way. On our way out, there was a pub called the King's Arms which sounded old and familiar for some reason - so I took a picture! We then stopped at the McDonald's outside the DLR station for the bathrooms and a quick McFlurry Crunch - though they gave us normal spoons and didn't mix it up like normal and the guy was rude when I questioned why it was not made the normal McFlurry way.

But we got back on the DRL which was not crowded this time, and headed to Canary Wolf station where we then walked a few meters to the Jubilee underground line which we then took all the way back to Waterloo station. From there, we figured out how to get back to the Thames and the London Eye, which was amazing to see at night! It was about 8:30 or so so we walked along the river, across the bridge, past Big Ben - all in the spotlights of night! The streets were dead too which was nice! We went past Westminster Abbey and of course I got pictures. Then Anika made a stop in a telephone booth to call her mom, and we finally got back to Hassan's. He had cooked up dinner and reheated it. (he had called me earlier and I explained that things were taking longer than usual with the train and everything) We had talked about going to a pub but by the time we got done eating and found any nearby on the internet - they were going to be closing within an hour so we didnt' see the point in doing that tonight. So we just chilled here, watched some tv as I updated this blog and did other random things online looking stuff up.

Well, as it's late here and I'm tired and can't sleep in tomorrow - I'm off to bed. Once again, I'll post all my pictures up when I get back in Lille and get them all sorted so probably by the end of the week hopefully. Tomorrow it's off to Stonehenge and Salsbury! Yay!

Night!