No, seriously, a friend is working in London for three months, and he was advertising it quite a bit. Almost as much as the company he's working for (the name of which I won't mention deliberately - no camouflaged advertising on this blog :-P). Since I had never been to London before and wasn't too afraid of having to include some big office into the sightseeing (another friend foretold this - and yes, it actually became true), I just decided to use that opportunity. A bit YOLO-like, I guess ...
Of course, it had to be a weekend trip, because Christian is working during the week (obviously), and I'm also working (occasionally). But I extended the weekend a bit and already went to London on Thursday night.
Like for the Galway trip during the study week of my semester in Ireland and the Ireland trip in May, I will do an orga post first, trying to summarise what I did during these three days in London. But I will add most of the pictures in separate posts, trying to prevent each post from becoming monstrous.
Thursday
Ryanair and Frankfurt Hahn, once again. I won't explain that for another time, Hahn Express and the airport haven't changed since May when I went to Dublin. Only this time, I had even more time at HHN. I'll just add a picture to illustrate the size of this airport:
Of course, I had the flight that departed last ... Anyway, at some point, I made it to London Stansted, which is more London than Frankfurt Hahn is Frankfurt. Still, the bus ride from STN to the city centre took some time. And, unfortunately, the bus driver had a strong (Indian?) accent, so I was like "what?!" everytime he announced the next stop. This bus could have used screens showing the stops ...! During the ride, when I wasn't busy worrying about missing my stop, the surroundings remarkably reminded me of Dublin or Ireland in general. And that feeling didn't really vanish for the whole weekend. But I guess that's just me, probably the only person going to Ireland before going to England. ^^ However, in the middle of the night, I arrived in London. And even later, after walking along Hyde Park for some metres (no tubes running, firstly, because it was late at night, and secondly, because there was a tube strike on Thursday), I finally made it to my hostel and probably woke up my roommates when trying to find my bed in the dark ...
Friday
Sleeping in was impossible, because Christian came by to hand me some useful things (like an Underground plan - essential for survival in a city with 11 tube lines!) before he went to work. Additionally, I also wanted to have breakfast before going on the big tour I had subscribed for. Since Christian didn't know when he would be done in the afternoon, I had decided to go on a 6 hour tour called "London all in one". There will definitely be a separate post about the tour, because it contained so much stuff and I took so many pictures ...
The tour ended at the Tower of London, which happened to be close to the office where Christian is working. So guess, which "sight" was next on the list! The good thing to say about the office building is: security didn't tell me to leave immediately, although I was for sure dressed inappropriately in business terms - and they had a nice restroom. I only took one picture there to let a friend guess where I had ended up. Like I said, I won't mention the name of the company, but the corporate design might give you a hint. :-P
Close to the business buildings, there was also an amphitheatre with free theatre plays. That's where we went in the evening to see Women of Troy. It was really good, I especially liked the impressive scenery and the Tower Bridge in the background:
Needless to say, I had to take a picture of the Tower Bridge at night after the play:
Saturday
In the "morning" (like 10 a.m.), Christian and I met at the British Museum.
That's a really vast free museum about cultural history. Similarly to the Louvre Museum in Paris, it's impossible to see everything in just a few hours.You could spend days in there, I think. So we decided to see the Ancient Egypt exhibition first (mummies!), then the Greeks and Romans one, some rooms about Asia (ceramic dishware and jade jewellery!) and finally a temporary exhibition with caricatures about Napoleon Bonaparte.
Unlike some Asians who basically captured everything, I didn't really take a lot of pictures in the museum. I basically focused on pictures of some animals like this:
So if you're interested in my "stupid museum pics"-collection (I continued with it on Sunday), just let me know, then I could do a separate post about it.
I actually had to check my pictures now to find out what we did in the afternoon. Too many impressions within a short period of time ...
We strolled a bit through the city, I refused to go shopping, was, unrelated to the shopping issue, asked by a stranger whether I was married (usually, I'm not the person who gets asked this question, that's another friend of mine!), and we made a short photo stop at Piccadilly Circus, since it hadn't been a part of the huge tour the day before.
After some more walking through the city and a break in St. James's Park, I insisted on going to King's Cross. Harry Potter fans will know why ... By the way, there will be a separate post about the Harry Potter sightseeing I managed to do (not much, though, so I might have to go back to London at some point).
Having visited three train stations, all connected to Harry Potter, we went back to Westminster. I almost forgot about that, because there are no pictures of that part of the day. That's because we went to an Evensong in Westminster Abbey, and it wasn't allowed to take pictures in the church. That idea wasn't mine actually. The tour guide from the big tour had told us that going to a service was the only way of entering Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money (18 pounds, I think). Lots of other people did the same, so we seriously had to queue for the Evensong, and there even was somebody checking the bags. Unfortunately, some other people had obviously only come to see Westminster Abbey and didn't care at all about the Evensong. A bunch of people even left during worship ...
After the Evensong, we still had some time, so we took the tube again (I like daily capping!) and went to The O2, a big arena for concerts and sport events.
Unlike the former O2 in Dublin, which is called 3Arena now, it was not renamed, by the way. That was just because O2 Ireland was taken over by 3 last year. Anyway, again, you might notice my problem that already occurred earlier that day when seeing the name Euston Station (shouldn't that be Heuston?!): London reminds me of Dublin instead of the other way round. :-D
After having had dinner somewhere in the arena, we went to London Eye, because I had booked tickets for 21:30, the last spot they offered. I took way too many pictures there, so there will be a separate post about London Eye.
Sunday
Unlike other people, Christian and I had proved to be able to behave in churches, so we decided to go to St. Paul's Cathedral in the morning. This time, it was no Evensong (too early for that), but there was a choir singing as well. Again, it was not permitted to take pictures in the church. Maybe that was why some people found it boring - at least the woman behind us was busy with her iPhone during worship ...
Due to accurate planning (or just by chance, to be honest), we only had to walk a few metres in order to go to the Museum of London afterwards. As the name indicates, it's a museum about London, about the history and development of London, to be precise. It's a really cool museum, documenting London's history from pre-London times to the present in an interesting and interactive way. There was even a Victorian Walk!
And again, there was something that reminded me of Ireland - Guinness advertising!
In the afternoon, we went to one of the many markets in London. This one was called Bayswater Road Market and consisted of paintings mostly. Many showed London's landmarks and some of them were really beautiful!
Since the market was just next to Hyde Park and we still had some time left, we walked through this huge park and even passed the famous Speaker's Corner, before taking the tube back to my hostel to get my luggage.
This time, I didn't take a coach, but the train, Stansted Expess, to the airport. So even though STN is not really in London, you definitely can't complain about lacking connection to the city. Totally not comparable to HHN ...
Speaking of HHN, it took me quite some time to make it back there. I could do a separate post about my journey home, I'd definitely have enough content for another post. But that wouldn't be the best ending post for my London trip, so I'll just say: my flight was slightly delayed.
Since I had already arrived at STN at 6 p.m., I had a looot of time to spend with eating, drinking (Ryanair actually issued vouchers worth £3.50) and looking for souvenirs at the British store ...
And since it was a great weekend in London, and there hadn't even been rain for the whole time (but it started raining when I arrived at HHN around 00:20 German time), I'll end this post with a quote I saw in the Museum of London:
Of course, it had to be a weekend trip, because Christian is working during the week (obviously), and I'm also working (occasionally). But I extended the weekend a bit and already went to London on Thursday night.
Like for the Galway trip during the study week of my semester in Ireland and the Ireland trip in May, I will do an orga post first, trying to summarise what I did during these three days in London. But I will add most of the pictures in separate posts, trying to prevent each post from becoming monstrous.
Thursday
Ryanair and Frankfurt Hahn, once again. I won't explain that for another time, Hahn Express and the airport haven't changed since May when I went to Dublin. Only this time, I had even more time at HHN. I'll just add a picture to illustrate the size of this airport:
 |
| There were two more arrivals, but still ... |
Friday
Sleeping in was impossible, because Christian came by to hand me some useful things (like an Underground plan - essential for survival in a city with 11 tube lines!) before he went to work. Additionally, I also wanted to have breakfast before going on the big tour I had subscribed for. Since Christian didn't know when he would be done in the afternoon, I had decided to go on a 6 hour tour called "London all in one". There will definitely be a separate post about the tour, because it contained so much stuff and I took so many pictures ...
The tour ended at the Tower of London, which happened to be close to the office where Christian is working. So guess, which "sight" was next on the list! The good thing to say about the office building is: security didn't tell me to leave immediately, although I was for sure dressed inappropriately in business terms - and they had a nice restroom. I only took one picture there to let a friend guess where I had ended up. Like I said, I won't mention the name of the company, but the corporate design might give you a hint. :-P
 |
| The grey thing on the left is one of the many sofas. |
 |
| (mobile phone quality, sorry) |
Saturday
In the "morning" (like 10 a.m.), Christian and I met at the British Museum.
That's a really vast free museum about cultural history. Similarly to the Louvre Museum in Paris, it's impossible to see everything in just a few hours.You could spend days in there, I think. So we decided to see the Ancient Egypt exhibition first (mummies!), then the Greeks and Romans one, some rooms about Asia (ceramic dishware and jade jewellery!) and finally a temporary exhibition with caricatures about Napoleon Bonaparte.
Unlike some Asians who basically captured everything, I didn't really take a lot of pictures in the museum. I basically focused on pictures of some animals like this:
 |
| A cute elephant! :-D |
I actually had to check my pictures now to find out what we did in the afternoon. Too many impressions within a short period of time ...
We strolled a bit through the city, I refused to go shopping, was, unrelated to the shopping issue, asked by a stranger whether I was married (usually, I'm not the person who gets asked this question, that's another friend of mine!), and we made a short photo stop at Piccadilly Circus, since it hadn't been a part of the huge tour the day before.
After some more walking through the city and a break in St. James's Park, I insisted on going to King's Cross. Harry Potter fans will know why ... By the way, there will be a separate post about the Harry Potter sightseeing I managed to do (not much, though, so I might have to go back to London at some point).
Having visited three train stations, all connected to Harry Potter, we went back to Westminster. I almost forgot about that, because there are no pictures of that part of the day. That's because we went to an Evensong in Westminster Abbey, and it wasn't allowed to take pictures in the church. That idea wasn't mine actually. The tour guide from the big tour had told us that going to a service was the only way of entering Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money (18 pounds, I think). Lots of other people did the same, so we seriously had to queue for the Evensong, and there even was somebody checking the bags. Unfortunately, some other people had obviously only come to see Westminster Abbey and didn't care at all about the Evensong. A bunch of people even left during worship ...
After the Evensong, we still had some time, so we took the tube again (I like daily capping!) and went to The O2, a big arena for concerts and sport events.
Unlike the former O2 in Dublin, which is called 3Arena now, it was not renamed, by the way. That was just because O2 Ireland was taken over by 3 last year. Anyway, again, you might notice my problem that already occurred earlier that day when seeing the name Euston Station (shouldn't that be Heuston?!): London reminds me of Dublin instead of the other way round. :-D
After having had dinner somewhere in the arena, we went to London Eye, because I had booked tickets for 21:30, the last spot they offered. I took way too many pictures there, so there will be a separate post about London Eye.
Sunday
Unlike other people, Christian and I had proved to be able to behave in churches, so we decided to go to St. Paul's Cathedral in the morning. This time, it was no Evensong (too early for that), but there was a choir singing as well. Again, it was not permitted to take pictures in the church. Maybe that was why some people found it boring - at least the woman behind us was busy with her iPhone during worship ...
Due to accurate planning (or just by chance, to be honest), we only had to walk a few metres in order to go to the Museum of London afterwards. As the name indicates, it's a museum about London, about the history and development of London, to be precise. It's a really cool museum, documenting London's history from pre-London times to the present in an interesting and interactive way. There was even a Victorian Walk!
And again, there was something that reminded me of Ireland - Guinness advertising!
 |
| (Of course, there was also one the omnipresent red phone booths in the museum.) |
Since the market was just next to Hyde Park and we still had some time left, we walked through this huge park and even passed the famous Speaker's Corner, before taking the tube back to my hostel to get my luggage.
This time, I didn't take a coach, but the train, Stansted Expess, to the airport. So even though STN is not really in London, you definitely can't complain about lacking connection to the city. Totally not comparable to HHN ...
Speaking of HHN, it took me quite some time to make it back there. I could do a separate post about my journey home, I'd definitely have enough content for another post. But that wouldn't be the best ending post for my London trip, so I'll just say: my flight was slightly delayed.
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