London: An unintentional weekend away.

As some of you may know prior to February I have been to London only twice in my life. One as a stressful day trip mostly spent shopping and rushing around and the other time for a 10 mile charity 'walk out of darkness' to raise money for suicide prevention. Both times it was nice to see somewhere different, but at the same time, incredibly exhausting.

Around the beginning (ish) of February, myself and my husband had some time off before starting our new jobs. We weren't really doing much at this time and so a dear friend of ours, Vicky, suggested we finally go and see her and her flat in London for the Friday and Saturday. My husband had never been to London prior to this time and he was bricking it because the place is known to be super popular and busy and crowds really aren't anyone's cup of tea. 

We arrived into London Euston around 5 and met our friend who took us on a bus trip to Elephant &Castle where she lives. This evening was spent mostly catching up and seeing another couple of friends who live in London that we never get to see so it was quite lovely. Plans were made for the next day involving waking up early ish which did not happen due to hangovers and late night trips to the chip shop. We thought we were going to be leaving on the Saturday afternoon/evening, but surprised Vicky with an extra nights stay so had more time to spend exploring. 

So once we had all prepared ourselves that morning, we took a trip across the road (ish) to that well known and sophisticated pub commonly known as Wetherspoons. Little did I know this day would involve a lot of walking at this point. Our first intentions was to walk a little while and meet our other friends somewhere in the middle of London (I think it was Victoria station) later on. We began walking and came across the Imperial War Museum and decided to have a look around here seen as it started raining and we still had a while before meeting others. My husband thoroughly enjoyed this exploring the museum, can you tell how excited he was from this photo?

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't expect a long walking day. But by the time we came out of the museum it was around half 12 and we hadn't walked that far. We were looking at the bus routes but our local Londoner advised we'd have to go back on ourselves to get the right route and it would take just as long, so we bit the bullet and walked across the river to get to Victoria station. It was worth the walk to see the sights along the way, even if the weather was miserable.

All was good and well with finding the rest of our company but then there was mention of the tube.... all of a sudden our hearts both sunk with the realisation we'd be underground travelling where it was super busy. Thank fully we were in the company of nice reassuring friends who made it much easier, and to be honest it wasn't as bad as expected. 

Photo credit: Kee. P.S. It was heavily raining and I had no hood.

Definitely worth it to get to go to the Natural History Museum which can now be ticked off the bucket list. I would like to go back here at some point, mainly because we didn't really explore too much of the museum because we had managed to wear ourselves out from the long ass walk from Elephant &Castle. However it was a good experience and my favourite part by far would be the dinosaur exhibition side. Especially with the hatching eggs....

I'm sorry the quality is terrible on my iPhone

This bit just made me laugh too much, I mean, look at this photo. It reminded me of my cat for some reason....

Again, sorry for the quality.

A trip to McDonald's, a walk around Oxford street, Piccadilly Circus and China town led us to wanting to get some food in and return back home. I forgot to mention that when we came out of the Natural History Museum the tube lines were temporarily closed so we ended up walking around one side of Hyde Park to get to Piccadilly Circus. A relatively late night watching Black Mirror (I say this but I was the one to fall asleep on the sofa, occasionally waking up to just about figure out what was going on in each episode before returning back to sleep) after watching the Rugby. 

Photo credit: Kee

Photo credit: Kee

Sunday was less tiring with less walking and I am happy about this. The weekend also made me realise that public transport is so much easier and more efficient in London than in my town. Here if you miss a bus or a train you've got to wait at least 20 minutes. However, in London if you miss the tube/bus there is more than likely one again in 2 or 3 minutes. It shocked me when Vicky made us run for the bus and when asked when the next one was she said in 3 minutes and I thought 'fucking hell, these are bus times on a Sunday and why on earth are we running?!'. I was also quite impressed with the cap on travel spend in a day. I thought I would have spent loads on transport, but in reality, it was less than what I spend in one day getting to work and back. 

Vicky took us around Carnaby street to the New Era shop which made Kee super happy as he got to get new NFL clothing. I quite liked this street, it had a lot of personality to it and didn't really look too busy/ over crowded and some of the shops had quite a unique style.

We were just casually wandering around waiting for some shops to open and came across the Drop Dead clothing store which made Kee disappointed in himself that he forgot Drop Dead stores existed. 

Inside the store they had a photo booth which was possibly one of the most awkward things I've ever experienced but it was free and we came away with these beautiful photos.... Can you feel the shame and awkwardness we felt whilst having this screen flash into our souls?

We were slowly making our way to the train station but needed to make a stop at the Primark on Oxford street of course. But on the way, something amazing happened. We were walking just past the king store (I had to take a picture of this because I am a freak who likes candy crush, no regrets, sorry). 

Vicky's forehead in the corner....

Don't worry, that wasn't the amazing thing that happened. So anyway, we were walking down the street and spotted something that looked a bit peculiar on the wall across the road. There was a street sign in front of this graffiti and we managed to move this, only to find this beautiful masterpiece. 

So anyway, Primark! I was in desperate need of some new clothes for my new job starting the next day so it was worth the trip to get some basics. It did mean that we got to see the Harry Potter section in that Primark and to be honest, I thought it was going to be a little bit more than what was there, is that just me or?

After an extensive shop around Primark it was nearly time to get the train, we rushed to the Burger King around the corner (don't judge the diet) and hopped on the tube to Euston. Thankfully, the train was delayed by about 10 minutes so we had just enough time to say our farewells to Vicky. 

The train back was eventful, if you follow my Twitter you may have seen one of my tweets when coming back from London involving some people sat in front of us: 

'On the train on the way back from Euston and the train is one that splits so you need to be in certain carriages. Bunch of women in front of us:

Woman 1: “Are we in the right carriage?’
Woman 2: “Well we must be in the right one cos we are facing forwards”

Sorry what????'

This was shortly followed by someone dropping their suitcase on a girls head while she was sleeping which of course came as a bit of a shock to her.

It was an eventful ending to a nice trip away for the weekend. I also now hear words which I never thought would come out of my husband's mouth ''I miss London''. So quite clearly London has made a good impression and I am sure we will return again soon.

To finish this long ass post (sorry, not sorry) I will leave just a few more photos I took on our weekend away. Where do you like to visit in London or if you live there what is your favourite place to recommend?

Peace out!