Nia's DW

Thursday - where we travelled.
Around noon candamira and I took a train to Franfurt from where our flight to Heathrow would start. The last time I've been on a flight was last summer to Edinburgh and for idk what reasons security was much heavier last week than it had been last year. We reached our hotel in Pimlico and I got the first impression of space and its value in town. The room was lovely but not bigger than a card box. But we were lucky because it was on the first floor therefore we had the luxury of a balkony.
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After dinner we took a walk through our quarter and looked at the other side of the Thames.
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Light and atmosphere was a bit alien.
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Friday - where we indulged in touristy things.
We started our day from Westminster (Big Ben and Palace of Westminster), crossed the bridge and walked the South Bank side of the Thames. And yes, the weather was that great. I was lucky that Canda had brought a sunblocker.
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The London Eye was quite a sight as well. It was fun to see everything from above out of its gondola (yes, it's horribly expensive and it takes ages to get the tickets, but it was worth it because of the breathtaking view and the bizarre feeling in this gondola).
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As Canda mentioned we took Lunch at Look mum no hands and ate a German hot dog
. Please don't ask why they called it German. Maybe because of the Frankfurter sausage? A hot dog is definitely not one of our specialities. ;p Whatever - it was a lovely place for a break.
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And Canda took a nice pic of me (which I have to share because nice pics don't happen very often).
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We crossed the river again via Millenium Brigde and took some great pictures of the scenery again.
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St. Paul's in all its glory.
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Tower Bridge from afar.
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We went back to the hotel by bus which was a very good idea. The bus took the scenic route through Fleet St, The Strand, Whitehall and Victoria St, so we passed King's College, Saint Mary-le-Strand Church, Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey and New Scotland Yard (very important, indeed ;p).

After a short break we headed to Covent Garden where our soiree took place. At St. Paul's Church (there are probably more St. Paul's in London than just those two) we watched Pinocchio, an amazing play by IsisTheatre. It was a mixture of puppet play, musical, and normal play. Actors and audience changed locations quite a few times in the lovely garden of St. Paul's and after nearly three hours the play ended in the church.
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The actors were wonderful and I'm sure to see some of them again. My favourite was the Green Cricket played by Nick Howard-Brown who has more cutting cheekbones and eyes than Draco and Sherlock together.

Saturday - Where we meet our HP friends from the hp_uk_meetup.
Saturday morning we were still a bit exhausted from the day before so we spent the morning on our own. We went to Soho for breakfast. You might remember Canda's post about London coffee bars and of course we chose one of those. The Sacred was lovely and I loved the kiwis everywhere, especially the ones at the doors to the restrooms.

At half past twelve we meet the crowd at the Water Poet, a pub right around the corner of Liverpool Station and Spitalfield's Market. writcraft chose the location and it was perfect (Thank you, Writ!♥). First we introduced ourselves and then everyone got a little present created by the lovely vix_spes (who unfortunately had to leave early) and it was lovely to see the mixture of people and if the online persona fit (or fit not) the real person.
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Some people I met for the first time (aka we haven't met in fandom before) which was even more interesting. We laughed a lot and that didn't change while we walked to Writ's place in Wapping where we spent the evening and ordered pizza for dinner. It wasn't that easy to leave the quarter later that night because of 'necessary reconstruction' of all (it felt like all) the tube lines, but everyone managed to reach their hotels or homes safely.

Sunday - where we meet again. LOL
I'm not sure about Canda, but I didn't take any pictures that day. We met some of the hp meetup ladies again at Bar Kick and later we walked together around Brick Lane and Spitalfield's Market. It was a great and sunny day and we had a lot of fun.
For dinner Canda and I met a college friend of mine who lives in London and whom I'm going to meet again in October (she invited me to crash on her sofa for three nights and I gladly took up her offer).

Monday - where we did some more tourist things.
That morning we went to Picadilly Circus (Did you see Canda?) and later to Baker Street and Regent's Park.
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Yes, we visited the Sherlock Holmes museum too. Everything was put together in a wonderful way and I really liked its stuffed Victorian charme (it even smelt a bit mouldy because old things often do).
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That charming young fella watched the door. LOL
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Some impressions from 'The Study'.
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And I really loved Sherlock's handwriting (whoever wrote that did a great job), but sadly LJ only want to show the pic upside down. So, I created this post's icon out of it.

Later we went to Tower Brigde and once again we were lucky girls. We were walking over the brigde when the alarm went off and a ship crossed the brigde. Someone told me, others would wait hours for that to happen. And what a big ship it was (you can see it in the third pic sailing before HMS Belfast and some big cruiser. *is still giggling about the lovely little sailing boat that made a lot of tourists very happy*
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Tuesday - where we left after taking a look at the Queen's guard.
We didn't have much time before we had to leave for Heathrow again (as it takes ages to get there - no matter if by express train or not), so we just walked a bit around our nearest station which was Victoria St. And as it happens Buckingham Palace is just around the corner. The Queen was in Scotland (as she always is during the summer?) but that didn't discourage a lot of tourists. We just took a look through the gates because we weren't in the mood for more qeueing. Canda and I were sure that we've seen enough pretty castles and palaces in our lives and tbh this one didn't look that pretty (sorry my British friends, but in comparison to an old castle like Edinburgh castle or some palaces like Versailles or Schloss Neu Schwanstein it looked a bit boring). I'm sure it's interior is very magnificent.
Of course we (aka Canda) took some pictures. There are crowns at the end of the stakes. LOL :D
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Some more side notes with (or without) pics:
The Gherkin
Canda obsessed about the Gherkin, because one can't see it from London Eye. She managed to take some pics of it from various angles. Thanks to all deities, because otherwise our trip might have been declared a failure. (I'm exaggerating just a tiny bit ;p). *I solemnly swear to not underestimate the importance of an architectonic pickled cumumber anymore.*
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I really like this one with the Union Jack.
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Gherkin, some other scenery, and Canda from Tower Bridge.
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For capitu
Canda took a pic of those - just for you, darling!
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The tube and the busses
I had a hell of a good time in the tube, on the red busses, and with the whole world of Transport for London. Yes, it's crowed, expensive and basically like every other underground and bus system in big towns (at least like the ones I travelled with in Berlin, Madrid or Munich), but what makes it unique and wonderful (imo) are the station names and the names of the lines and that the whole system breathes history everywhere. I'm not sure how many people use TfL on a daily base, but it felt like it was more than half of the city's 8.5 m inhabitants.

I've never heard such a cheery computer voice on trains before. How that lady talked about 'Tower Hill' - one would think the cradle of humanity (or something similiar amazing) would await. I laughed my arse of on more than one occasion because we rode Circle and District line fairly often.

One last thing. If you're planning to visit London in 2015, check out their page because of the above mentioned reconstruction on not just one line and some stations too.

Congrats, you made it to the end of a very long post! Our whole trip was a blast!:D