So I just got back from spending Christmas and New Years in LONDON!!!!! Huzzah! It was the best trip ever, and I think I was a pretty good force for UK/USA relations.
While I was there, I (obviously) had to visit the Dickens Museum, and guess what? It’s actually in HIS old house! I felt like I was absorbing literary genius through my pores.
This is where my friend Lindsay and I went ON Christmas Day. How much more Christmassy can you get than spending the day at Charles Dickens’ house? We tried on costumes:
and ate mince pies and drank hot mulled wine! Yum!
The whole time I was there, I kept thinking, “Are there no prisons? And the union workhouses, are they still in operation?” because I can tend to be a little Scroogy. Then I saw this:
Yeah, pretty awesome.
We stayed in a hostel for the first few nights, and although their were no Londoners there, because they were all home with their families, we met a lot of nice travelers who wanted to do one thing: party. Not being much of a partier, I imagined myself as Katniss, adjusting to life in the Capitol before the big games. I didn’t have anyone making me fancy dresses, but I DID go shopping at Top Shop, and we met this very enthusiastic French boy who taught every one at the hostel how to salsa dance!
It was kind of like being at a boarding school, except nobody spoke the same language, so there weren’t any mean cliques. And conversation took a while.
Then we moved into this awesome house where we were cat sitting (translation: staying for free!) and we started seeing more of the “insider’s” London. We ate breakfast:
Don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it.
We saw the sites, and there are many. Seriously, you’re on the 29 bus heading into Soho through this little suburb, and you look out the window, and it’s like: hey, a castle!
We also went to this AWESOME little pub called the 12 Bar, where local musicians play, and this awesome band, Backbeat, was playing 60′s rock. They were really good, and it turns out they are a group of actors just cast in a play about the early days of the Beatles! One of them became our new friend, and helped us out with tips, such as which buses are free. After many adult beverages, he said, ”Wow, you girls seem really funny and witty, no offence, but we don’t really think of Americans as being… smart.” We took that how it was intended, as a compliment, and were like, “Thank us later, USA.”
While we were traveling, I couldn’t help but notice that London is a very well-ordered, polite society. Kind of like the futuristic books where everything is perfect, but without the creepy things-are-not-what-they-seem-part. Example:
Stand on the right. That way people who want to walk, can. It’s so easy. Why didn’t we think of that?
Most of the rest of the trip was spent in amazing museums, marveling at the history and art and crown jewels that exist in a country that is more than a couple of hundred years old. Then on New Year’s Eve, we headed to Shoreditch, which is where one of my favorite television show characters, Vince Noir, is from!
Let me tell you, people in London LOVE New Years! There were so many costumes and celebrations, it was hard to choose where to go. These nice guys helped us decide.
So we rang in the new year at an intergalactic party from the future! Everybody was so nice and happy and intoxicated that they kept giving us pieces of their costumes:
All in all, it was a great start to 2010, and I can’t wait to go back!
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds like a great vacation. Two weeks after watching a Christmas Carol, my two year old keeps asking if people should be boiled in their own pudding.
Ha! I hope your answer is ‘yes, they should.’
jenny!!!! this trip sounds so awesome!!!!
fortunately, my affection for you outweighs the immense jealousy i’m feeling right now cos um yeah. dickens? english breakfast? hostels full of kooky people? that’s straight out of choose yr own adventure, the UK edition!
also, speaking from a YA perspective, that space soiree looks EXACTLY like the party for the people from the future in “how to say good-bye in robot.” you didn’t happen to see ghost boy, did you?
I just may have seen ghost boy, Posh. I just may have.
I AM SO JEALOUS!
an ambassador of AWESOME! dude, that hostel and the intergalactic futuristic party SO wipe the floor with my NYE — a toast at 9 p.m. with my ‘rents and their neighbors (although i DID have a fantastic convo with their 12-yo daughter about the awesomeness of the hunger games)
Jenny! First of all, I’m so sorry I didn’t get to meet up and party with you in London town.
Second, I too have been known to go to Shoreditch just to find Vince Noir. Also on the train into King’s Cross from St Albans (where one of my friends lives), we always pass Kentish Town, and in my head I always say “Kentish Town, Kentish Town, YES! Kentish Town, Kentish Town, NO.”
This looks like a very successful UK trip! Except for the serious lack of Wagamamas.
Erin, I think we might be soul mates.
I’m a cockney geezer, watch me bleed ya…
Ha ha, oh man, that reminds me. When I was in Russia, there was a tv station which randomly played the Old Gregg episode of the Boosh, like, 8 times while I was there. Dubbed in Russian, of course. In case you’re wondering, there is no Russian translation for “mangina.”
Oh! I forgot! So the lack of Wagamama was due to the fact that I eat there all the time because there are two of them in Boston! At least this town has that…
sure, sure, jenny. RUB IT IN.