For starters, my train ride from the Cotswolds was free! The ticket office was closed in the village train station and there were no automatic ticket machines at the station, so a sign informed me I'd have to buy my ticket on board the train. Well, I waited and waited for a conductor to come around so I could buy a ticket, but no one ever did. I have integrity, but I wasn't going to buy a ticket once the train ride was over and I was in London. That one's on you, First Great Western. SCORE! Money saved: $53.
Then I had to take the tube from Paddington Station to my hostel. In Oxford I'd met another traveler who was coming from London, and when she found out I was headed this way she gave me her Oyster card (the commuter card for the Underground). "I don't know how much is left on it," she said, "but I don't need it anymore." Turns out there was £5.80 left, which was good for at least a couple free tube rides. DOUBLE SCORE!
Since then things have continued on quite well. The hostel is nice, my roommates are cool (half of them, anyway), the weather is sunny and mild, and yesterday I had a nice day wandering around the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, and Somerset House (all free!) and shopping/browsing in Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden.
Woke up feeling a bit under the weather this morning, but three pieces of plain toast later I'm feeling like a human being again. Grabbing lunch with Sede, a fellow English department thesis-writer who's doing her grad work in London, and then tonight I'm seeing Matilda in the West End, so today's shaping up to be pretty awesome as well.
I'm still looking forward to coming home, though not quite as desperately as I was. I love London, and returning here felt like a mini-homecoming in a sense...partly because I have my bearings and can remember enough about the city to find my way around fairly well, but also because I just get that homey, familiar, welcoming vibe from London. It's tops on my list of "Dream Cities in which to Live Someday," perhaps (gasp!) even higher than my beloved Lyon.
But things are winding down, I'm taking it a bit easier (it's nice not having to pack up and move every other day...at five nights, London is my longest stay on this whole trip), and things are going quite well.
Also, I think I saw Christopher Eccleston on the tube. (Either that or he has a very convincing doppelgänger.) in any case, London > Paris.
3 comments:
My favorite museum in London is the Natural History Museum. There are at least two tube stops within blocks of it (plus more very close by). It's adjacent to other museums and Hyde Park. King's Road is a few blocks south of it, and the road is full of many different shops and restaurants if you are looking for something.
Glad to hear you are in a positive state of mind. Enjoy your last few days!
Stephanie-- I'm actually staying right down the road from the Natural History Museum; I pass it every day! Some of the other girls at the hostel recommended it as well. I'm going to try to fit it a visit, but I'm rapidly running out of time...ahhh, too much to see and too little time!
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