Wonderlust: London

As I mentioned in the previous entry, Melanie and I were only in Budapest for a brief amount of time before heading to London. In all honesty, I think we were too excited to be going back to London to do Budapest justice. Although I was excited to be seeing London for my third time, Melanie was particularly stoked to be going back to her second home. She studied there when she was an undergraduate student a few years ago while I was studying in Paris. We kept referring to our trip to London as a vacation from our vacation as we have both been there before and we couldn't wait to be back for a number of reasons. Among which were: the British accent, good Indian food, Strongbow, fish & chips, the fashion, cute boys, colder weather, and the clubs.

We arrived in London on Thursday and took the bus to our hostel in the Swiss Cottage area. After settling into our room we found a nearby pub and got our fish & chips and Strongbow right away. Heavenly. With a bit of a buzz on we wandered around our neighborhood to see what was around then went back to our hostel to hang out in the pub downstairs before going to sleep.

The following morning we went to Camden which is a nearby area filled with funky clothing shops, thrift stores and restaurants. After a while I forgot that we were in London and not back on Haight in SF. The two are so similar! After Camden we decided to hop on the tube and go to Mel's old stomping grounds near High Street Kensington. We got probably the best Indian food of our lives for lunch around the corner from her old flat, visited her old flat, then walked past Hyde Park on our way to Top Shop and Urban Outfitters. That evening we went to dinner near our hostel and then went out to The World's End pub in Camden at night where we bumped into a group of 18-year old Swedish boys who were clearly Swedish. That sentence is entirely redundant simply to emphasize how stereotypically Swedish they were. A group of blonde haired, blue eyed, clean shaven boys bearing all too uncanny a resemblance to Draco Malfoy and named Thor. Yes, there was a boy named Thor. Come on. Although they made Melanie and I feel like creepy lady pedophiles, we had a good time with Thor and his posse of Malfoys. We stumbled back to our hostel high on life (and cider) and hit the hay.

Saturday we intended to go to Portobello Market in Notting Hill, but the line we needed to take wasn't working so we wound up on Bond Street at Primark instead. Primark, oh glorious Primark. Imagine Forever21 with Wal-Mart prices. It was chaos. I bought myself a pair of oxfords for 8 pounds. My first and hopefully last clothing purchase in Europe. We then hopped back on the tube and went to Borrough Market by London Bridge for lunch. Borrough Market is essentially a farmers market in that there are loads of different food stalls offering a variety of foods. As true Bay Area residents, Melanie and I found the organic food stand and got delicious vegetarian meals for lunch. Me eating organic, you're so surprised, right? Not. That night Melanie and I met a couple of guys at our hostel and went to an amazing club called Ministry of Sound. After dancing for hours and being creeped on by a dude who spoke questionable English and whose sobriety was equally questionable, we caught a taxi home and passed out.

Sunday we met up with Flavia and Philip who are now LIVING in LONDON! Lucky bastards. With Philip as our tour guide we wandered around the British Museum where we saw the Rosetta Stone and bits and pieces of the Parthenon among other cool things. We then headed over to UCL (University College London) where Philip will be starting on his Masters in Pretention in the fall. We grabbed lunch and said our goodbyes as it started to rain in London. Boo, but not surprising. We just hung around our hostel that night as we headed to Lisbon the next day.

During our stay we also went to St. Paul's Cathedral, Millennium Bridge and Covent Garden.

We have been in Lisbon for 2 days now and are leaving tomorrow. Melanie goes back to California tomorrow whereas I take the train to Porto for a night and then fly to Rome early Friday. Looks like I'll be riding solo. It's like S-O-L-O. S-O-L-O.

Camden