Oh I just love London. I went back to London from Edinburgh last weekend, to visit Hannah. The train ride was long, 4hrs and a half to be exact, but totally worth it.
It made me realize what had been missing in my life for the past two months: My pals from IPS, namely Hannah and Kim, the walk along the Themes, MANGO, MUJI and Food for Thought.LOL
I arrived in London around 3pm on saturday, and since Hannah had a thing with Alert, I decided to use the time to finally go to Sir John Soane's museum in Holborn. From King's X where I got off, I should have been able to take the Piccadilly line directly to Holborn. But this is London. Of course there was 'planned engineer works' on the weekend of 21/22! lol I got on the Northern line to Bank, then from Bank, the central line to Holborn.
Sir John Soane was a famous architect in the beginning of the 19th century who I think build the Bank of England. I guess he was a eccentric guy, and his very unusual home full of his own art collections is now open to the public as a museum. In my opinion, he was like the Gaudy of England, and being in his home reminded me of Gaudy's home in Barcelona (although ive only seen pictures of it). It was remarkable, the collection he had, and I recommend people to go visit if they're ever in London. It's a small house so it would only take 30min to an hour to see the whole building. There was a que outside the museum before I could get in, but the turn over was very quick.
After Sir John's place, I went to Covent Garden for some coffee at Monmouth Coffee on Monmouth street just off of seven dials. I've already written about this fabulous cafe, so I won't go into details here, but oh boy, the coffee here certainly beats any of the coffees in Edinburgh. I wish they would make a branch in Edi...
While in Monmouth, I got a call from Hannah saying that she was done with her presentation at Alert, so we met up at Covent Garden station. I practically screamed when I hugged her!!!lol Hannah suggested we go have coffee at National Geographics on Regents Street, and we went and it was crowded but quite lovely. Then, we went to Soho to a Jamaican restaurant. With Hannah, we used to always try new restaurants and new cafes every week, so it really felt like I was back in London :) Needless to say, we were chatting away about EVEYTHING while eating, drinking coffee, walking, getting drenched in the rain, etc etc. We had so much to talk about!!!!
One thing that we talked about was of course the notoriously unorganized IPS admin stuff, and it amazed us that we still had to be talking about it, even after it was all over. Well, actually its not all over yet, we haven't even gotten our results yet (when will that be, no one knows...). We talked about many other things too, and I felt so good after talking to Hannah.
After that we went home to Hannah's sweet home, and we talked some more over swiss sweets and tea. Then we went to sleep... zzz
The next day, we were planning to go to the Finnish Christmas Market near Marylebone, but it was pouring rain in the morning so we stayed in until it stopped. London weather is always so unpredictable, but after it rained cats and dogs, it was total sunshine, so we decided to go walk along the Themes to Southbank, where they were having the German Christmas Market. It was so pretty and so christmasy!!! hehehe
We listened to some free Jazz at the Royal festival Hall's lounge with some coffee and cake, and then I had to go to my college reunion. It was held at the Park Plaza Sherlock Home's hotel, and it was for the alumni's living in London. About 30 people showed up, and I was the youngest and the oldest person was probably around their 70s. The chancellor and vice chancellor of our uni came as well which was an honour, but seriously, 35 pounds of participation fee was a bit too much...
After that I went home to Hannah's, we talked some more, and went to sleep... zzz
The last day, we had nice breakfast then went to the Strand together where Hannah works, and said bye with a big hug. We will see each other very soon at the graduation, but it was still sad... Then I headed off to MOGA to get my hair coloured again, and to trim the edges a bit. After that I went shopping on Regent's street, but actually only bought stuff at MUJI and the new Japan centre's food market!!! I bought 74 pounds worth of Japanese food, which really amazed me too. LOL
I went to carnaby street to see the christmas decorations (I liked last year's better) and then went to Food for Thought for lunch, and then to Monmouth coffee for one last time, bought some of their grounded beans for espresso coffee, and went to King's X and got on the train at 5pm.
I seriously cannot wait to go back to London again. London with Hannah was really a refreshment for the soul.
