Turns out I returned to nothingness there too! So after a week of gauge-out-your-eyes boredom I got that "London's Calling" feeling and decided to return to the homeland.
On Thursday the 10th it was a lovely sunny day, so I decided to spend it in Central London. I bought a return ticket to Waterloo (£2.70) and walked from there. I went via Westminster and Downing Street towards Trafalgar Square. From there I continued on to the Bond Street and then Oxford Street. I went along Oxford Street (popping into the Apple store in Regents Street briefly) and carried on until Tottenham Court Road. I made my way down to Covent Garden having done a sufficiently large loop, and looking on the map finally realised how close Covent Garden is to Waterloo. The trip took me three hours, which included some dilly dallying in a couple of shops. My main aim was to learn lots of new routes for when I'm in London.
That evening I had a long over-due reunion with my good friend Ben, from back in my St John's days. He very kindly offered to meet me in Wimbledon and we went to the Village for some drinks. We hit the Fire Stables, a fantastic 'gastro-pub' off the High Street. We got through two rounds there, over an hour of chatting and catching up. It's great when you have such a good friend that literally years can go by without you seeing each other, but once you meet, you just pick up where you left off as if only a weekend had passed.
After a couple rounds of drinks we were starting to get a little tipsy and hunger was setting in. So we made our way to Strada which is a fantastic Italian restaurant on the Wimbledon Village High Street. I ate a fantastic pizza called "Speck" which has lots of mozzarella, Italian ham, and rocket. It was a very good night and we managed to chat a lot about lots of stuff.
I fear I'm using the word "stuff" or "things" too much, but that is in truth the best way to describe it, also I don't exactly remember the details of the conversations, though obviously a lot had to do with our friends from school or how and what we were doing now at university.
We had desert and paid the bill, it was a very good meal and we were positively full by end of it. We decided that since the conversation was good we'd continue at a pub that is the favourite of one of our mutual friends Mike. It's called the Rose & Crown and is just off Wimbledon Common. The conversation carried on and finished on a high I think, including some great revelations!
Friday was pretty unpleasant weather so I didn't get up to much but Saturday was a beautiful day again, and rather late in the day I decided to finally satisfy my dinosaur cravings that I'd been having and go to the Natural History Museum. I again got a return into London (this time getting off at Vauxhall) and walked from there. I walked past the SIS building, and through Belgrave Square (where a lot of Embassies in London are located) and up to Knightsbridge, then on to South Kensington.
I Loved the Natural History museum, and I saw almost all of it's exhibitions! Except the Creepy Crawlies because, well they're called Creepy for a reason!!
It was fantastic, and the pictures can be seen on here:
On Sunday I saw Ben again, and I caught up with a huge bunch of other people I used to hang out with. We took part in a pub quiz and generally had a great time. I spent the night at Ben's house, in his spare room at the end of the garden. It was great, and his house is very nice (quite different from the last time I went!)
And so Monday and Tuesday so far haven't been very busy, I've just been relaxing from all this excitement! Now I'm pondering when to go back to Southampton, it's Boat Show time and I think I really need to go!!
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