London in 3 days

That's me gazing out through the window of our 'breakfast place' in lovely and busy London. Last week we went to london for the Easter holiday. It was my first time. So I was really excited to see some place other then the'continent'. I was expecting the Londeners to be much more different in their personality, way of life, well pretty much everything. Continent people, especially Germans, seem to be more closed, held back and afraid. You can say that 'island' people are closed or somewhat conservative; but not the Londeners! The cliche about Germans being up tight and so on is really true. As soon as I arrived to Heathrow the change of atmosphere after Germany struck me so hard that it just put a smile on my face. That's pretty much what I was waiting for! People were smiling! They weren't bothered nor disturbed talking to other people... Unglaublich. Then I just couldn't wait to get to the city. When we were buying the tickets or getting on the Tube or just buying our first water from a bufe, evryone was just plain old nice. Why is it so difficult for people to smile? Even the weather was more pleasent then in Dusseldorf.. what a surprise.

We stayed in a pretty family home in Aldred road. The neighbourhood was really English with the architecture and the little cafes. We had breakfast somewhere in Oxford st, then walked all around reagent st, Trafalgar Sq and Piccadily circus. Ye I know, 'classic'. In the evening we found a pub near Chinatown and sipped a few beers. Well I drank plain old beer cause I'm not a huge beer fan. But the beer was much lighter in taste as the ones I have in Germany. Maybe good beer should be bitter but what do I know. After we walked to Chinatown. It was totally packed and crazy! As if these people haven't seen or eaten enough Chinese! U may ask me then why I was there. Right, because I really love Chinese food and wanted to have some that time of the day.. We just went into a random restaurant and I can tell you that we'd made a huge mistake. I mean I guess those little Chinese people are sick of non-English speaking French tourists but that's not an excuse to give bad service. It was dreadful. For around 30£ the food wasn't amaz'ng as well. By the way, for those of you who think or believe that London is expensive, I have news for you: Dusseldorf is around the same price range and some places are more expensive. But Chintowns are probably the same all over the world. They must always be hektic and smelly and red. So in London that wasn't a big surprise.
After dinner we wanted to go to a pub or a club or smt. Soho is next to, well they are pretty intertwined, Chinatown. Soho was really great. Just my type of living. There were bars and clubs and theatres and comdy theatres all over the place! It was a nighters paradise. Quickly we had to choose a place cause our poor feet could not take it anymore. Jc had once told me that there were many French students working in London. I could see that from the french in the bar. They were actually everywhere, cause I had seen a lot during the day as well. Again in comparison to Germany; people were enjoying themselves. They were chatting with the next table and so on. Well we had to go home around midnight inorder to take the last train.

The next day I had to go to the Topshop headquarters! It was packed packed packed. I had to wait 15 mins. or so for the changing rooms. I didn't buy a lot, couldn't relly find stuff in a short time and it was really hot and crowded. But I love this 'mix and match' style of the girls there. I mean in London. They just mix evry kind of clothing imaginable and get away with it. It's k'nd of like the Japenese but in a European way?! And I loved that I saw a lot of girls wearing 'Ballerinas', cause I am a huge fan and have a lot myself. That day was just about shopping, or trying to shop for me cause I have put on weight and didn't like anything, Jc found some nice tuff for him.. Then we went off to Covent Garden. I know we are classic tourists, but I had to see the famous places first. But it was a cute place, with the golden carousel and the covered sq. Jc took me to a shop where he'd bought h'is Savage T-shirts from. Well I bought a couple myself. The sales lady recommended a shopping street in Notting Hill and also we had a lovely chat. I mean these people are really fun. As expected we rushed to Notting Hill cause it was already around 5. I don't remember the street's name but it was long street with little second-hand, antique and clothes shops. We didn't find anything interesting so we decided to follow the crowd. there were a lot people there as well. The crowd brought to Portobello Road which is a mile-long street market. There were many choices of antiques (Westbourne Grove end), arts and crafts, fruit and veg (round about the crossroads with Westbourne Park Road), second-hand clothes and jewellery (under Westway), bric a brac and even organic food. It's open on Fridays and Saturdays and we went on Saturday, which was really busy. There weren't amazing bargains, but it was definitely worth a visit. Ofcourse I found Turkish salesmen who were selling clothes. We are just everywhere. towards the end of the market I found a really nice jacket/bolero in grey vintage style. The guy said it was 45£! I didn't get 't and then wanted to go back to Topshop.. And we did.. Like two little shopping freaks. It was almost closed and was still too packed anyway. So we indulged ourselves in a huge piece of chocolate cake! That was comforting.. Again we ended the night smw in Soho.

But I loved the way the Londoners were rushing from place to place at night in their high heels and their dresses and thier suits.. They were probably going to some Theatre or Musical or smt.. London felt really alive. Not like a semi-conciouss Germany.
Why is Harods closed on Sunday? Was it because it was Easter Sunday? We were just so disappointed. We wnt there and just watched the building.. How pathetic is that. Thank Gog we weren't the only ones.

Ofcourse we went to museums. Well only to one actually, The British Museum. It was pretty good. and bad. It was so packed packed and boiling hot with loud Italians and confused Spanish. I did learn smt though; NRW was the glass production centre of Europe about a thousand years ago. Dusseldorf is now the production centre of Germany. It's n'ce see some connections.

We threw our selves to the tube and hed back to Soho, to Leicester Sq. We wanted to go to The Comedy Store but it was already full. So we chose another comedy club at random and it was fantastic. just imagine living in London and going to one of those comedy clubs once a week for 5£! There's really a lot of th'ngs to do in London. The shows were great; the comdians crucified Jesus over and over, the other confessed he wanted to have sex with his mother and sister and the other was acting out a schizophrenic english guy, it was just great. I guess just ordinary english and australian people would do a wonderful stand-up as well. That's the difference between the continent and the island..

On Monday we had to leave and we were so tired that we threw ourselves on the plane. After the sunny weather in London, masses of grey clouds greeted us. What a change. It's even rainy and grey here in August.. What a change.