«When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life»

When I went to London 29th of November to December the 1st, I found this to be very true. In fact, it is so true that you can live in London, and never grow tired of the possibilities that lay ahead of you. Musicals, shopping, movies, history, bookstores, shows; there is just too much to do! And in addition to all of this, they have STARBUCKS! :D

November 26th - Thursday
After a partial school-week that went by faster than I thought (I didn’t have time to think about my trip to London till Wednesday!), we packed in a hurry and went to the Norwegian Airport called «Gardemoen». We were going to fly with British Airways - very fitting; we were after all going to Britain.

At Gardemoen, we ate dinner (at Pizza Hut) and just sat around. I began reading Stephen King’s THE STAND, as I had finished THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE when we drove to Gardemoen. The first pages of THE STAND were good, and I continued to read on the plane, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it didn’t get really interesting before Chapter 12. But that’s another story…

When we arrived at Heathrow, we took the train to Paddington Station. From there we went on to Bayswater, to check into our hotel.

After a short ride with the fantastic underground, we arrived at Bayswater, and found our hotel. We checked in, but since we had rented a small apartment, we had to go back to Paddington again! The extremely helpful man ordered a cab for us, which we would get for free, but we had to wait at least 30 minutes before it came. So what did we do? Well, we politely declined and said that we should be able to figure it out by ourself. After all it was only one station with the Underground.

We shouldn’t have done that. When we left the check-in place, the clock was ticking and tocking towards Eleven (and that was after we’d changed the time zone). We didn’t get to our little apartment before midnight. By then, we were so fucking tired that we all just went to bed.

November 27th - Friday
Tired as we were, none of us woke up before 11 o’clock. For me, that ain’t a big thing. But my father, even in the weekends he’s been up for three to four hours. He’s up so damn early, it’s almost creepy! And now, he didn’t woke up till 11 o’clock. (And yes, since I am a writer with an overactive, sometimes annoying imagination, I did wonder if this really was my dad and not a clone or anything. But ever since that day, he’s been completely normal. Well, about as normal as my father is. I think…)

Anyway, we showered, cleaned up, drank our tea/coffee and ate breakfast. Then, it was out and about town!

We started with Madam Tussaud’s, which was a giant letdown of the kind that I’ve only felt when FOX cancels another great Joss Whedon-show. (Sorry for the geeky reference, but it was the only good way to describe it) After 45 minutes in queue and two hours inside, everyone was bored and we all agreed that it wasn’t what we had thought it would be. And to think that I actually wanted to see that place? My God.

After the giant letdown that was Madam Tussad’s, we went to eat. At a pub. I ate a pie, which the contents of is quite unsure. But it was good, and it filled my stomach to the brink of destruction.

Afterwards, we went to something more qualified to please my taste: The Sherlock Holmes Museum! Except we didn’t went into the museum… We went to the shop which was cool enough! I may take the Museum Tour next time. Because I will be going back…

After half an hour inside a weirdly cool, but-not-that-geeky-shop-which-my-family-also-could-enjoy, we went on to discover Oxford Street. And I have one word:

MADNESS!

There were people EVERYWHERE! Shops EVERYWHERE! Basically, it was just damn cool EVERYWHERE! For the females of the family, that is. The males didn’t enjoy it that thoroughly. At least I didn’t till I found a book-store, where I bought the new Stephen King book, UNDER THE DOME, along with Dan Dimmon’s DROOD. The following day, I discovered a three-story Movie/TV-show-shop. (This one was way too geeky for the family, so I was left to wander this great land of entertainment on my own) I bought Part 1 & 2 of CHE, a box-set of Guillermo Del Toro’s spanish-language movies and THE HOST. I haven’t seen CHE (I’m saving it till Christmas) but the Del Toro movies were GREAT. THE HOST, on the other hand, was, yet again, kind of a letdown.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again; after some wandering around Oxford Street, we took the Underground from Oxford Circus and to the Apollo Victorian Theater, where we saw WICKED - The Musical. It was a fun little muscial, packed with a good story of love, faith, cruelty, comedy and a truly heartbreaking ending… I’d give it a score of 7/10. Oh hell, it deserves an 8/10.

After the theater, we headed home, tired and ready to sleep.

November 28th - Saturday
This was our great shopping-day. We woke earlier than the day before, ready to leave our premises around ten o’clock. We took the bus instead of travelling with the Underground, so we could cherish some of London’s beautiful buildings.

We walked off the bus at the end of Oxford Street and started shopping. I don’t even want to think about all the money we spent only on this very day. There isn’t really much to tell: we went from one store to the next, eyeing only our next goal, swiping the cards like they never could run out of that precious money. When we needed to take a break, we walked right into the nearest Starbucks. There really isn’t much to tell about the day.

But the night… oh, the night!

When we flew in from Oslo in our British Airways-airplane, it was night. We flew in at around 10 am, and saw a beautiful, clear view of London by night-time. Big Ben, Parliament of London, London Eye; everything was lit up like one giant Christmas Decoration. (The only thing missing was the snow) We had decided that the Saturday would be spent on Shopping, culminating with a visit to the LONDON EYE at night-time. And that we did. I have to tell you; The London Eye was a little bit of letdown, but it was still glorious when compared to the giant letdown named Madam Tussad’s.

After our visit to the 4-D London Eye Cinema, followed with a trip to the REAL London Eye, we wondered what to do. I thought it would be stupid to go back to the small flat we rented, escpecially when there was a store that I wanted to visit only one stop with the Underground from where we where. So, we went there. But my sister was so tired, and really wanted to go back to our rented flat. Mom and Dad wanted a coffe, but that was nowhere nearby. In the end, I won; we went to the place where I wanted to go, and found a cafe. (We didn’t find a Starbucks, so we rooted for Café Nero) We sat there and drank our coffe/Chai Latte’s. When we were done, we split up; my sister and Mom went back to the flat, while my father and myself went on a trip to find the lost comic store named Forbidden Planet.

We walked out of Café Nero and my mother, along with my sister, went down to the Underground, waving goodbye. That was the last we ever saw to them… But more on that later.

It rained like a thousand angels pissed down from the heavens, everyone trying to hit the exact same spot: Us. Still, we worked our way from Piccadilly Circus and onto the street named Shaftesbury Avenue. And before you asked: the rain did not stop!


After half an hour of walking around, trying to find the store named Forbidden Planet, we found it. It was closed. And the rain? The rain just wouldn’t stop.

We were done for the day; soaking wet, tired and full of regret; this could have waited till the next day. We walked the streets around, my dear father being the guide this time. Then, we did something I didn’t think was possible. You know when you drive and you hit this «red-light-wave»? Well, that was what we did. Only we did it with the Underground.

We walked around Shaftesbury Avenue, Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus. Every Underground we found was closed. Maintenance work or something like that. When we finally found an Underground that we could use, we had used an hour. And what had we achieved? Absolutely NOTHING!

When we finally arrived at Paddington Station, we were exhausted. On the long road home, we bought some Coke (we were helped by a friendly pusher who only sold to tourists; strangely enough he had a part-time job at a Coca-Cola factory) and Candy, along with some beer and chips for the «grown-ups». (Sadly, that doesn’t include me)

When we arrived back at our rented flat, we found my mother and my sister brutally murdered. The TV was on, and the room had clearly been the site for a terrible fight; candy and soda was everywhere.

My father sat down and watched some TV while I plugged in my earphones and continued reading THE STAND.

Oh, and I forgot: the murder-part? Pure bullshit. Overactive imagination, remember?

November 29th - Sunday
We rose and shined a little later on Sunday, which was supposed to be our great Sightseeing day. Unfortulately, the weather outside was stable. And by stable, I mean really awful, and not going to change.

We took the Underground, went off, found the Underground that we were going to continue on closed, went up to street level, and found the weather even worse than before. We seeked refuge on the nearest Starbucks and sat there till the rain stopped. Then, we continued our trek towards the Tower Bridge, now with a bus.

When we arrived, it turned out that Tower Bridge isn’t all that impressive when on a street level. So after a quick walk halfway over the bridge, we backtracked and finally went to the FORBIDDEN PLANET comic book store, in which I used waay too much money! Then we went to Harrod’s, where my mom spent waaaay too much money! (or, you know, not) But we went to Harrod’s - my mom wanted to go to a store more fitting to her fashiontaste,

Harrod’s was not that store.

So we went home to our flat (after a quick coffe/Chai Latte in the nearest Starbucks), and after some more transport-problems it was time to relax a little; time to breathe out a little before we left London and went home to our sweet home.

November 30th - Monday
We opened our eyes, got ready, packed everything and was out of our place by half past ten. It was time to check out, so we took the Underground to Bayswater, leaving our baggage at Paddington so that we didn’t need to think about that.

We checked out perfectly and went to Oxford Street. It took three stores and no Starbucks to figure out that it was no point; we weren’t going to buy anything, we were all tired and we felt like shit. So we went back to Paddington and took the train to Heathrow Station, where we took a Starbucks, bought four books (I bought two) and checked in. We ate, and waited for our flight back to Oslo. I read the tenth book in a ten book-series (the series is entitled THE DEMONATA, the book Hell’s Heroes) both at the airport, at the plane and in the car on the road home. This was the day where we really didn’t do anything.

The weather was good, though.

-WatchingPreacher