VTT Postcard - Day 2 - London

My cousin and I decided to start early and trek to Portobello Road, Notting Hill that morning.

First up were new shoes and some tops. As I’ve arrived with no luggage, my feet were starting to kill me with my killer boots. Saw a shop that had a sale and bought myself some nice and flat takkies (rubber shoes). I’m talking real serious walking shoes here :-) Walking along I found another sale. 3 shirts for 10 pounds. Well, “I love London” and “I love Notting Hill” shirts are as good as any.

We had some photo opportunity with the bookshop that was made popular by the movie, Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. I was half expecting Mr Grant to come up to tell me everything felt surreal :-)

Further down the road, we got some Belgian waffles for breakfast. Right about now it started snowing. This was the first time I came face to face with “adverse weather”. Of course, since we don’t get snow much in South Africa, I simply loved this!

My cousin and I made our way back. Buckingham Palace to be exact. Got to Buckingham Palace and saw that the tourists were there in full force. There were no Changing of the Guards that day as they already had one the previous day (They change guards on alternate days during winter).

We played around in the park next to Buckingham and it started snowing pretty hard but only for a short while. The snow on the ground thickened. But what glorious sight it was!

At lunch, we took the tube to go to the Tower of London. We had some lunch….real original English fish and chips. After which we went to Tower of London and was told that they had closed for the day because of the snow. I was slightly disappointed that I did not get to see the Crown Jewels. One of the beefeaters came out and I asked to take a photo with him. I had that at least.

We took the tube again and landed up at the British Museum. Surprise, surprise. The museum was closing because of the snow. I felt this kinda weird since the museum was an indoor attraction and technically, should not be affected by snow. But anyways, what do I know of British thinking? We managed to sneak into the Greek collections and had some photo opportunities with the statues.

After which, my cousin took me to Leicester Square and Oxford Street for a major, major shopping spree. Whee! I didn’t know how much I needed it until I remembered that I still had not heard anything about my luggage. I picked up a jacket, a pair of jeans and some undies on sale at Gap. While we were walking through the streets, I was very surprised to find a Nando’s in London. How very South African, I thought.

We settled to eat at a burger place. And when we finished, we went on to the London Bridge (click, click here) and also caught the view of the Tower Bridge (another click, click here) from there. We explored a bit and stumbled upon The Monument.

Again, we ended the day just before midnight.