Last weekend I had the privilege to take a trip to one of my favourite places in the world, London. After a 3 hour bus ride from Leicester we arrived at Victoria station and was greeted by a friend of a friend who is from London and lives there still. He took us around to all of the usual sights, Big Ben, Parliament Buildings, Westminster Abbey, Hyde Park, the London Eye and Southwark church where Shakespeare visited frequently. But we also got the pleasure of doing some things I've never done before like a walk along the Thames in South London that led to a huge food market with fresh fruit, homemade pies and sausage, pastries and fresh squeezed juice. After some lunch we went to the Tate Modern, call me old fashioned but I like my art to be appealing. I just don't get a canvas painted entirely grey or a white rectangle with asymmetrical sides that fades into the wall. That night we went to a club called Piccadilly Institute that was right in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Our new friend and tour guide also works as a paramedic and apparently that means free entry into clubs, which was a good thing because if we had to pay it would've been 10 pounds -____- The club itself was pretty amazing, 7 floors each with a different them and genre of music. It was surreal leaving from a good night out right into the streets of Piccadilly Circus.
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The next morning (after some much needed Tylenol) we headed to Abbey Road. Of all the things I saw that weekend, I could not comprehend how Abbey Road was still open for public use. Tourists would jet out in hopes of a look-a-like Beatles picture and cars would come to a sudden dead hault inches from them then angrily throw their hands up as they drove away. Still, it was a great thing to see and the area around it is very quiet and calm with a church nearby and large knotted trees on either side of the streets. After that we headed back into central London to pay a visit to the British museum, which I could easily spend hours in every week and still be amazed by the artefacts it holds. Then it was onto Coventry market where along the way stopped off at the Rock & Sole, opened in 1870, to pick up some fish and chips. Or I should probably say, a whole fish and 2 potatoes because that was about the portion size we got. We ate lunch on the side steps of Coventry market while watching street performers from between the legs of the large crowd that formed and milled about. Finally, it was onto the National Gallery for some good old fashioned art and then to the pub at the coach station to rest our feet before the bus ride home.
I've had some bad travel experiences; stalled planes stuck on tar mats, unseemly weather, getting sick on flights, layovers that lasted for hours upon hours, and losing valuables just to name a few. But this bus ride back to Leicester easily makes the top 3. At first everything was fine, we found four open seats at the back all together and sat down with our stuff piled in front, but about 20 minutes into the journey I can feel the heat at my feet on full blast. I'm sure that will go off soon, I think. At an hour into the journey I have pant legs rolled up and my feet perched precariously on the back pack to the right of me to try and not melt. At an hour and a half into the journey the heat is still on but now the air conditioning at my head has been turned on full blast and I feel like half of my body is in Mexico while the other half is in Antarctica. At two hours into the journey I go to rearrange my feet and burn the back of my leg on the heater, yes, it was THAT hot. So finally I go up to the driver and ask him to do something about it, he says to me "Ya, to be honest, this bus is shit. They are going into retirement in 2 weeks so everything is broken and they won't fix it. Sorry." Defeated and with a singed calf I walked back to my seat to cover the heater with my coat and pray that it didn't ignite into flames on the last hour of our ride. Regardless of how it ended though, the trip was a success and I've got the scar to prove it.
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