Paris was essentially a catchup and recharging point for me. Dad had a couple day trips, and I more or less worked and did a couple walking tours on my own. While I wasn’t in the best of moods, I found Paris to be dirty, unfriendly, and lacking of general WiFi options – the latter upsetting me more than the first two combined.
That being said, I did walk around in the center of the city a little bit. I saw the Eiffel Tower, although I didn’t go up, and the Louvre, although I didn’t go in. I figure I’ll save those things for another trip.
I brilliantly bought the wrong train ticket to London and ended up with an expensive, day-of train instead. Oh well. But we took the Billet train under the chunnel and into London. I took dad on a walking tour of all the main points of the city, and a few lesser ones (like Spitafields Market and Borough Market), which was nice. I like London.
Thursday night we met up with a couple of my friends at the pub – The Bear & Staff for dinner (so dad could get his fish and chips), before he left the next morning.
Then the three of us we went on a tour of Fullers Brewery. That was interesting – less commercial than some of the other ones I had been on, and we got to try a variety of British cask ales, as well as some of their new flavors.
We went to Doggett’s Coat & Badge and The Hydrant that night, which were fine but nothing to write home about.
The next day I sipped an Americano at White Mulberries by St. Katharine Docks before meeting up with them at the Imperial War Museum. There was a floor for WW1, one for WW2, one for the Holocaust, and then some things on art and other conflicts.
In the afternoon I walked through Camden Town area (and a bit of the market) before making my way over through the Zoo and Regent Park. Then I took a break on Primrose Hill for a bit before going down to meet them at Jetlagged to watch the bills game. They had reserved seats so we had a great place to watch the game, so we stayed there for a few hours and then got one last drink at a pub before they headed on their way to Paris.
So here I am again, back hanging by myself in London for a week. And as much as I’d like to regale you with tales of adventures here, the truth of the matter is that I spend my days trying to figure out the bus system, fairly unsuccessfully, to find a coffee shop due to an accidental week-long bus pas purchase, and then the evenings sitting in the back corner of the bar hostel working and blaring Iron & Wine into my earphones to drown out this angsty teenage techno shit before switching to doing busywork and watching Serendipity for the 22nd time.
But coffee shops. I went to Look Mum No Hands, a coffee shop/bar/bike shop in Shoreditch apparently entering the competition for the most hipsterish shop combination. Timberyard was next door, so I worked there for a bit too.
On Friday night I went to Barbican Theatre and saw Butterscotch Cumberbun (or whatever his name is) play Hamlet. I had a pleasant time, and I stayed in a nice hotel by St Paul’s Cathedral as it’s my last night in London for a while.
