England

This post is long due. I should write it before my memory begins to fade.

Let me begin with the flight. Well, I've flown Ryanair many times before but never talked about it here. It wasn't any different this time. If you have never flown Ryanair, let me tell you about it. Ryanair is the cheapest airline in Europe, and it's obvious why when you fly it. Ryanair's fleet only consists of the Boeing 737-800, that means all crew have to only be trained on one type of aircraft. The seats don't recline. The "in case of emergency" pamphlet is stuck to the back of the seat so they can't be lost or stolen. The overhead carriages are all painted with ads. No meal or drinks are served, but you can purchase them. Even announcements include ads, selling lottery tickets and all. Extra cost for check-in baggage, extra cost for even airport check-in (online check-in is free). Extra costs add up fast! But if you manage to incur none of these, the tickets are damn cheap! On my flight you could even use your cellphone while in the air, but I'll be damned if that didn't cost you extra.

Anyway, mine was a night flight to London, so when I landed at London Stansted, the customs area was thankfully empty. Unlike when entering the USA, all I had to do was present my passport and fill in a landing form. I got right through after a couple of questions about my intention of visit. I'm sure having a German residence permit helped a great deal!

The first thing you notice is definitely the English accent. It's just different when everyone around is speaking with the accent. In any case, I then had to take a bus to central London. I got down at Victoria Station at well past midnight only to hear an announcement for the last train in the Underground. I wasn't sure I wanted to take a chance with the public bus, so I decided to take a cab. It was really dark outside and the cabs looked like from a different era! I got a cab at the front of the taxi rank but when I tried to open the door, it wouldn't open! I finally figured out that you had to push a button beside the handle simultaneously to open it. When I finally got to my hostel, I tried to open the door and I again couldn't find the handle! It was even darker inside. The driver had to instruct me to put my hand through the glass like thingy and pull on the handle. And it was one of those doors that open the wrong way!

I checked into my hostel and went straight to bed. The next morning after breakfast I got a map from the reception desk and headed out. I needed a simcard so I found a phone shop. The pakistani guy working there was very friendly and looked through a whole bunch of simcards to find me one with an easy to remember number. At the shop I also happened to meed a lady who was flying to Nepal in a week! She was telling me she would be going to Kathmandu and Ponkra. I told her it was Pokhara and taught her how to say it!

On the back of the London map I found an ad for a free tour of London so I decided to take it. I headed to Hyde Park near where the tour would be starting. It was a free tour but the guide was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The guides work on tips so the better they are, the more they're likely to make. In any case, I learned a lot of history as we walked through green park, past buckingham palace, other palaces, pall mall, waterloo place, trafalgar square, westminster abbey, london eye and so on... basically the main touristy places of London.

We learned a lot of history about the place, but I don't want to discuss that here. It is very evident how much history London has. It is dotted with memorials of war heroes, dukes, soldiers and what not. I got lots of photos but the conditions were not very suitable. It was a gloomy day with rain seeming imminent. In any case, it's pointless to post photos of the touristic places, which are only too common. Here's a few anyway! :)








One of the four Trafalgar Square lions. Apparently the sculptor had never seen a lion and sculpted it using a postcard that had a lion's front. The back was apparently modeled after a cocker spaniel but no one found out until much later.

On the second column from the right, there's a little nose at a height reachable by people on chariots. It was apparently squeezed by soldiers on chariots when going to war etc. No one really knows whose nose it is or what it signifies.

I can't not write about the london underground or the tube. The one here is a Central line. It was a cramped train with two rows of seats facing each other on each side of a wagon, and barely any space for people to stand in between. This one seemed like one of the newer lines though. The others were more spacious but prone to delays. I made the mistake of traveling at morning office hour on my last day there. It was difficult to move. Everyone was going one way and I the other, it was almost like the swarm of black-clad people traveling together. The trains were packed and almost bursting through the door.

The escalator to the tube. This is obviously during off-peak hour. But one great thing was how everyone just stood to the right so anyone in a hurry could just sprint through on the left. This was also especially evident during rush hour when everyone on the right is standing still while there's a steady stream of people running up or down on the left.

Enough of London for now. I'll add anything later if it comes to mind. Oh yea, the clichéd red telephone booths and double-decked red buses were also everywhere! :) I took a ride on one of the buses but it was nothing special really!

After London I visited my cousin at Norwich. It was a lovely old town but it was one of those towns the essence of which you can't capture in a few photos. It had old churches everywhere. You could see a couple of churches from one church! The cathedral was magnificent too but I've seen enough of those! It was here that I had my first taste of an English pub.

Then I took another expensive train to Southampton. It's a port and a very industrialized town, none of the old city charm, except perhaps for an old city wall that once enclosed it. Here, I stayed at a friend's place right in the center in Ocean Village. It pays to finish college in three years and get a well-paid job! Anyway, we went clubbing at night, but nothing struck me as out of the ordinary.

We then drove to Salisbury. This was another little typical English town. We went to a pub here and got more of a taste of the English pub as we watched Man Utd beat Blackburn. Unlike a bar, the pub also served food, had couches for people to hang out, a pool table and a big screen tv. The pub in Norwich was similar but the night we went it had some singer singing hilarious parodies. And pubs close by 11 or 12 at night.

The next day we went to Stone Henge, but stupid me forgot my camera. It was such a gorgeous day and the Stone Henge had a magical charm about it standing enchantingly in that wide open meadow in the light. The Stone Henge had just closed so we couldn't get in, but I got a photo using my cellphone's camera from outside the fence. Even if you were to pay the 10 pounds to get in, you wouldn't be able to go near enough to touch it!

We were also passing by an American Football game between Southampton Uni and Portsmouth Uni and heard an announcement saying Portsmouth were displaying their FA cup for everyone to see! (I don't know why a soccer trophy would be out during an American football game!!) So I went and took another photo of the FA cup with my cellphone. Maybe I should invest in a cellphone with a better camera after all!

That's it for now. In fact I will probably be posting less frequently as I study for my exams! Also, studying all day does not really provide me much material to work with for a blog post anyway!

Okay then, I'm off.

Edit: There's one thing I forgot to mention about London, the heavy presence of CCTV. There are cameras EVERYWHERE! According to our guide, the average Londoner is caught 300 times on camera every day. The only escape from constant scrutiny is perhaps the loo.. but I still wouldn't bet on it!
Oh also, if you notice the sign in the tube, it says "Way Out" rather than "Exit". Isn't exit the more space efficient way of saying it?

And please excuse the formatting which was difficult due to the constricted layout of the blog. Thanks for reading!