A trip to... London!

Hello dudes!! I just came back from my trip to London. I've written a short diary, as I promised to our teacher Antonia. Here it is, if anyone is interested:

Day 1: Thursday, 20th June

We got up at seven o'clock, and we started preparing all. We left the house and, at quarter past eleven, we were already inside the airport, buying oil, ham and wine for our friends in London.

An hour later, our plane left the airport. We were the last passengers to arrive, and I lost five euros in a bet with my sister, because I was sure that we weren't going to be able to get on the plane at time.

We arrived at London at one thirty and, not surprisingly, it was raining. Our friends took us to their house. They live in Forest Gate, in a house more than one hundred and thirty-eight years old!! It's a very curious neighbourhood: every house has a front garden, and it's compulsory to keep it as a garden, so the streets are very colourful. Sometimes, they look like a forest! Also, in the streets we saw an amazing mixture of razes: Chinese, Muslims, Hindu, European, African people... It's quite a beautiful neighbourhood!

Just after we arrived, I went straight to the garden they had at the back of the house, and I found two cats and a small pond. That was enough to entertain me for all the afternoon.

We had dinner (their strongest meal) at seven o'clock. After that, we went for a walk through a park they had very near their house. We also visited their allotment. This is a piece of land you can apply the town hall for, in which you can grow vegetables. Our friends cultivated broad beans, raspberries, lettuces, tomatoes, carrots... They're a really good idea, these allotments... We should have them in Spain, too!

Day 2: Friday, 21st June

We got up at nine o'clock, and we had breakfast. We caught the Underground (it was a complete mess!) and we got onto a cable car above the Thamesis. It wasn't as I had imagined: the water was grey and I didn't see any birds or insects. Nevertheless,
the sights were interesting. We saw the O2 Arena; maybe you remember it from the book "All About Britain".


After lunch, we bought a guidebook from London. In front of the shop there was a bagpipe player. I'll tell you something: a bagpipe player can appear very colourful and impressive, but only until he starts to play his instrument... The sound is terribly loud and high-pitched, and it pierces your ears. It's horrible!!

We quickly went into St. Jame's park. It was enormous! It was all green, there were trees everywhere... And lots of squirrels! There was also a big pond, with lots of ducks, swans and their offsprings, herons, geese, pigeons, coots...

St.Jame's Park

Later, we went to Hyde Park, near the Buckingham Palace, the residence of the Queen. There, in front of the Palace, we saw three Queen's Guards, who, as you might well remember, have the job to protect the Queen Elisabeth. Their faces were very serious, and they stood still in front of their sentry boxes with their bear hats. I got bored quickly and we went to Hyde Park. It's as beautiful as St. Jame's Park, and sometimes I confuse them. There were many squirrels, too. We had an ice-cream next to a huge pond full of swans, and later we went to Green Park.

We went out of the Park and walked through the streets. We went to Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly's Circus, Chinatown (a chinese neighbourhood)... There were many people and many shops, but I didn't enjoy the walk because there was a lot of smoke everywhere.

After that, we went to Convent Garden. There was a little orchestra playing there- three violins and one contrabass. The man who played the principal violin was amazing! He jumped, danced at the rhythm of the music... And all this while he was playing the violin! We spent a funny time there.

Finally, we took the Underground and went back to the house. We had dinner and they prepared us a traditional English dessert- the rhubarb. It was delicious!!

Day 3: Saturday, 22nd June

After breakfast, we took the Underground to the Natural Museum. It was very big, and we spent all the day walking along its endless corridors and its enormous rooms. We learned about rocks, insects and all kind of animals, but there was too much information to keep in o
ur heads. We ate lunch at a picnic area they had inside the museum and we continued our visit; precious minerals, extinct animals, volcanos, dinosaurs, stuff animals... I was so tired that I fell asleep just when we arrived at the house.

Day 4: Sunday, 23rd June

We took the Underground to Windsor and Eton, two little villages separated by a river. We walked a little through the streets of Eton, and we saw a lot of college students in black uniforms. They were spread along all the village, because they just had celebrate a party for the end of the course. Eton College is one of the most prestigious schools in London. It's very expensive and elegant, and it's only for boys from thirteen to eighteen years old. They say it's very tough; it prepares you very well for the University.

Later, we had lunch at a pub. It was one of those traditional English pubs, and it was very nice. They were playing a record by The Beatles, my favourite group! I felt at home.

After lunch, and after waiting in a long queue, we visited the Windsor Castle. It was enormous; it had been the residence of many kings and queens, and it had plenty of rooms. We hired some audio phones and we listened to the story of the rooms as we walked through them. We saw the Queen Mary's dolls' house, a long, long room with hundreds of shields in the ceiling, a room with plenty of armours, swards and trophies from battles, like precious tigers' golden heads, and much more. We also saw four more Queen's Guards. They were walking along the gates of the castle, watching us with their bored faces.

Day 5: Monday, 24th June

Hieroglyphs

We spent all morning in the British Museum. It was huge, even bigger than the Natural Museum, so we couldn't see it all, of course. We had only time to see the Egypt, Rome, Assyria and Greece exhibitions. They were all very interesting.



We also saw the mummy of Cleopatra, and the mummies of many other people, cats, birds and even crocodiles!

We had lunch and, for the first time, I tried the famous “fish and chips”. They weren't served in a cone, as Antonia had explained to us, but in a plate. Nevertheless, they were delicious!

After lunch, we went to St. Jame's Park again and tried to hire a bicycle to ride along the park, but none of them worked, and we spent more than an hour trying to find the error, and we also lost eight pounds. We were very angry because it was very bad explained and we couldn't ride the bikes.


We walked along the park, because we also had another plans for that afternoon. I wanted to feed the squirrels, so we spent a lot of time giving them bread and seeing them eat. They were very, very close to us! They were completely used to humans; one even climbed onto my leg! It was absolutely incredible.




Later, we went to London Eye. It's a huge wheel from where you can see wonderful sights of London. We saw the Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Thamesis (right under us), St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Cleopatra's Needle, Westminster Palace... It was all amazing.


It was getting dark, so we couldn't visit the Big Ben or the Houses of Parliament, and we went back to the house.

Tuesday, 25th June

It was time to leave. We said goodbye to our friends and their cats, and we took the Underground to a suburban train, who led us to Gatwick airport. Our plane took off at ten thirty and we said goodbye to London, who disappeared quickly under the fog.