12 pounds for a film ticket?!
The English sky didn't let us down and greeted us with a morning rain pour. Still, we didn’t mind and went to meet the new adventures. First we found shelter in the Westminster Abby, where the royal services take place. The curator surprised us, for he at least knew something about Slovenia (like when it got independent), for others just said (after they asked us where we are from): »Slovenia! That's nice.« Exploring the halls of the church for an hour and a half we realized the rain is not going to stop, so we pressed on to the Tower of London, where we saw the history of the royal family and the famous crown jewels. We were still hungry for history, so we visited the Tower Bridge.
But slowly we had enough of history and above all – the rain. So we decided to visit a spooky house called »London Bridge Experience«. We went through it mostly with closed eyes, fingers in our ears and screaming. Glad we made it our alive, we went to the movie theatre with an even greater horror awaiting us – 12 pounds for a ticket?! First we thought it was for all of us, so we gave 12 pounds, but then the elderly lady with a funny luck (meant to mock us) explained it’s 12 pound per person. With our brain in tourist mode we decided to pay and at least the movie didn’t disappoint.
You can easily empty your valet in London in less than two hours!
We headed on towards Notting Hill – party because the Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts movie, and partly because we heard there’s many small shops there. And there were – many shops with various souvenirs, cheap clothes and other accessories. Our valets only had a few coins left after about 90 minutes, so we returned to the city and visited the wax museum of Madame Tussauds (we booked tickets online already, so we got them much cheaper). As everybody we also posed with our favourite stars and celebrities, and we also stopped every now and again to watch people watching us. Visiting one sculpture after the other made us hungry, so we had to (yes, it took us a long time to get to it) try the London fish’n’chips. It’s a good old meal, with – at least my fish – being more old than good. Anyway, we fed our stomachs and went to see the London zoo. OK it’s a bit bigger than ours in Ljubljana, but not really different. And with our luck, off course, the main star animals were either treated for some illness or visiting another zoo. So we got to see many birds, lizards and mammals and headed back to the city to bleed our valets dry for a pint or two of ale.
In the middle of London – Malaysian week
We decided to see London from another angle, so we spent the morning on a boat on the river Themes, where we realized we were the only tourists who weren’t from Asia. We left the boat on the third of the five stops, and headed towards the theatre which was the home of Shakespearian plays – the Globe.
Charmed by the experience we went forth and in the middle of London came to the manifestation named The Malaysian Week.” Curious as we were, we visited it and even became performs in the end, for we were (at least the rest of the group did it to me) pushed forward and pulled to the stage. The girls died laughing as I was trying to match the hand movements of the performers, obviously trying to imitate birds. Anyway, I got rewarded for my performance and returned to the hotel with a new tie, pin, nail set and a biro.
It was time to head back home, and with a heavy heart we got one more huge breakfast, got our bags and took the bus to the airport. The last lesson we learned was: never talk about other people at an airport – there’s a good chance somebody will understand you.
Monja Dobnik
