London

Far be it from me to dictate what you do, but I think it will enhance your consumption of this post if you listen to this while you read it:

Sophie and I took the coach to London! It's a big and exciting city and it was full full full of people because of those running jumping swimmin games they have. The coach station is in Victoria so I had to put up with Sophie singing Victoria by the Kinks THE WHOLE WAY DOWN. 

Nelson was really getting into the spirit of it

We trundled to Speaker's corner in Hyde park where people who have something to say get up on a soapbox (or stepladder) and say it LOUDLY. There was an African Englishman talking about racism, there was a guy talking about a guy who had gone to hell. There were a lot of hecklers. Apparently Karl Marx and George Orwell used to hang out there! Probably not together. 

Like an internet forum but in real life

As Sophie found (to her despair) it's quite a lot harder to get sushi in England than New Zealand. In London you can buy it by the individual cellophane-wrapped piece. Ridiculous! We carefully unwrapped and consumed them in Gosvenor square.

DELICIOUS

Do you know what London has? The BIGGEST TOY SHOP IN THE WORLD. Do you know what Sophie and I are not? Grown-ups. So we were quite excited.

Like a kid in a toy shop

Hamleys (the toy shop) has got 5 floors. The top one is filled with lego! It had a life-sized lego queen which was mostly realistic except for the way she was smiling.

The real one would have just been a disappointment after this

That night we could have gone to the olympic closing ceremony except we were not organised enough to get tickets months in advance. I'm not upset it's better on telly anyway. I'M GLAD. Instead we went to Leicester square and watched improv comedy with the comedy store players (including Paul Merton!) who were so professionally hilarious I almost wept. We eventually limped back to our incredibly cheap and grim shared dorm room and slept fitfully on disposable pillowcases.

London at night!

London is full of marvels, like a 3-floor M&M shop with every colour that exists in the visible spectrum.

I wanted one of each but Sophie wouldn't let me

Next day we went to the national gallery (which was stunning and HUGE) and giggled at the many painted bottoms and exasperated Christs. We were both wearing brand new shoes so walking became slight agony but we stumbled to the natural history museum. We reviewed their earthquake room (as Sophie said, a lot more like being smoothly moved by hydraulic machinery than an earthquake) and looked at some rocks and skeletons and things. It was also huge and impressive, and all the galleries in london are free thanks to it being a socialist paradise :)

Slightly pained but the shoes look so good!

London is just full of beautiful buildings. We spent a lot of time wandering around posh areas looking at designer shops in our rumpled tshirts and enormous backpacks. Then onto a coach and back to Sheffield.

Bye London!