Our royal trip ; day 1

Always late, I know, but you have to know: I went to London a month ago. I know, it isn’t that good an idea to tell the story in English as my English is a lot more American than British, but it is gonna have to do! I am going to look like a tourist anyway, because I WAS a tourist! In fact we didn’t speak in English that much during the trip; I was with my boyfriend and we were still talking a lot more to each other than to the people around!

So, on April 16th, we took the train at 10:15 from Paris Nord to be in London at 11:30. It looks like a short trip, but you have to know that on the way back, it seems to take three hours! I didn’t adjust my watch to the time delay because it is still at Quebec’s time anyways, so instead of adding six hours to the time shown, I just added five. (You know, I even changed the time on my watch when Quebec did, it was like a week or two before France did. So I had to add only five hours at that time too. I am practicing my mathematical skills. I have to, I am loosing them all since I am in literature!)

The trip was all right, in fact I don’t remember it, so it must have been ok! Everyone asks if the tunnel under the Manche is exciting… In fact I didn’t really notice it, it was just like being in a metro for thirty minutes; it is dark and the train goes on, I didn’t even think about being under the sea. On the other side, we saw British houses, British grass and British cows… Which looked just like the French or the Canadian versions.

As we expected, London greeted us with… rain! I had my umbrella (thank’s Jeff!) so we could watch the two floors buses, the numerous taxis, the red phone booths and the long lines of houses that looked all the same without being soaked too fast. It was all exactly like we imagine it.



You also have to get used really fast to the whole driving left thing, but I guess they know there’s like three or four countries in the world which drive left, because every street you want to cross says “look left”, even more around the train station.

As we were starving after our trip, we eventually began to look for restaurants. The problem is, there wasn’t a lot around! As I was on the edge of fainting (not that much, but I really was getting cranky), we finally entered the first place we could find which served food other than sandwiches. It was some kind of cafeteria, so it was a self-service, but so expansive! Well, we were in London and we had to eat, so we had fish and chips (we had to!), it was good! So, in a better mood, we continued our walk towards the hotel, which was on Sussex Garden. I think they should call it the Hotels Street, but Sussex Garden does look better on a map. The hotels all looked the same! And that was the only think there was on the avenue! But we found ours! And we checked in to drop our things and have a nap (always important).


For the afternoon, we decided to discover Oxford Street and the districts around. Oxford Street is a commercial avenue, so crowded we were almost zigzagging between London’s shoppers. Happily, the rain was getting a coffee break, but we were searching for an umbrella anyways, because I always though I would come to London to buy a nice “London fog” umbrella. But we searched and searched, and never found the one I wanted! But we found Starbucks and Subways (the restaurant, not the underground) all over the place! Usually, cities adopt some fast food restaurants, like the kebabs all around Paris, well, in London, it was Starbucks and Subways which were growing like dandelions in the rich soil of Londoner’s hunger and thirst. I am getting poetic! … with fast food!

Anyways, we also walked around Soho, hoping to find a high class place or something… But the real Soho is like… in New York? So what we walked through really was some kind of Pigalle, but less touristic, and with dark corners… We also found the Chinese district, which was a Chinese street in fact, with lots of restaurants!
There was also a bar, the picture of which I dedicate to my Urban Walker aunt:

You know the prejudices we have about England? These are all true! London is so… British! They do not threaten trespassers, they give polite notices.



They have their own Royal mail,



Royal Parks,


And Royal waste!


Well, not really, but have you ever seen such nice looking trashcans? “Please, do not dump rubbish here”. It was like reading Harry Potter. I mean, in Paris, the garbage is dumped in transparent bags, often tore off, or scattered all around the city. At London train station, there was no garbage can, for security reasons (??), so they politely asked us to keep our “rubbish” and to give it to the maintenance workers when we met them. The garbage men can!! (Simpson’s reference)
Ok, enough with trash (what, Japanese love their toilets, I love British rubbish!), I guess all I have left to say about this first day is that we ate at… Subway! (2 pounds for a 6 inches, soo much cheaper than anything we could have found!) And we went back to the hotel for the night, exhausted of all this walking.