November 30, 2008

The madness on Oxford Street.

Yesterday G and I had 2 separate but very interesting days out with friends. G went with Bruno up to Hunstanton to see the sea and the cliffs, and to walk around Blakeney Point where the salt marshes are. They had their own adventures, including turning the wrong way and driving the wrong direction for 20 minutes. :) While G and Bruno were driving around, I was on my way into London to catch a friend who was passing through on her way to Zambia for work. She didn't have very long, only 3 or 4 hours, but we had a good time taking a shotgun tour of London, including the Underground (parts of said tour we could have done without if the Tube map was clearer) and a restaurant called the Texas Embassy. For those of you who perhaps don't remember this obscure little fact, Texas was indeed it's own country for 15 years, from 1830 to 1845. They had an embassy in London not far from where this restaurant is, and the British government was thoughtful enough to offer them protection from the newly formed United States if they wanted to remain a country. However they decided to join with us rather than stand alone (a point to remind our Texas friends of perhaps when they get a wee bit too "Don't mess with Texas" ) and the rest is history. :) The Texas Embassy was closed in London. We found this place because we were desperate for some food- we had seen Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, The London Eye, Trafalgar Square, 4 Tube stations, Nelson's Monument, Buckingham Palace, The Mall, and Wellington's Arch by this point. I marked our route roughly on the map in purple. So we stopped at a pub for some food, but the wait was over an hour! So we looked for another pub, which of course stopped serving food at 2:30 as is common here. So we were forced to look for something less British, and we found the Texas Embassy. Poor Lauren had just come from the US and would have much preferred fish and chips, but the Texas Embassy definitely serves a version of tex-mex type food, closer to Mexican food than anything I've found here, and as such I was ecstatic! They had REAL tortilla chips with REAL salsa! My food was great- I just wish we could have found a pub for Lauren's sake. :)

(The purple route was where Lauren and I walked, and the
blue route was where Maria and I walked)

Anyway after I saw Lauren off at the Tube station I went on to meet up with a friend at the London Eye, which is the giant ferris wheel thingie. We're both into photography and wanted to photo the Christmas lights in London. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into! First of all, the Christmas lights in London leave much to be desired. They are not very traditional, and not terribly interesting coming from the US. :) But the crazy thing was that we accidentally landed ourselves in the middle of the biggest Christmas shopping mob that I've ever seen. Oxford Street was packed tight- and I mean tight- with people, from the station all the way down the street. We ended up having to climb over a railing to cross the street after we stood in this mob for about 10 minutes wondering if we would ever move again. And the worst thing was there was no where to move to! All 4 corners of the intersection and all the way down the streets was nearly as bad. If I hadn't been with my friend Maria I would simply have turned around and gone back into the tube and gone elsewhere. But these sorts of things make good adventures when you're with friends. :) We walked all over the area, wandering down small little streets and all sorts of places in search of good Christmas lights. Overall the lights were disappointing, but the city exploration was great- I found places I'd heard of or been looking for and never found. So from that standpoint it was great.

Burlington Arcade

Bond Street

St Christopher's Place

Some store called House of Fraser. Never heard of it.