january 4

SO. WOW. NEW YEARS EVE.
we left high wycombe on friday morning around midday after some excitement about the internet and editing photos or something. the train was taken in to london (at the ridiculous cost of £11 pounds, a reduction from the usual £18 but none of us realised yet that discounted fares are gained by booking in advance...strange system). there was a muddle with the underground system too because the bakerloo line was down and we had to do some kind of walk around to a different station and change lines and then get a regular train and EVENTUALLY end up in paddington. Luckily our hotel was about 2 minutes walk from the station and after walking up 4 (count them, 4) flight of stairs we reached our rooms. Being highly intelligent, Georgie, Yve and I locked our key in the room after about 30 seconds so that was really great. After traipsing back downstairs and back up again, we were set.

A walk around Hyde Park was decided upon and we set off with really no idea where we were going, but a firm belief that "it's big and green, who could miss it?". Georgie got really excited when she saw some lights in the distance and with the really safe motto of "follow the sparkles", we trekked across the park and discovered a Winter Wonderland fair kind of thing. After walking for a long time and being cold and tired, we decided to head back but somehow came out a different entrance to the one we had walked in and found ourselves on Oxford Street where I got increasingly more stressed as the likelihood of finding somewhere to buy credit so I could send HAPPY NEW YEAR texts, but all was well. We decided to walk back to our hotel via some strange street which seemed to be in the right direction and that would intersect with our road eventually so we set off. Somehow though, we had ended up in the Lebanese district of London. Every restaurant we passed was advertising Shisha and kebabs with an enticing "come in ladies..." so we moved smartly along. After eventually finding a greasy hole in the wall style burger joint where we got burgers, chips and soft drink for £2.50 we made it back to the hotel and collapsed on the beds to watch Friends and Scrubs  before agreeing to take a nap. Happy New Year indeed...we awoke at 9pm and Yve Georgie and I decided we HAD to celebrate so we got all dressed up and went outside...then realised we didn't know where to go. Paddington was full of equally dressed up young people like us, all wondering where to go and all with nowhere to go. We considered taking a bus into Trafalgar Square but didn't know how to work the bus system and in the end we drank our vodka and wandered back to the hotel to wake the others. Then we ventured down to the "old people pub" and Georgie made friends with a french boy who we all chatted to until he left, presenting us with balloons before doing so. At the countdown to midnight we all squashed inside where scary old people were drunkenly dirty dancing and cheered and hugged before Georgie proudly declared "Happy 2013!". We survived outside until near 1am before returning to our hotel where Yve, Georgie and I stayed awake until 3am. The low point was when Georgie and I settled down to sleep and Yve stood over us ordering "stay awake! stay awake!". So our crazy drunken NYE in London didn't really happen, but i actually had the best NYE ever.

New Year's Day we woke at 7.30 to have breakfast and then decided to be touristy and went to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, both of which were entertaining although after visiting the Science Museum for several hours we were drained by the time we got to Natural History. Walking back to Hyde Park afterwards we reached the Royal Albert Hall and did token touristy photos, then it was on to Kensington Palace just as London began to rain. We attached ourselves to a tour group being run by a Scottish man, kilt and all, who was telling stories about William of Orange (and how the elderly Irish still say a toast to the mole that tripped him and made him fall off his horse). We eventually made it back to our hotel again and collapsed onto the beds. Janet arrived a while later so we dragged ourselves down to meet her at Paddington Station  and went to dinner at what we thought was Chinese but turned out to be more generically an Asian restaurant. That night we all collapsed into bed and slept until 7.30 the next morning where we got up for breakfast again before walking up Oxford Street (forgetting it was a Sunday) and then taking the train back to High Wycombe.

I know my days are a bit behind now, but I'll catch up tomorrow hopefully!