After some busy times I finally sat down to write a little bit about our trip to London that is already two weeks ago. The idea for this trip came up quite a long time ago, after Aaron, Morschi and Tobi said that they would come to visit us. We came up with the idea of meeting in London (Aaron and Annina have not been there yet) do a little bit of sightseeing and visit my sister who works there as an au pair at the moment. And since there are cheap flights with shitty Ryanair the trip was even affordable. I am complaining about Ryanair because they moved both of our flights (Malmö-London and back) to different times. For the trip to London it was not a problem but we lost a lot of convenience for our flight back - leaving at 6.50 from London is everything else than fun(our original flight was at 18.50) - but I stop complaining here, you get what you pay for.
Annina and I where in London before the others so we had some time to explore the surroundings of our awesome central
Piccadilly hostel where we could sleep for just 20Euro/night. Later on our friends from Austria that we haven't seen since New Year's Eve arrived at the hostel and we celebrated a happy reunion in one of the local Pubs that had a very nice waiter and good food. On our first full day we first explored the inner center of London with it's places and met Marlene afterwards. And since she was eager to show us around we walked all the way to the Tower bridge and back along the Themes with it's many attractions on the way. In the night we met Marlene again to go out(first time out with my sister - wohu! I am glad she was not drunk, this would have been to much for me!) which was fun but razed our wallets.
guess what?
Trafalgar Square and the view to the Big Ben
real Spartans sitting fearless in front of a huge Lion
the gang @ Leicester square
The following Sunday was a tired one but we still managed to see the parts of the British Museum with a spectacular highlight in the evening: seeing the epic movie "300" in the local Imax. The movie was absolutely amazing in any term although the sensible one's among you might criticize the many violent scenes but since we all are real Spartans we did enjoy it very much instead :) (and Tobi is training extra hard for sure to get a 8-pack like they have...).
some of the monuments from centuries ago in the British Museum & hanging around in front of it.
Monday we split up into different groups: Morschi hanging around in one of the parks, Aaron & Tobi learning more about torturing in the London Dungeons and Annina & me about modern art in the Tate modern (Is that a Picasso?? - I knew it *ihihihi*) and a tour in the expensive London Eye with nice views over central London. I really love the construction of the London-Eye it's both modern and timeless. It also gives you an idea why those office-glass buildings that are built all over the world are actually one of the most stupid inventions ever made. We had around 25-30°C in the cabins and everybody was sweating although it was cool outside. They have to use a massive cooling system during the summer when it get's really hot - but that's just a side notice.
view at the top of London Eye to the Houses of Parliament
London eye @ night & Houses of Parliament per @ night
On the last day we have been visiting my sister and her guest-family in their nice house. They have 2 kids, a paranoid shy dog and and a very welcoming and friendly atmosphere - so Marlene is really lucky from my point of view. And to make an even better impression we decided to cook real Austrian meals starting with a "Fritatensuppe" followed by typical Austrian "Kernöl-Salat" and "Apfelstrudel" made by our fake Grandma Aaron (who has the Apfelstrudel-skills of a Grandma but is far too young ;)).
