Goodbye London

Everything ends. And my meeting with London is not an exception this time.

It is hard to gather all the correct worlds I would like to say about this city.

So, I wouldn't even try.

During my journey I had to be done a lot of things:

• I was having a walk thought all the center of London
• I was at the both business centers of London: the City and the Canary Wharf
• I was at the Oxford, Stratford and Warwick Castle
• I saw alternative London while participating the street art tour
• I saw "Phantom of the Opera" in Her Majesty's Theater
• I was at Ripley's museum
• I was at Sherlock Holmes museum
• I was at Madame Tussaud's museum
• I was at the Hyde park, Green park and Regent's park
• I was cycling a lot and developed my own favorite route
• I was at the Portsmouth and Whistle Island
• etc.

Even thought I was visiting a lot of cities before UK in my life, nothing impressed me more then London.

London is the place for everyone. If you are a businessman, bank clerk, painter, artist, driver, language teacher, this city is designed for you.

While I was a student, this city was designed for me...

Goodbye London... Goodbye my love... I will see you again very soon...

P.S. After London I visited Moscow. После Лондона, Москва вообще ни о чем. Даже рад, что уже уезжаю от сюда.

My UK tracklist

London with it's cloudy, rainy weather and old architecture creates unbelievable music aura.

From my point of view, British music was created mostly for it's citizens, so, you might find it more attractive here then anywhere else.

Several days before trip I uploaded only British music on my iPod.

While walking London's streets I created own tracklist, that I would like to share with you.

1. Keane - She open her eyes

2. Keane - She has no time

3. The Beatles - The Long and Winding Road

4. The Verve - Sonnet

5. The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby

6. Keane - Nothing in my way

7. Keane - Snowed Under

8. Keane - The way You Want It

9. Blur - To The End

10. The Verve - Valium Skies

Most of these songs were not new for my, but, I found a lot of new staff in them while listening in UK. Keane's song "She open her eyes", that I didn't like a lot in Ukraine was my best in UK.

Prices in London

London is not "just expensive city", but "very very very expensive city". On my first week, I was visiting a lot of entertainment and, calculating expenses on the next Sunday, I was crying.

On my last Sunday in London, I decided to track all my expenses.

The currency exchange was 12.9 uah equals 1 pound.

Firstly, I needed to go to Picadilly from New Cross Gate station that costs me 2.5 pound by Oyster Card.

First thing to visit was Ripley's museum "Believe it or not". This modern museum is famous for it's strange things.

I was hungry, so, I decided to eat at first. Not to spend a lot of money I went to a very popular "Pret a manger", where you can buy salads and sandwiches. For more economy, I ordered one sandwich with bacon and a bottle of water.

How much can it cost? One pound? Two pounds?

No, it costs 5.4 pounds.
After the breakfast I went to Ripley's. As far as I had a student card, I bought ticket with discount for only 23.95.

After this museum, I decided to visit Houses of parliament.

It was a cycling championship on the White Hall. I wanted to rent the bycile and tried to participate, but, unfortunately, was failed. Later, I found out that my payment card was ran out.
Luckily, it was am Open House day and entrance to the most parts of London was free. So, I saved money entering Houses of Parliament for free.



When I went out the Houses of Parliament it was 3 p.m. and it was a great time for having lunch. I was tired of this disgusting british food and decided to try pizza.
Pizza with orange juice costs me 17.9 pounds.
After this, I top up my card and rent a bicyle for 1 pound. Later expenses were chocolate cake for 2.9 pounds and underground ticket for 2.5 pounds.

Overall expenses were 54 pounds.

That wonderful Saturday

On Saturday, me with my schoolmate from South Korea decided to go to the Baker street and visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum and Madame Tussaud's Museum.

To be honest, I found this museum quite boring and it was nothing interesting to photo.

Hope that Madam Tussaud will be impressive.

Madame Tussaud, was born in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius in Bern, Switzerland, who was a physician skilled in wax modelling. Tussaud created her first wax figure, of Voltaire, in 1777[5] Other famous people she modelled at that time include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. During the French Revolution she modelled many prominent victims. In her memoirs she claims that she would search through corpses to find the decapitated heads of executed citizens, from which she would make death masks. It is not secret, that she made wax models from dead people. A lot of pictures in the entrance are related to this fact.

Nowadays, Madame Tussaud's wax museum is the world's famous and you will need to spend near 30 minutes in the queue to get in.
Luckily, there are much things to see while standing in the queue.




After half an hour I can buy the ticket and enter the museum.

Madame Tussaud's Museum is divided into several section which contains wax models of movie starts, musicians, sport starts etc.

First is the section where you can find movie starts.









This section contains wax models of sportsmen.




There were more then 3 more thematic zones, dungeon house, marvel's heroes wax models etc.

I was under the huge impression after.

If you are the first time in London, you should visit this awesome place. Maybe, I will visit it even the second time in the future.

Cycling

On my third week I decided to try cycling in London.

One of the world's biggest bank Barclays launched Barclays Cycle Hire (BCH), a public bicycle sharing scheme, on 30 July 2010 in London. Initially, BCH required initial payment of registration and membership fees to be paid in exchange for an electronic access key, but on 3 December 2010 this was changed to allow casual cycle hires by non-members who have a valid credit or debit card. Interesting thing here, that it is still impossible to hire bike by cash. Luckily, I had a Payoneer card with some money at the moment. After 30 minutes trying to hire a cycle I lastly succeed. I need to say, that the terminal is extremely uncomfortable in using.

Finally, I got such check with code which I needed to input to get the cycle. Price is only 1 pound per day, but, you are required to print this check every time getting the bicycle. But it worth so, because, I enjoy cycling a lot. Cycling with cars on the road is not the best place in fact, while Hyde Park is the perfect one.

My favorite route was Hyde Park->Apsley House-> Constitution Hill-> Buckingham Palace-> The Mall -> Trafalgar Square-> White Hall->Cavalry Museum-> The Mall->Constitution Hill-> Apsley House->Hyde Park

Despite the fact that Barclays dock stations are often not working, terminals may crash

unexpectedly or bicycles may stuck in the dock, I love cycling a lot and will never forget those great moments.

Phantom of the opera

Embassy CES provides discount to some tickets to London theaters. One of them is His Majesty Theater in the West End near the Trafalgar Square. One day we were decided to visit one of the world's most famous musical "Phantom of the opera".

To be honest, I am not a big fan of theaters, so, it was kind of experiment.

I made a decision, that if I will not enjoy this great play in one of the greatest theaters in London, then, theaters were designed not for me and trying to find something interesting in this kind of art will be wasting time in the future.

The play was 2 hours 40 minutes long with intermission, that lasts 30 minutes. .

It is hard to describe my feelings when the play was finished. To say, that it was good is to say nothing. It was amazing, incredible, outstanding, awe, perfect, breathtaking and unbelievable. Decorations were like a magic, cause it was feeling like you are watching the movie. Smoke was creating the illusion of the infinite stage, lanterns were raising from the floor, stairs and bridges were falling from the sealing, piano was playing by it's own etc.

Overall performance level was much, much, much more then I could even expect.

Concluding all this, I would say, that I like London theater a lot Obviouslly, theaters in Dnepropetrowsk are not as good as here.

Certainly, when I will be in London next time, I will go the theater.

P.S. Music from this play was in my head for 2 days after the performance.

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication!
Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation!
Let the dream begin,
let your darker side give in to the power of
the music that I write - the power of the music of the night ...

You alone can make my song take flight -

help me make the music of the night ...