Level 1-3: New Year's in London - Happy 2013!

My excuse for this one being very, very late is that it has moving parts. And no, the batteries aren't included. You're not paying for this! Go get your own!

We went in to London for New Year's. As I had predicted, none of us got murdered.

The train from High Wycombe apologised for being five minutes late. It was a twenty minute trip from HW to Marylebone - from there we were meant to take a train straight to Paddington, where our hotel was, but the direct line there wasn't working. We followed all the businesspeople who looked like they knew where they were going to Baker Street.

Did you know that Baker Street and Paddington are consecutive stations? They're right next to each other (in case you were unsure of the meaning of "consecutive", I guess). I wonder why no-one's written a crossover with Sherlock Holmes and Paddington Bear. Come on, admit that it'd be awesome. I'll re-read Paddington Bear - then maybe I'll give it a shot. I think it has potential.

Rooms sorted, bags away, keys left with reception and most definitely not accidentally locked inside the room - we made our way out into the cold London air and went exploring. Our first port of call was Hyde Park, for no particular reason other than it being nearby.

"Look guys, lights!" Georgie the moth chose our path.

We obviously don't give moths enough credit. Their method worked pretty well.

There's not a lot to say about Winter Wonderland, actually. We became increasingly hungry and wanted dinner, so we got ready to leave. Then we discovered it was 4:20. Well played, English weather. You got us.

I casually mentioned to Caitlin the possibility of being in Narnia. She laughed at me. Then she saw Winter Wonderland and apologised.

Anyway, we left Winter Wonderland and wandered along to find Oxford Street - again, absolutely unintentionally. We obviously just have a brilliant sense of direction for awesome things. The street was very busy, and everything was done up with Christmas lights and whatnot. It was all very festive. We took the long way back to our hotel (read: we got a little bit lost) and were disappointed to find that we were in the wrong part of town for Chinese take-away; every place we passed was Lebanese. Oh well.

After sleeping for a lot longer than intended, we all ended up at a nearby pub full of old people and watched the fireworks on the television. Georgie declared that it was apparently "Happy 2013!", and then spoke French with every single person who went past because they were all French. Wondered why every single person who went past was French. Then we went back to the hotel and made sure that Georgie didn't go with a bunch of (yes, French) randoms to a party, while Caitlin yelled "Happy New Year's!" loudly and aggressively at anyone who went past.

So how did I spend the first day of 2013 2011? Going to museums, that's how. We spent the entire day in the London Science Museum and the Natural History Museum (otherwise known as "The One With The Whale"). Now I'm going to cheat, and not include any pictures right now. I'm just going to say that it was lots of fun. (I'll put them all in a separate post and show y'all then. Seriously, I'm nine weeks behind! This is ridiculous!)

On our way back through Hyde Park to the hotel, we detoured a bit and had a look at Kensington Palace. A tour group went past, led by a Scottish guy (with a kilt and everything) and we stood at the back and listened to him for about ten minutes. Many jokes about how "Kate" wasn't a "Queenly" name - "It'd be like having a King Darren!" - and all that sort of thing. It was interesting and fun despite the weather being AMAZINGLY HORRIBLE. I don't think I've ever been so miserable from cold in my life. It was quite unpleasant (and I'm sure that I was quite unpleasant because of it, too, in case anyone out there hasn't encountered my ability to be ridiculously self-pitying when I don't feel well).

So yeah, that was all we did in London. Oh wait, no it wasn't. JANET turned up, sick and sad, having arrived in the country only hours before and having had a bad time at the airport, least of all because of her cold. We went out for dinner to try and cheer her up - as it turned out there was a Chinese/Korean restaraunt right around the corner from where we were staying - I wanted to have bulgogi but it was a minimum of two servings to order it, so I had soup instead. Yes, I know that what we had to eat isn't the most exciting thing for you guys at home, but at the time, not being able to have bulgogi crushed my fragile heart. I'm not even kidding. Bulgogi is that awesome.

The next morning we went back to Oxford Street, this time on purpose. Everything was closed because it was the New Year's weekend... seems kind of obvious now, but we were looking forward to going shopping so we didn't think about it. At any rate, we headed back to Paddington, collected our things and went back to High Wycombe. We introduced Janet and The Hill. I'm sure they'll get along fine, but their first encounter was a bit tense, let me tell you.

And with this, I am officially nine weeks behind in my blog posts! I'm going to take pride in the fact that with this, at least I'm talking about 2011 now. That makes everything alright. We'll ignore that I've been in England for two months, and Germany for a week, and that with each day I have to more things to write about. I really should get my act together. Oh well. Until next time, guys!