London Again | Travel

I've never travelled just with my Mum before. We've always been joined my brother and my father on family holidays, though Dad has had to leave early a couple of times for work things. I was beyond ecstatic when Mum initially told me her intentions of going to England this December back in January when I was about to say goodbye to living in Bath. It made it easier to leave. 

I will split this post in two because it just fits too perfectly with my travel tags navigation to have posts dedicated to the different cities. I doubt I'll run out of things to say, or photos to show you, so perhaps it's very fitting that I split them up.

This is one of my fave snaps from London but get ready for many more

We got up super early to have plenty of time in the airport for our early morning flight. We would only be away for four days and three nights (extended weekend if you will) and we wanted to make the most of the days, hence the early flight Thursday as well as a late one on Sunday. Christmas cheer was already initiated at Kastrup Airport when we were met by a large Chirstmas tree and I was reminded that it was the 1st of December. December has a tendency to sneak up on me and this year was no exception. 

The flight went by smoothly and I felt very content and safe. I've never had a problem with flying but I have been doing it a lot more over the last year than before and I feel like I've gotten the hang of it by now. It was also lovely arriving at Heathrow Airport where I've been six times over the last year and a half, and know it fairly well. The Brits had also gotten into the Christmas cheer, as evident by the photo below. I got mistaken for a fifteen year old by a tickets sales man and I'm not sure whether to be happy or annoyed he thought I was 7 years younger than I actually am.

 We got bought one-way tickets to the Heathrow Express, which drives from Heathrow to Paddington Station in just fifteen minutes. The tickets are expensive but it's so convenient and easy. Dad had helped book the hotels for us and booked one near where we stayed in London a year and a half ago, which I have documented here. The photo below is identical to where we stayed back then (it's a whole complex of hotel rooms owned by the same people).  

We arrived too early and after a mishap where we went into the wrong The Paddington Hotel (oops), we managed to find the right place though the reception was located in a different building across the road. Odd but we managed and I'm still happy we found it without maps and internet.

We bought Oyster cards like last year and again it worked perfectly. It's so damn easy just swiping it across and moving around without having to worry about the validity of your tickets. Paddington Tube station is also home to four different tube lines, which made it pretty easy to get around. Our first order of business was to go to Oxford Street, get some food and start shopping. The London part of our trip was planned to involve a lot of shopping, which isn't a favourite activity of mine but I'm getting better at it. I still just shuffle around after Mum while she looks and tries on every damn thing.

The food we found (above) was pretty nice, though we could only find seating by an open door and we got quite cold very quickly. We marched over to Starbucks afterwards and Mum got coffee and I was supposed to get a hot chocolate but they messed up the order. At that point I didn't care, I much prefer Costa to Starbucks and kind of wishes it would somehow come to Denmark.

We got some shopping done, buying presents for the boys (A and Dad) as well as a few things for ourselves. Of course, we had to go by Lush - because I'm a massive fan of that brand and love their damn bath bombs. Amazingly, I could remember the location of the shop despite still working without maps or Internet. We tend to depend on being able to access the internet constantly, I'm very guilty of this, but I lived months in England where I wasn't able to access my 3G and only had internet connection in my accommodation and at university, so it is possible.

We bought a few goodies and I treated myself to two bath bombs, Shoot for the Stars and Error 404, only to discover later that our London B&B didn't have a bathtub, which thankfully our hotel in Bath did but more on that in the following post. I love the smell of Lush and while I lived in Bath I would sometimes just purposely plan my route to walk past it and just bask in the wonderful smell. Lush in Oxford Street is particularly "famous" and often do limited edition things, so it was cool to revisit it after 18 months. I also got mistaken for a native by a shop lady, which was a nice confidence boost to my British accent.

After the Oxford Street extravaganza, we headed back to the B&B to properly check in and get our luggage into our rooms. It hadn't been ready before as we arrived to early. It was a bit of a mediocre room with wonky floors, a scary bathroom, a balcony you couldn't go out on and a balcony door that wasn't unable to close properly. But it had been cheap and it was placed centrally and that was our most important criteria. After a quick chill out session for about an hour, we headed back out this time to tackle Harrods.

Going with the tube went smoothly, though a tiny bit busy. I still find it too adorable that Sherlock Holmes' silhouette is shown on the walls at Baker Street. I remember his actual flat 221B being a tiny bit disappointing, though that was before I stared watching BBC's Sherlock religiously.

Harrods is an impressive building but I always find it very overwhelming, as did Mum surprisingly. She's usually much better with things like that, though she felt overwhelmed because she couldn't take in where everything was and I was on edge because I don't like shopping or huge crowds of people.

Harrods' London Bears are awesome and so soft. I just find the whole place rather hyped up and everything is so damn expensive. Mum tired to find a new Harrods iPhone case as she loves her old one but they didn't make anyone to an iPhone 5S anymore, nor did they for a 7, so I was not able to get one either. I'm looking for a case but it's a lot of commitment as I'll literally have it on there for years, we'll see. I'm sure I'll find one in the near future.

Harrods is pretty at Christmas time though and all the decorations are so damn impressive. We got some things for the Christmas tree and chased around for what felt like hours trying to locate a classic black blazer for Mum. I'm not exaggerating when I say we tried blazers from around seven different brands and moved across three or four floors. It was a journey but thankfully, she found one at the end.

I had reached my breaking point by then and I was more than happy to head home to Paddington and stop by our "local" pub for some food and alcohol. The tube ride there was absolutely terrifying and jam-packed but I won't go into details of that. I had to get the fish and chips and damn it was good. I also ended up drinking a pint of cider and got actually tipsy and loud (my tolerance has plummeted after I only drink like six times a year).

We fell asleep tired and Mum was out like a damn light the moment she laid down. Surprisingly, we weren't bothered by the gaping space between the balcony door and the floor but the heating was on very high, so we remained nice and toasty. My feet hurt so damn much and we took around 18.000 steps during the day but it was a very successful first day in England.

The second day we started by heading back to Harrods because we wanted to shop in Topshop, which was located across the street. I've been living in the Topshop Jamie jeans I bought last autumn and I wanted to buy some new ones. I've been missing black jeans from my wardrobe for months and we were both on a mission to get jeans.

It was quite the all-encompassing experience and we tried on goodness knows how many jeans in different styles and sizes. In the end, Mum walked away with two pairs and I got my black pair of jeans (which I haven't taken off since). Bless Topshop Jamie jeans W30, L32. I find it so damn hard to shop for jeans, it's right up there with bra shopping for me.

We retreated to hour B&B with all our shopping bags but only had a short amount of time before we had to head out to join the London Walk that we had planned to go on. That time got shorten even more when we absentmindedly jumped on the different tube line (Distric instead of Circle but in our defence they drive on the same tracks!) and I double checked the time and found it started fifteen minutes early than Mum had thought.

We made it in fine time though and above is a candid photo of our tour guide Richard III, who would lead the walk on Charles Dickens. I've of course heard about Dickens and watched film and play adaptions of his works but I've never actually read his novel. Nevertheless, it was very interesting to learn about his life and the conditions Londoners struggled with in the 1800 hundreds.

I've been on quite a few London Walks and other European Walks inspired by them over the years and I love them dearly. It can be a bit hard for your tired travelling feet, standing and walking for two hours straight, but it's always so interesting. Another bonus is you get to see all these fun and quirky streets that you would never venture down on your own. At the end of our Dickens walk, we were pretty tired and scrapped the idea of doing another London Walk in the evening. Instead we retreated to a warm pub/café and got coffee (Mum) and green tea (me), which helped warm up our tired bodies. I always get so damn cold when I get tired and it's so annoying.

We had ended the walk near Covert Garden but before we decided to explore the area we had to get some food. We quickly settled on an Italian place, though it was quite unoriginal. But in our defence, Italian food is amazing and always a safe bet. My pasta was very good though I had not anticipated it would be as spicy as it was. But delicious all the same.

 Covert Garden was so damn pretty and I was just happy walking around looking at all the Christmas decorations. Mum had wanted to go into a pub and buy a beer but I wouldn't have it. All the pubs we got near was buzzing with people and I was just too tired in my head of being surrounded by crowds. Give me open and empty streets all the time rather than small crowded rooms.

We had to walk to a further away Tube stop as well because the one nearest to us was too busy and stuffed with people. I did not want a repeat of yesterday when I was practically pressed against the doors. I also declined Mum's imitative to get a beer at our local pub too because I honestly just wanted to go home at this point. London is a busy city and it's a bit overwhelming to be in.

So maybe it was a good things that our London part of the trip was coming to an end and we would be heading to Bath. Though Bath is literally crazy during the three Christmas Market weekends and as busy as the main streets of London. However, Bath has a different calm effect on me and I couldn't wait to go back and visit the city I said goodbye to ten months ago.

I'll end this post here but our journey is to be continued and it starts rather eventfully with drama as we try to get on the train to Bath.