London Baby!

It's official: being at home sucks. Over the PhD years I've become adept at being self sufficient. Cooking, shopping, cleaning, managing my time. Now I've been home for 6 weeks and I don't know where the time is going - it's too easy to just sit back and let my parents go about their business. Finally last week I met up with some friends: firstly some chemists who were attending an RSC event at Birmingham and then I went down to London to see Matt and Mel.

After getting over the ridiculously low train fare (£9.90 for a return) I quickly remembered how expensive the tube is. I met up with Matt at Waterloo and we wandered along the south bank taking in the sights (including someone trying to rob one of the living statues). We were supposed to go to an anime festival, but we arrived to find it had closed. A day early. Sounds like it hadn't been so successful which is a shame.



Despite having the world's cuisine available to us we settled on Wetherspoon's beer and burger offer for lunch. There were a lot of people waiting around in Leicester Square when we went in and as we ate vans turned up and began constructing barriers. It dawned on us that it was the Bond première that night. By the time we left, most of the square had been cordoned off. We wandered of through Soho and China town before finding a quiet, cheap pub just off Picadilly Circus. Finally we went to Covent Garden to meet Mel where we were flyered with coupons offering us free drinks at a new bar. It looked pretty dodgy from the outside, but once we went in it turned out to be an American diner theme bar. And the place was full of people claiming their free drinks and then leaving. Of course we did the same - who says you don't get anything for free.

After meeting Mel we ate at Wagamama and went back to their house in Wimbledon.

The next day was spent exploring Wimbledon although for some reason we didn't go to the tennis club. Strange.



Thursday brought about a trip to the Tate Modern. After crossing the infamous Millennium Bridge (very slippery) we entered and were greeted by the giant slides of "Test site". They can say what they want about art, but this exhibit is essentially a giant helter skelter. After the sheer naffness of the exhibition I saw at the Baltic Gallery in Newcastle last year I wasn't expecting anything special. Thankfully most of the displays were pretty good (barring some bizarre audio/visual affairs). We trogged up to the 7th floor cafe (by foot - not a good idea) and sat enjoying the view across to St Paul's on the north bank.





We went downstairs to met Mozza who's just got back from two months in Australia. We found a pub in the city and settled down into the comfy leather chairs. Within the hour the place was rammed with lawyers, bankers and other assorted yuppies.



The next day, we'd agreed to meet up with Mozza at Borough Market. However, 6 or 7 pints after 6 weeks of sobriety lead to the inevitable late-start. My friend Jim lives in Borough, but I'd never been to the market. It's absolutely amazing. Wandering round there was so much variety of food on offer - from exotic cheeses, Guinness sausages, venison burgers through to teas from around the world and even shark heads.



Finally it was time to head home and once again I made the near-fatal mistake of deciding to walk up the stairs in Marylebone. The Bakerloo line is one of the deeper ones and half way up I lost feeling in my legs.