Meeting with the Queen

Water Problems in the Guest Room

After three days full of sightseeing that was my last real day in London. There was still no warm water but when I got up my host had already left to work. I tried to talk to his roommate but he didn't speak English so well, so I would call the host later on my way to the train station. I got ready (without another cold shower) and left the house, because I would meet my friend at Tower Bridge around 9, 9:30am. We wanted to spend the rest of our time together before she would take the bus back to Oxford in the afternoon. Our friend had to work, so he couldn't come. 

So while I was walking through the little village, I called the owner of the appartment, and asked him about a solution for the cold shower. After a lot of apologizes he told me that it would take some time to fix the showers, but when I come home in the evening he would take me with him to shower in his gym, and he would give me back the money for one night because of the circumstances. I agreed, because he was so nice and I knew that every hotel I wanted to stay would be much more expensive than showering one time in a gym somewhere a bit outside of London. 

Quality Time with my friend from Germany

Having a better mood than before because that problem had been solved, I took the train to London Bridge and walked the rest of the way until the point I would meet my friend. It was the first day with no sunshine and when I came out of the metro station it was raining cats and dogs. Fortunately I had always my umbrella with me and didn't get that wet. It stopped before I arrived at the meeting point and we decided to have some breakfast first. After a coffee and a croissant in Starbucks we thought about what we could do. As we didn't have the most creative ideas, we decided to walk to Victoria station by foot and see what would happen. 

It was quite far away, but we had time, so it was totally okay. We walked along the riverside until we reached the touristic section with London Eye, London Dungeon etc. and continued to the Parliament. Next to Big Ben we had something small to eat in a supermarket and continued our way to St James Park. The street next to it was full with policemen, but as it was London and 2 days before there had been a parade I had never heard of before, I didn't wonder about that too much. 

Seeing the Queen - unexpectedly 

But when we came nearer we saw that the traffic was limited and controlled by the police and we became curious. I asked one of the policemen next to the fence what was going on here (tourists often do that, so why not) and he told us that there was a worship for somebody very important of the British history (I didn't really get who) and that some members of the Royal family would arrive soon. My friend - the enthusiast about everything related to the Royal Family, got crazy about that information, and I was curious, too, so we stayed there and waited. 

I was a bit puzzled because usually there is a huge crowd of people wherever the Queen is supposed to attend an event. But there was nobody around, just some other people that wanted to know what was going on. So we waited and saw a very expensive car coming towards us. And it really entered the closed parking of the church. When two people left the car (I didn't recognize them) my friend started to squeak and told me fascinated who they were. I didn't know a lot about the Royal Family, but I took a picture - just in case. After that some minutes passed by until Charles and Camilla arrived, too - at least some members I knew! It was a great experience to watch them after I had seen them shortly behind a fence after the parade. 

But 10 minutes after that - we almost wanted to leave, but the policeman told us that we might prefer to stay (obviously he knew something he wasn't allowed to tell us), so we decided to wait some more minutes, another car arrived. It was an old but expensive black car, guarded by police motorbikes. My friend squeaked another time and said something in a very low voice "Oh my god, Jenny, that's the Queeeeeen!". I wondered how she could know that, it was just a car, but then I remembered that she knew almost everything about the British Royal Family. And it was true, after some minutes the Queen and her Husband left the car and started their way to the church. I was fascinated, I had never imagined to be able to see the Queen live during my trip to London, and even if I was not that enthusiastic about the Royals it was still a very particular experience. Furthermore, we were almost the only ones who could see her that day because obviously they wanted to hide that event from all the tourists. 

After they had all entered the church and we had taken enough pictures, we continued our way. But my friend couldn't stop talking and telling me how amazing that experience was. I was happy that she was that happy and recognized that it was almost time to say goodbye. So we asked Google Maps how to get to Victoria Station via the quickest way. After 20 minutes we were there and her bus just arrived. We hugged each other and said goodbye and she entered the bus to Oxford. 

Last Hours in London alone 

I decided to have something to eat and walk to Hyde Park again. I didn't know what I wanted to do the rest of the day, and as the weather had become much better than in the morning and there was sunshine again, I wanted to relax at the Diana Memorial Fountain a bit. So I ate something (very unhealthy) and took a metro to Marble Arch. I walked almost the same way through Hyde Park that we walked the day before and sat down at the Memorial. As it was really warm I put my shoes and socks off and put my feet into the cold water - it was a very nice feeling! I stayed like that a bit, enjoyed the sun and watched the people around me. Sightseeing trips were quite exhausting in fact. But after some time I got bored, so I took on my shoes again and decided to go to the Natural History Museum a bit. 

I knew it from the movie "The Night in the Museum" and I knew that it was for free, so I went there. It didn't take a lot of time, it was not too far away from Hyde Park. So I entered and was impressed by the size of the museum. I only had about one hour (I didn't want to come home too late because my host would be waiting for me) and would not even see half of it! But as I was already there, I went to the most famous parts of the museum and was really fascinated by the number of exhibitions and interesting things one could find in there. After a while I was so tired and exhausted that I left the museum and looked for the next metro station. 

Showering in a strange gym - getting to know the host 

It was quite far away, but finally I found one. I continued my Metro Marathon until I arrived at "home". The host was already waiting for me, so I packed some things and we left the house again to walk to his gym. We were talking about his life, my life and London. He was actually a very nice and interesting person, it was a pity that we hadn't really talked before. So we arrived at his gym - a quite small one, but it looked very expensive. It even had a swimming pool! He showed me where the showers were and told me that he would do some sports while I was showering. So I had my shower - it was a quite nice rain shower, and he brought me back to the appartment. He also gave me the money for the one night and told me that he would be at work the next day when I would leave. So we said goodbye already and he apologized a second time for the inconveniences. Then he returned to the gym to finish his workout and I went to my room to watch some series before I fell asleep finally. 

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