London!!!!!: Update #3

So well having been in London for like 12 days now, I feel like I have already seen the place and that I want to come back to India. Well I know that sounds too lame and prolly u might portray me as a sissy homesick guy, but yeah guys thats the truth.

Before I start off with my complaints and sorrow, lemme tell u what I have been upto in last fortnight here. Since one of my very best friends Nijhara was leaving, since his his tenure at the DB Infy office did not get extended, so we convinced him to extend his ticket till Sunday night and decided to make the most out of the 2 days we had!!

So we started on our hectic two day extravaganza!!
This extravaganza prolly started a little early when we celebrated his birthday on the 6th night of September. Well it was nice with a makeshift cake consisting of Muffins and some sweet bread poured with some chocolate sauce. Well our efforts were well paid for by Nijhara who treated us in an Indian restaurant. Believe me Roasted Chicken and kadai chicken taste at least a hundred times better in London!!!!

Yeah ! So we started off next day with Buckingham palace. Well we were supposed to reach there at 10:45 and were to witness the famed “change of guards”. But then that what we were “supposed” to do!! In real life just like in alien life, things don’t quite happen the way they are supposed to. So we finally managed to reach Buckingham palace by 12:45 and all we say were the Black commandoes donning the gates. So we chucked it (sounds better) and decided to take a 15 pound tour of the palace. Well it was probably the most well spent 15 pounds that weekend!!! :-)
Well but I have to mention this. When we went to the counter, there was atleast a 1 hour waiting, but we managed to beat that by taking the ticket from a guy selling them outside!! Well that happens at all the places in London. You can either buy them at the main gate or but them from these tourist companies. In these tours companies there is no line and the tickets are cheaper. I always wonder why common sense is so uncommon!! Imagine standing for an hour when you don’t even havta stand for a minute!!!

So we went inside the Buckingham Palace and believe me it was very dazzling. Well our worst fears were realized when we saw the signs of “No photographs”. So well all that I have of the Buckingham palace are the memories. Well the palace just makes you wonder at the richness of the royalty here. So we completed the tour in about and hour and half in which we thoroughly enjoyed the audio commentary and after a 15 minute look at the souvenir shop (from which we obviously bought nothing), we proceeded to our next conquest: the London eye!!

Our journey to the London eye was quite interesting though. We had been to it before, but Nijhara suggested a different route. Being the veteran here, we decided to take his route, which happened to be prolly the longer one. So we were trying to pull his leg and bantering around that”he did not wuite know the ways n all” and then it happened. What happened? Well for the first time in the last 7 years I know him, I saw Nijhara lose his temper. He he he he!!! But then yaar who Nijhara hai and it wasn’t long before he was back in his elements!!!

So we carried on to the lOndon eye!! And there we saw the actual Saturday crowd!! Its wasn’t any better than a chandni chowk or something!!!so we decided to chuck it and go to he oxford circus and the Piccadilly circus which are the main shopping street in London! Well and they were such eye openers. London (for non knower) is an expensive city, but like any other in the world, it is really cheap if you know the places. So we went to a big mall which was very posh but could give Big bazaar a run for its money when it came to pricing issues. So we happily shopped for a couple of hours. Well when I say shopped I mean future shopped TM (wherein Future Shopped mean selecting stuffs that you will shop in the future!!!! :--)

One thing that I forgot to mention was that we wanted to go to London eye at about 7:30ish. This is because the entire rotation at the London eye takes about 30-45 minutes and we wanted to get a view of the entire London durig day, at sunset and finally at night with all the city lighted. And that exactly what we did. By the time we got to the London eye from Piccadilly, the queue had decreased tremendously and there was nearly a zero time wait!!
Well the experience at the London eye can at best be mentioned as Average. This is because there were no clear marks as to what is where in terms of direction. Also I think the height of London eye is pretty average. The 18 pound ticket made it even harder to digest the ride. Well if I were the credit rating company I would probably rate this as a junk ride!!!!
Also if I compare it with the Eiffel tower, it pales like crazy. I mean I would rate the Eiffel as one of the best moments of my life and the London eye as prolly the most ridiculously chuchu moment of my life!!!

So we reached back home pretty late and decided to doze off early as we had to pack nijhara’s last minute packing and whatever else that was there. So the next day we took off to the oxford circus first, as we had to but a bag and from there we went to the days big attraction “MADAMME Tussads”. Since we did not have a lot of time, we decided to hurry off to the museum. And this place is again which quite justified its 18 pound ticket!! Well I mean this was probably the closest I could get to celebrities like Beckham, Leo, JLo and spiderman. The wax figures look so real that its nearly unnerving at times. My favorite here was Captain Jack Sparrow. Well they had designed a fully pirate ship and it was like standing next to the Captain himself!! Well but with good things come the bad ones and the wax figure of Shahrukh khan and Mr. Bacchan were huge disappointments. Well they looked so very fake !!!!

So that’s all I did over the weekend!!!
Will follow up with more updates!!
Till then
Cheers!!!!