Episode 33: Walking Around London (Is Very Tiring Indeed)

Am currently slaving over my Fitt 4 passages for translation. I spent most of the day doing a walking tour of central London with my dad. We left the hotel after breakfast and headed towards Buckingham Palace. Didn't get to see the actual changing of the guards, just a few of them relieving a few others. Took lots of pictures of the area though. Then we took a stroll through St James's Park, where I tried taking pictures of the squirrels, with varying degrees of success. Damn things scurry about too quickly! We saw Big Ben too, and snapped countless shots of it. Reason? It's well nigh impossible to take a good shot of Big Ben, by which I mean a photograph that captures the correct colours. Despite it being a relatively sunny day, the camera just couldn't seem to capture enough light to make the picture turn out right. I swear it's a ploy to get tourists to buy postcards of Big Ben. Then we made our way past Westminster Abbey. Didn't pay to look around the inside though. After all this sightseeing, I've come to the conclusion that while London has much architecture and landscaped greenery to admire, the problem is that it's juxtaposed with too much grit and grime. That and there's just too many other people playing tourist for you to actually enjoy the sights! We also sat on the London Eye, which was okay. The view's good, but the palette it draws from is a little too drab for my liking.

Had lunch at some roadside cafe, which wasn't that nice. Afternoon tea in the hotel was much better! I had a traditional English tea, so it was like three platters of awesomeness. Have I mentioned how I love meringues? I'm not so enamoured of scones, although the cream they were served with certainly met with my dad's approval. The tea I had was chocolate tea, which is made by dissolving white chocolate in black tea. The result actually does have a hint of chocolate to it, and is very aromatic too. Definitely something worth trying to make on your own. We went down to Harrod's, which was a depressing experience for me because I couldn't afford anything in there, other than a few tins of biscuits. It's insane. One jacket there is worth more than one month of my allowance. Granted, I was looking at Zegna. Ended up buying some biscuits to bring back to Warwick, and then I headed down the road to Zara. Saw some stuff that would have been okay to buy since my dad was paying, but I decided to walk further down to French Connection instead. Good move there, as I picked up a really nice jacket! Flattering cut, unlike what was sold at Gap, and suited for winter too. Happiness, at the moment anyway, is embodied by my French Connection jacket.