Friday
I had to line up a lot of work
because my parents were coming to visit so it was a pretty busy week. I started
on Saturday and had applied for work for the next week. My job apparently
decided I was working too much (I see I’m taking time off the next week, they
see a really tired employee come day six) so I ended up getting the Friday off
before my final Saturday shift. Sarah and I saw this possibility coming (she
also had Friday off) and had decided to use the magical world of StubHub (www.stubhub.co.uk) to see if we could get half-decent, day-of tickets to see One
Direction. That’s right. We woke up to find that tickets had dipped to our pay
limit (we were going Sunday already so we weren’t going to pay more than a
certain amount to see them Friday). The boys were playing Wembley Stadium for
three nights and this was their first show. Our tickets were in Standing
Yellow, which was in a back corner of the football pitch.
I met Sarah at Oxford Circus at
3:00pm to go grab the tickets. In Canada, when you get tickets off StubHub you get them emailed to you and
you just print them off. Here you go to StubHub’s
last minute ticket center. Which meant we got actual tickets! They were really
cool. They had One Direction’s faces on it! We then walked to find some food
which ended up leading us on the scenic route to Baker Street, where we
eventually settled for some little cafeteria. I got some crappy lasagna (my mom
makes the best lasagna all other lasagnas suck) and fries. Sigh. Then we headed
up on the train to Wembley. You can always tell who is going to a One Direction
concert because they are female and probably wearing their faces everywhere. We
weren’t, but only because I left my hoodie in Calgary (and Sarah’s One Direction
duct tape). The scene at the train station was madness. There were girls
everywhere. The gates wouldn’t open until 5:00pm so we had half an hour in the
craziness. That being said, the view from the train station was pretty cool.
The stadium is in full view across the pathway, there were double decker buses
riding on the bridge in front of it, and a giant One Direction billboard
plastered across the front.
We waited outside longer than
necessary, until Sarah realized that Wembley Stadium was outside. It was
organized chaos to get in. We all had specific entry gates and they would only
let about fifty people in at a time. The arena itself is huge. Normally the
area with concessions is jampacked but it was so big in there it didn’t seem
very busy. We sat on some couches we found and listened to a radio program that
was recording from the stadium. Everything got pushed back half an hour so it
was a lot of sitting. Their opening act, 5 Seconds of Summer, also opened when
we saw them in Vancouver. We skipped them then, too. Finally, at 8:00pm we went to our standing
section to wait for the concert. They played some really fun music while we
waited, like Bruno Mars’ Locked Out of
Heaven, which definitely made the waiting easier. Then it started. I
screamed and danced and freaked out. It was good times. I love Harry Styles.
And I’d get to see it again Sunday!
Saturday
The next day was a bit rough,
mostly because we didn’t get in until late as we missed the last train and had
to take the night bus. I had to get up at 10am to work. When I’d finished at
8pm, Sarah and I headed to Trafalgar Square to meet my parents, who had just
come in from Canada. They were jetlagged and tired and had been walking around
all day so all we did was walk to Covent Garden so I could grab some Shake Shack to eat. It was a tasty
burger.
Sunday
Sarah,
Sandra and I had all cleared our schedules to hang out with my parents all day.
We started off with Sunday buffet brunch at Babur,
the Indian place Sarah and I had eaten at nearly two months before. We were
cautious not to fill up (Sarah and I have learned from our mistakes). From
there we took the train down to London Bridge. My parents really like walking,
and I don’t, so I tried to find a happy medium. The walk from London Bridge to
Waterloo takes about forty-five minutes and has a lot of nice things to see. On
the walk you pass Southwark Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern, the
Millennium Bridge, Oxo Tower, ITV Studios, BFI, and more. My dad wanted to see The Old Vic, so we walked a little past
the station so I could show him. I also freaked everyone out by pointing to a
restaurant and giving the exact date Harry Styles ate there. Oops.
From
Waterloo we headed to my parents’ hotel, the London Edition. First we stopped to pick up our second round of One
Direction tickets. We were in the stands this time, in Club Wembley. Everyone
but me and Sandra had a nap at my parents’ hotel. We got to Wembley Stadium
around 5:30pm this time and there was far less of a crowd waiting outside. We
walked the whole arena again before grabbing some surprisingly tasty pizza and
some not so tasty popcorn. We skipped 5
Seconds of Summer again. They announced that the boys would be coming on at
7:45pm, but it was more like 8:30pm again. This time Sarah and I could see the
whole stage, though the boys themselves were very very small. That’s the
problem with arenas. There’s not really a good seat. If you’re close, you can’t
see all the action. But if you’re in the stands, you’re far away just because
of the size of the place.
This
concert was even more fun than Friday’s. I danced around and screamed and acted
like a fourteen year old. It was really great. Did I mention I love Harry
Styles? We had to catch the train because everyone needed to get up early.
Again, it was organized chaos. They didn’t want everyone rushing the station so
they held us back until everything was clear. The police were so well-prepared.
They brought a microphone and a record player and started playing One Direction
songs through the mic! It was funny and thoughtful of them.
Monday
I was working Monday night
but I had the morning and afternoon off to hang out with my parents. My dad had
booked a Rock & Roll Tour of London in
the morning. It was very informative. It took us all around Soho, Highbury
& Islington, and Camden, showing us many sights of the British music scene.
They tailor the tour to your interests, which is good and bad. Nobody said they
liked The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin, so we, unfortunately, did
not hear much about them. I said Joy
Division, though, and they actually found a way to incorporate them into
the tour, which was impressive.
Our
tour finished around 12:30pm in Trafalgar Square. We went to Covent Garden to
meet Sarah and introduce my parents to the wonders of Nando’s. They were impressed. Afterwards Sarah went back to the
flat and my parents and I went shopping briefly, before I went back to their
hotel to get ready for work and they walked down to Harrod’s.
Tuesday
Another early morning as
Sarah, Sandra and I headed to Victoria to meet up with my parents. We had
booked a coach tour of Stonehenge and Bath. The coach wasn’t completely full,
which was nice. Everyone mostly slept on the drive out to Stonehenge. Even our
guide stayed quiet, after acknowledging the fact that everyone was probably
going to fall asleep. Good call. We got to Stonehenge in about an hour and a
half and had an hour to look around. The tickets were included in our tour, as
were the audio guides. You have to take a shuttle partway up to Stonehenge and
then walk for a bit. Sometimes I really like audioguides but today I was just
not in the mood to listen, so Sarah and I just walked around. You’re not
allowed to get close anymore, because people suck. They would try to push the
rocks over or deface them in some way. That, and the ground is unstable after
all these centuries. Stonehenge has actually been a tourist attraction since
the 17th century or something like that.
It was
pretty cool to walk around something so old, but it’s also kind of overrated. I
thought it would be bigger or more imposing; that I would somehow feel
insignificant when standing there. But honestly, it’s just some old rocks in a
cool pattern. My dad thought we were going to Easter Island and kept asking
where the giant heads were. After we took the shuttle back down to the
Visitor’s Center and went in the exhibition. It was basically a museum dumbing
down what was said on the audioguide. What is Stonehenge, why did they build
it, etc. My favorite room was a room of theories about Stonehenge’s existence.
It’s up for debate and I like conspiracy theories like that. Then we were back
on the bus to head to Bath.
The
ride to Bath took another hour and we sometimes drove through some countryside
villages. I was more excited to see Bath than Stonehenge. The city is
beautiful. The buildings are a mix of Roman and Georgian architecture and it’s
a really cool combination. They also primarily use these kindof gold-beige
stones which are so pretty. When we got off the bus our guide took us on a
walking tour of the city. We saw the exterior of the Roman Baths, the Royal
Crescent (which I found really cool) and some other famous landmarks. Mostly I
just really liked walking around the city, taking it all in. I don’t think I
could spend more than a day there, but it sure is nice to look at.
We had
forgotten to book tickets to the Roman Baths with our tour except for Sandra
who booked separately from us. By chance, there was one token to enter left
over, so Sarah and I used the two to see the baths. They were really cool. It’s
basically the ruins of a spa. After walking through it they have a miniature of
what the baths would have looked like. It was really cool to see how it would
have looked. It really did look like a spa with a bunch of swimming pools and
hot tubs.
After
we finished at the baths (we skipped the audioguide again) we met up with my
parents and went looking for a bite to eat. We visited a pub which actually had
some really good chicken wings. It’s really hard to find good hot wings in
England. They are my favorite. But these were fine. We did a quick walk through
the shopping area which turned into us almost missing our bus. There wasn’t
anything left to the tour after that, just the drive back to London.
Wednesday
Sarah and I spent the
morning at our new flat (more on that in another post). I met my parents to
show them the new neighborhood and then we headed to Camden. My parents had
taken an interest in it after our Rock & Roll tour so I took them to the
high street so they could check out the markets. It, unsurprisingly, wasn’t
really their scene. We did shop at H&M for a bit and grabbed some lunch at Wetherspoon’s. My dad tried the veggie
burger and loved it. My mom tried the purple drink and loved it. Then we headed
down to Oxford Circus where we shopped at H&M
(again), Debenham’s and TK Maxx.
Sandra
met us down at Oxford Circus and we went to supper at Belgo, the mussels restaurant. I’d been to the one in Bromley with
Sarah but this time we went to Covent Garden. The food was just as good (my
mother is hard to please and she really liked the mussels) but the restaurant
was really crowded and loud. Oh well, it was still a very satisfying final meal
with my parents.
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