LONDON BABY!!!!
Dad and i journeyed through to London today so thought i'd write about it. We went to sort out my South Africa paperwork.
We started the day at 7 am - lots of coffee guzzled before dads friend rob gave us a lift to the train station at 8.40. God i hate early mornings, i never feel fully awake until well after 11am, My body clock is so un-normal.
We arrived at the station at 8.50, which is really good considering the early morning rush to schools and work is on at that time of day. The tickets to Charing Cross cost £18.60, which yeah is pretty expensive, but if we'd have put diesel in the car paid for car park etc, like we did last time it would have been alot more money. The train didn't arrive until 09.03 am so we had a bit of a wait before it came. I dont think i'd seen so many people on the train station in my life before lol.
The journey there was pretty long and boring. I had never been that way to london before, i've usually gone straight to victoria. It was nice to go a different way but it seemed to take forever. For me it was boring, except for seeing different scenery of course. Next time (which i am hoping wont happen soon) i will take my ipod or a book/magazine to read. Dad had the right idea, he picked up a metro newspaper - one of the free ones done by the railway and read that.
We arrived in london at just gone 11 and missioned round to South Africa house to get my Passport, id and birth certificate sorted. We got there at 11.10. We were number 56 in the queue and it was on around the 30's so far. I didnt think we'd still be waiting 2 1/2 hours later, but waiting we were! We joined in some conversations with other South Africans waiting too, had the odd laugh here and there, but it dragged and dragged so much. By the end of the wait my bum and legs were numb and i couldn't walk properly when my number was called.
I went to the desk and sorted out all the paperwork, re-filling in some forms where i'd made a mistake. I was then told that the photos i had had taken at a photographers weren't suitable as i had a fringe in them and South African passports didnt allow fringes. So that was £20 wasted - does anyone want 8 passport photos of me?? lol .... didnt think so! After having my finger prints taken, i had to rush around london to get some more photos taken - clipping my fringe out of the way - which did not look good at all as my hair was up and i had no brush! So in the new foto's basically all u see is my huge moon face!! Charming!! We rushed them back to SA House and finally we were done. Dad suggested we could walk through St James Park and go to Victoria as it wasnt so much of a long journey back and basically it was a 15 minute walk away, so i said yer, lets go for it BUT must walk VERY slowly else i wouldn't make it.
We reached the Entrance of the park and there was a coffee hut, we stopped to get coffee and some water for me as i was in pain from both walking and had a banging headache from rushing around in london and the stuffy office room we sat in for 2 hours plus didnt help. It was 3pm, we hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day. I said to just wait til we got to the station and we could grab something there.
I then recieved a phone call; it was SA House, could we please come back as they had forgotten to take a photocopy of my UK passport. To this i said there was no way in earth i'd make it back as i was already in agony, and sent my dad back on my behalf. He apparently run half way across london. In the meantime i'm standing like a lemon in the park. About 25 minutes later dad was back and we set off in search of london victoria.
So 4.10, nearly an hour later we arrived in victoria, so much for dads 15 minute walk, yes to him 15 minutes, to me 1hour being pulled all the way there. By the time we got to victoria, i had blisters, my legs had lost the inability to move and i couldnt lift them at all .. i was majorly done in. Then we grabbed a coffee and a crossaint - our first food of the day. We then found our train was leaving in 5 minutes!! So me in my battered state was literally again propelled down a platform to a very packed train where we managed to find 2 seats, just 5 seconds later and we'd have had to have stood all the way home.
We got in at around 5.30, i was totally shattered! I HATE london, its so busy with everyone rushing you, and i am not a person who can rush!
Below are some pics of the views and geese etc in St James Park.
