Ida in London

On Sunday my friend Ida came to London to visit me. Finally! We have been talking about this for over two years, and now we are having so much fun! She also came with her friend Tove, and she is just lovely. She has never been to London before, so obviously the first attraction to see then is Big Ben and London Eye!

Big Ben is the clock tower that is featured outside the Houses of Parliament. It is perhaps the most famous feature here, but we must not forget that there is more to the Parliament than the clock Ben. The Houses of Parliament houses the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In the House of Commons it is where members of Parliament, known as the MPs, meet to propose and discuss new legislations. This is also where they meet with the prime minister to grill him about issues that concerns them.

After this little lecture it is time to take a look at the London Eye! It has been a very famous landmark since the year 2000, and an extremely popular tourist attraction. It is 135 meters tall and something you should not miss if you’re visiting London. The tour takes about 30 minutes and cost about £18, and even though the queue can be long it is worth it. You get a great view of the city and you can take some fantastic photographs. Ida and Tove sure came out with a big smile on their mouths.

Following seeing the Parliament and the Eye, Kjell Steinar and I thought it would be nice to take the girls to Chinatown. They have many restaurants there with great Chinese food, Asian supermarkets, and you almost feel like you’re in China with its Chinese street signs and red lanterns. In many cities Chinatown is rather big, but in London it is really just two streets. But the atmosphere is good, and in the evenings it is quite a lot of people visiting. Kjell Steinar and I found this great restaurant that we thought we’d take Ida and Tove, but when we came there we saw that it was closed down. I could not hide how disappointed I was, because that restaurant had great food and memories, but we tried another one and we were not disappointed. The food was great, and so was the service and it was not expensive. The Golden Pagoda is the place to eat in Chinatown.

What comes after a day of sightseeing? A day of shopping. Both Ida and I love films so I thought that the shop to take her was HMV. Here you can buy very cheap films as low as £3 and find other great deals. We all ended up leaving some money at HMV. We were going to go to Oxford Street, the one street that everyone has heard about in London, but on our way we found many shops we had to go in to. If you like shopping there is never enough time to visit everything, but some shops that we ended up inside of was New Look, Top Shop, Guess, Mango and the list goes on and on with shops you should visit. We also ended up in Carnaby Street, which is this cure little street where you can shop ‘til you drop; Miss Sixty, Diesel, Levis and G Star just to mention a few.

 
It has been two wonderful days here in London, and I can guarantee that there will be more.