On the first weekend of February, as a treat, my lovely C decided to take me to London for the weekend to see my favourite band, Waterparks, and I thought what else should I do now that it’s over other than keep the memory alive through a blog? Hello, to today’s blog, which is dedicated to C (<3). Sorry, everyone, that it’s almost a week late.
To start this trip off, of course we have to talk about how I got to London. The only logical answer for a couple who don’t drive and don’t want to spend four hours on a bus, is to take the train. Now, it’s not an unknown fact (except it might be on here) that I hate trains to the very core of my being, and spending about two hours on a very busy one is the equivalent of spending a short period of time in hell. However, I still climbed willingly onto a train and made it to London without too many scrapes – this is excluding a mini anxiety attack which occurred when we approached London Victoria.
The train, I think, was so busy because there was a football match happening somewhere in London, and although most players got off at Haywards Heath, that’s still a looottt of people for me to deal with in one space. The isles were full, the seats all taken. It was almost as bad as my trip to Brighton pride in 2018.
When we arrived, we next faced the challenge of trying to navigate the London Victoria station – which I’d been to a total of one other time with my Grandparents back in 2017. This concluded of not letting go of C’s hand except when I went to the toilet, which I had to queue for for about ten minutes with a very impatient lady behind me who decided she needed the toilet far more than anyone else in the queue for , you know, the toilet, and proceeded to touch the back of my legs pretty much the entire time with her suitcase (and let me tell you, that is not a jolly experience, especially when you’re social anxiety is through the roof and you just need to have a pee).
Once escaping the station, we looped Westminster a couple of times, battled some
ridiculous traffic, and made it to St. James’ park in hopes of finding Buckingham palace – which we did pretty quickly. At this point I think it was about twelve, and we decided lunch would be a good idea. We found lunch in M&S, two sausage rolls (one vegan), and then went for a wander (because our Travelodge didn’t open it’s gates until 3pm).
ridiculous traffic, and made it to St. James’ park in hopes of finding Buckingham palace – which we did pretty quickly. At this point I think it was about twelve, and we decided lunch would be a good idea. We found lunch in M&S, two sausage rolls (one vegan), and then went for a wander (because our Travelodge didn’t open it’s gates until 3pm).
We looped Westminster again, passing the Ritz a couple times and visiting St. James’ park about three more times – this was all unintentional. We were just wandering about without a map or anything. However, the only problem with looping Westminster was that the concert – well, gig – we’d come to see was in Euston, not Westminster.
This is when we thought ‘hey, let’s take the tube to Euston’. Bad idea. The tube in itself wasn’t awful, I mean it was manageable, but the tickets were kind of pricey for what they were and it kind of smelled funny. It just wasn’t worth it.
Euston was nice, but it was very different to Westminster. We wandered to an art gallery,which had an exhibit on learning and children which we walked straight through. That’s when it had reached about 4pm, and we headed towards Travelodge.
Our gig was at the Electric Ballroom, a small venue about twenty minutes away from where we were going to stay the night. We headed down to check it out before walking back to Travelodge and chilling for about an hour. Then we ate McDonalds, and headed to join the queue to the gig.
Low and behold, after ignoring C’s advice to leave earlier, we almost looped the block before finding the end of the queue. A silly mistake – but then I had only been to one gig before, and we had arrived after the opening act, hence why there had been no queue.
The gig in itself was amazing, I had an absolutely amazing time. Seeing the band in real life, all the way from America, almost brought me to tears, and despite the incredibly long ‘is this the merch line or is it not’, the night was awesome. (However, could a Gynecologist explain to me why cramps always have to happen at the wrong time? Because I would seriously like to know.)
I think I sung until my voice cracked with every word, and danced until I felt like I needed to collapse.
However, all good things must come to and end. Sporting my new – and limited edition – tour hoodie, with C by my side, we grabbed a cold drink from (you guessed it) McDonalds, and headed back to Travelodge.
We slept after watching some shitty TV, and awoke in the morning needing breakfast. I convinced C not to let me buy a coffee, because I didn’t need my cramps getting worse, and we bought an expensive M&S breakfast from across the road. Then we headed to Baker Street.
Being an avid Sherlock fan, visiting Baker Street was pretty cool, but it wasn’t quite as exciting as i was expecting. This was probably because we were at the wrong end of Baker street, heading back towards Westminster (which we walked to because the tube wasn’t worth the hassle). However, I still got a selfie with the street sign, and got to see the place where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got his inspiration for one of the world’s most loved fictional characters. (C was very understanding of my excitement – mostly because he was very excited about the fact we were just about to go see some fish before heading home).
This leads us nicely onto the Sealife centre. On a good, quiet day, the Sealife centre is a nice place. Mix it with London, and hundreds of people, and it becomes a little less fun. C enjoyed it, which made it all worth it, and we got to see penguins! (Penguins?! – yup, although I’m not sure they should have been in an enclosure; they looked a bit sad and their exhibit a little shabby).
We saw lots of fish, some sharks, and more than once they tried to make us pay for weird souvenir photos. However, all in all it was pretty good, even if I was doing something I never thought I would be – battling kids for the best spot to observe fish.
Once we’d seen fish, we were faced with our next dilemma: the train back home. It was all a blur of stress, asking questions, being annoyed at ‘major engineering works’ and in my case, crying. The train home, and we had to get two, took over three hours and by that point I genuinely just wanted to collapse. That’s how our journey ended. With the Final Collapse onto a bed at the end of a long, stressfully, but also super fun weekend in London.
But, from my trip, I’ve decided I’m not going back to London anytime soon if I can avoid it. There is definitely a reason why I avoid busy places, and that mostly covers ‘Ah, London, people, no!
I just want to take this moment to thank C, a lot, because he’s awesome and he took me to see Waterparks, my favourite band, and experience their awesome music live. He was also great when it came to calming me down, and being there for me when my anxiety got a little to much for me to deal with. He’s great (and he’s also looking at Rick and Morty memes on Facebook right now while sat next to me).
And, thank you, readers – as always – for reading this blog. You’re pretty awesome yourself. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out my latest blog here: A Quick Life Update.
If you’ve done that, I also have social media, which you can use to keep up with my life when I’m not blogging. You can find the links below –
Facebook:
@emilybrownauthor
@emilybrownauthor
Instagram:
@emilybrownauthor
@emilybrownauthor
(As it was last time, Pinterest is still a work in progress – Do they seriously not have
privacy settings?)
privacy settings?)
Also, Waterparks is an amazing band whose Instagram is @waterparks – you’re welcome.