For the first time since January I have actually seen you tomorrow instead of in 1 million days. Brief addendum to yesterday's post - I went out in East London last night and had a blast. I love my family, but we have very different travelling styles.
This trip we are spending two weeks between London, Liverpool, Amsterdam, and Brussels. You might already be balking at Four Cities in Two Weeks; it really isn't enough time to do anything but make a mad rush to see all the top tourist spots in each city and immediately leave. Shockingly, this wasn't the original plan; instead, we were supposed to ALSO go to Edinburgh and Bruges, shaving our per-city days down to ~2... Thankfully after I strongly asserted the lunacy of this approach, we bargained down to four cities - not ideal, but still enough time IMO to enjoy each city for the limited time we have.
Regardless, we will be in London at the end and the start of the trip - for the first leg (now) we had limited time to do much so I split off from my parents on the first day and hung out in east ldn with my partner's sister Kit as mentioned yesterday. It was insanely awesome. Taking the train in the middle of a crowd of Arsenal supporters right after a home game isn't everyone's idea of a fun holiday, but hey - I came here to see how people live on the other side of the world from me and I definitely got that. Also, there was a protracted conversation between two teenagers and a stranger which they initiated by loudly asserting that Man U was better than Arsenal - ended up involving five people in the debate!
We went to Brick Ln and saw what I can most accurately describe as the smoking area outside a Singapore party except expanded tenfold. People were chilling on every possible surface and roving between groups, dancing, singing - I couldn't wipe the smile off my face the whole night. We ended off walking down to a famous bagel spot and got some supper + breakfast for the next day.
While having a cig before we got in the train home, a busker was singing her heart out while a group of ladies were dancing with her. At one point one of the ladies put her champagne down to dance and immediately kicked it over - I saw every other person in the street twitch to go pick it up despite there being a good 10 metres of personal space given to this scene, but after five seconds of the bottle rolling the ladies noticed very effusively before picking it back up.
There is absolutely zero way I would have gotten this deep of a glimpse into real londoner culture if I was in Westminister with my parents squeezing into a crowd of tourists - plenty of time for that today, but I'm happy I got to clear this before I do. Regardless, I'm not sure there'll be much to write about, but I'll try my best. See you tomorrow :)