Met David Beckham in Harrods!

Been to London for a couple days and met David Beckham in Harrods!!

Me + Danny with Beckham!

Shrek The Musical + London

Been to London today with Nat to see Shrek The Musical :)

Thought it was good!

London

Been to London with friend today :)

Got the train from New St at half 11 + we were in Euston before 1. We had a few hours to kill and 'cos friend hadn't really been to London we did a whistlestop visit of London.

Got on the tube and noticed the woman sitting opposite me. It was Sue, the mom off Outnumbered! Claire Skinner :P
She smiled and said Hi, and really stalkery I took a photo! Is rubbish though lol

Got the tube to Leicester Square, got food + walked round eating it up to Piccadilly Circus. Got on the tube there to Trafalgar Square and had a walk round, didn't do the cheesy tourist thing of a photo with the lions.
Walked down White Hall + saw the few bits there.
Saw the horse + guards. All the tourists were having their photo taken with the horses but everytime it moved they'd run off screaming? I went over + stroked it and he was fine, tickled his lips + he didn't bite :P

Past Downing St to Westminster and Big Ben chimed Quarter past 2. Went halfway over Westminster Bridge + saw the London Eye, Aquarium and all that lot. Back on the tube to South Kensington.
Natural History Museum + were going to walk to Harrods but was effort so we didn't bother.

Back on the tube again to Hammersmith and went to queue up for Britains Got Talent London auditions...

London NUS Demo2010

Got up at 4, got ready, left here at quarter to 5 to go to the Union for a flapjack + drink for the coach.

We took 3 coaches and 3 mini-buses, I was on Coach 3 :) Not a lot happened for the next 4 hours - went South Wales and past Bristol direction, to get there... stopped at services but was packed so didn't have time to get anything. 3 hours later we got to London :)

Were about an hour late for the start so missed the first speeches, but the police opened the barrier at Westminster and made us get in there. We were right at the start of the protest!! 8)

The other Aber coaches were in different places but we managed to find them on the walk to Millbank. Everything was happy, chanting + singing with banners but then there were about 30 men in balaclavas with activist banners that ran into Millbank House.

How close we were to Millbank Tower

Only 2 security guards there at the time so they ran out and called the police. Not a lot happened, just shouting and running around with the press filming it.

Took about 15 mins for the police to get there and thats when it started to get violent - a lot of us notices a few of the press turned their cameras off at the point?

We carried on and had the speeches, watched a few videos - shouted a bit more!

Then we were told to carry on walking past the Tate and to leave the protest, it took about an hour(?) as people walked past and the NUS secretary thanked the different Uni's over the loudspeakers but by then it was pretty quiet.

An hour or so later was when all the riots kicked off, people throwing things, fires, about 30 people on the roof?! We kept away, went to the London eye and got some food.



We were meant to be getting the coach back at half 5, but coach 3 was "a mile away in traffic" ... 2 hours later, after standing in the freezing cold at Albert Embankment it turned up! We couldn't go anywhere 'cos we didn't know how long it'd be. To make it even better my phone had 10% battery so was playing up and the died!

Anyway, warmed up on the coach, fell asleep for about an hour - we went up to Brum and across on the way back so I knew were we where! :))

There were a few posters that I liked:

What I don't understand is, why, if they knew thats what we were protesting and there would be 50,000 students walking right past, they didn't either shut off the building like a lot of others did, or at least have Police and more security there waiting?!

Shame that out of the 52,000 people there, 500 minority activists spoilt the whole day.
Now people are fixed on moaning about how bad students are rather than the £9,000 tuition fees, 40% budget cuts...

All I wanna say is that, They don't really care about us

Tickets

Have booked my tickets to next go home. On the 19th November so can work the National Poultry show that weekend :)

£15 single from Aber to Brum so not too bad. Theres a stop at Shrewsbury half way so think I'm meeting my friend + then getting back on the train a couple of hours later :)


Theres also an NUS protest thing about the increasing tuition fees, so Aber are sending a coach load of people to London to that, the 2nd week in November so I've booked my ticket for that too. Should be good, even if its just a day to London!

London and BodyWorlds

We went to London today with school + it was really good :)
We got the trin in to Euston, all got on the tube but one ... Miss Knowles didn't get on the train in time so we had to wait at the tube station for the next one. Then we walked to the Natural History Museum for a few hours, there was loads of little "I didn't know that" things as you walked round, and we managed to see everything. After that we all got on a tube, but the wrong one!, so had to get off at the next station and switch tubes to get to South Kensington where we went for a meal in Giraffe.
We managed to get on the right tubes this time and went to North Grenwich to walk to the O2 to the BodyWorlds exhibition. It was really good.
As soon as you walk in, there are foetuses at each week of development, it was amazing to see the growth, but quite scary to see how developed the baby is and they can still be aborted :/
Then there was a pregnant woman with the baby visible which was really interesting to see a cross section.
Then it moves up in age up until old age and as you go around there are examples of diseases and illnesses showing what happens to the body parts and where.
It was really strange to thing that these were real people, with names and a life story behind them, but you don't get told about the person as its an exhibition about the bodies and not the people. I bought a DVD of the making afterwards - really well worth going to :D