London through pictures

Previously mentioned roast piggy courtesy of South African chef - aka Clive, can be observed in the following picture (Disclaimer: actual size of pig may vary from the photo)




Also previously mentioned climb of St Pauls cathedral - and the views were very amazing. The weather that day was good - sunny and relatively warm, which is rare for this time of the year. There are two balconies that you can walk on - the first one is pretty big and is about two thirds up; and then there is a tiny one right up the top where about 100 people tried to cram in about 3 square meters of prime London real estate... but the views were even better.

That probably sums up our main touristy things due to arrival/delivery by Zoya of da party animal - aka Peace Giraffe (otherwise known in his passport as Denis Vladimirovich Matveev). And this, of course, was followed by some drinking, cheering and generally behaving like a bunch of friends who haven't seen each other for a while...




The morning after we decided to go to Greenwich to meet up with Matt and stand on "0 degrees longitude". The day was rather cold and even climbing the hill to where the observatory is didn't really warm us up. After standing in line to take a photo on "the Line" this is what it looks like...

Sidetrack - During our time here due to my white fluffy winter jacket I've been cristened 'marshmallow' and due to my these-days curly hair I've also been cristened 'sheep' which together made up a nickname of 'marshmallow sheep'... !
baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Now back to Greenwich... We also got to see the fastest ever clipper - the famous Cutty Sark and it reminds me of a model that my brother Gleb and Father did a while ago but didn't end up finishing it because the little threads for ropes were too fiddly and the construction slowly fell apart and degraded on the fridge and in the end was put in the bin - the sad sad story.


We drank to our adventures in a very cool pub called Captain Kidd - which is in this very old cool part of London which you imagine through Dickens' books... dark, foggy, tall brick buildings... but the pub itself is actually less than 20 years old. It is very nice inside though and for a 1.95pounds you get a pint of very decent larger. Later that week we went to a REALLY old pub - 'The Olde Cheshire Cheese' which was just recently rebuilt - in 1667!!!



That evening we also went to listen Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Barbican and enjoyed it very much... apart from those of us who slept through parts of it :)





To get a bit more cultured we went to the British Museum and the place is HUGE! I wish there were more museums like it - we only managed to do the Egyptian part of it and even that took a while. It did make me feel pretty awkward in those rooms full of mummies - I mean the whole point of smart old Egyptians was to preserve and hide the important people from prying eyes so that they can have a good time with Osiris lad... but instead they're lying in glass enclosures for any man and his dog to see (the museum is free thanks to the generousity of London Town).


And that was about time we got to New Year celebrations. The celebrations took place in a Docklands pub called 'The Ship' and it was kind of a private party, but because Matt is a liked visitor there we all were able to attend and party like it's 2005! Unfortunately (or fortunately) we were not aware that it was actually a theme party which was Pimps & Ho's... so we just rocked up in our very best and had a great time anyway. Just before midnight a screen was pulled down on one of the walls and we got to see the London Eye fireworks which were magnificent. After that it gets rather blurry but I was being strong and drank only beer all night which meant that I could function reasonably well the following day and didn't pass out as I normally do at these occasions. The fun continued by singing old soviet songs on the respectable streets of Docklands and on the tube... oh and dancing on the stations!





... and now for some generic photos: