There's No Place Like London: Part Two

Hey guys,

I'm back with part two of Monday's London adventures. If you missed part one yesterday, you can catch up with it here.

Today's post is all about our visit to Covent Garden, and a boat journey down the Thames to the O2. I was going to include the rest of my London trip in this post, but decided to split it in to two so I don't crash your computers with a million photos. I have scheduled the last part to immediately follow this one, though, and if you're a Linkin Park fan you might want to check it out!

After a few hours resting in the hotel that afternoon, we (my best friend, sister, and I) headed over to Covent Garden to get a quick bite to eat and wander around the piazza before making our way to the O2. We were hoping to experience Covent Garden in all it's festive glory, but we couldn't have imagined the scene that awaited us.

It was so beautifully decorated for Christmas, with hundreds of giant red baubles and disco balls hanging from the rafters, and yellow fairy lights framing the arches and doorways.

There was a giant Christmas tree adorned in pretty red and white lights, and an enormous reindeer lit up in white, alongside it. Even the cobble stone streets were lit up with festive cheer. I've visited Covent Garden at Christmas once before, but I've never seen it decorated on the same scale.  I was blown away by how gorgeous it was. 

Inside the piazza, we grabbed a burger and fries from Shake Shack, and ate outside so we could soak up the festive atmosphere. The fairy lights were twinkling, and we could hear live music coming from the ground floor beneath us. At one point, we heard a man singing opera music, and by the impressive quality of his voice, I wouldn't be surprised if he was a trained opera singer or theatre actor. Opera isn't really my thing, but the music had a Christmas-carol like quality to it and really added to the festive ambiance. 

I tried to take photos of all the pretty things I saw, but most of them came out blurry, and the rest are crap, so I'm sorry about today's photos. I was saving the battery on my Canon (the camera I use for my blog photos) for the gig, and my iPod, and phone didn't want to cooperate. Neither has a flash so they don't work well in the dark.

Once we were finished eating, we grabbed a cab to Westminster bridge.

We decided to travel to the O2 in style, and took a boat from the London Eye up to Greenwich. The leisurely trip down the Thames takes about half an hour, and it's far more scenic that the tube. It takes you past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, London Bridge, Canary Wharf and other iconic landmarks. The views of the sky line lit up at night are amazing. I've gone to the O2 this way once before, but this was the first time I did so at night and during the Winter. It made the trip all the more special... even if it was freezing! If you wrap up warm (or sit inside!) it's an enjoyable trip and you get to sight-see along the way.

We weren't crammed in like sardines like we would have been on the tube, and it didn't cost as much as a cab. It was also far gentler on my back than cars, buses, and trains are.

The man charged us all student prices (£8 return), even though only one of us is still a student! An adult return was about £12, I think. In my opinion the boat is the best way to get to and from the arena, and I'd choose it over anything else any day.

It was a short walk from Greenwich pier to the O2, which took us through a tunnel with rainbow coloured lights, which looked amazing. I could have stayed there taking photos all night, but I didn't even get the chance to take any half decent photos; everybody was freezing and wanted to get inside.

Once we were through security, we grabbed a drink, made our way in to the arena, and waited impatiently for the magic to start... it wait seemed to take forever...

To read the rest of my London adventures, check out part three, which will be live immediately after this post.

Thanks for reading!