Ok.
Here it is.
Brace yourselves because it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
Here we go!

We started our journey towards London on Tuesday the 28:th of October. Our flight was from Göteborg City Airport to Stansted, London. First a few words on Göteborg City Airport: What a joke! A sheet metal barn in the stuck between two fields with pasturing creatures!? Nothing very city about that but despite the name it’s very near from where we live; 10 min by taxi. We also did a bit of celebrity spotting at the air port: Thomas Wernersson the old Swedish football international and IFK Göteborg keeper now expert pundit at Swedish public service television; SVT just sat there with what seemed to be his kids, casually waiting for his plane (the same as ours). I briefly thought about testing his reflexes, shouting THOMAS! and then throwing my chicken curry sandwich or my bottle of water at him, but I didn’t.

Our flight took of a bit behind schedule but landed, sort of, on time, not quite, we’ll get to how I know the later, much later.

When we arrived at Stansted airport we got on a Terravision bus to Victoria station. The bus took longer time to get from Stansted to London than it took to fly from Göteborg to Stansted.
Here’s a picture from the bus and out. Were going through a tunnel:

But at least the extensive time-taking of the bus and the massive London traffic wasn’t all bad; we got to se the London Eye, passing it by at… well… probably no speed at all, we were at a stand still:

In a moment of despair (since we were both hungry, tired and just wanted the trip and everything around it to work out) Camilla said; what if we when we arrive at the hotel the say; sorry we are over booked but we have re-located you to another hotel nearby, the Boulevard hotel… NOOOOOOOOOOO! The Boulevard hotel was where we stayed the last time we were in London and no matter how much I can try to emphasize how small our so called double room was, you won’t be able to imagine how small it really was, that’s how small it was. Ok. Back to the current trip.

As I’ve all ready stated; we were hungry and the only thing we wanted to do was leave our bags in our hotel room and go out for a bite. So when we got to the hotel, the Bayswater Inn, it all worked out nicely (we had a package waiting for us there, containing the tickets for the football game we were going to attend the day after, which we got and so on) until the lady behind the counter said; sorry we are over booked but we have re-located you to another hotel… NOOOOOOOOOOOO! It all worked out for the better though. Sure the new hotel, The Avni, was on the other side of town, in South Kensington, but it was nearer to the underground, the immaculate London underground of which I have nothing bad what so ever to say except that it makes me hate the trams of Göteborg even more since the suck even greater in comparison. The Bayswater Inn arranged and paid for a cab ride to The Avni and then that was that.

We threw our bags in the room, the super hot room, and then proceeded down to Gloucester Road, the main road of the area and also the nearest underground station, for a meal before we went back to the hotel for a bit of a sleep we also managed to slide into a Starbucks for tea and hot cocoa and a Tesco for som sweets. As we went back to the hotel it snowed. It snowed in London. It snowed in London in October… and all were amazed! No matter where we travel or when we travel this always seem to end up in our hotel rooms:

Ok. The next morning started at 0720h. We got up and begun to do the town before the evenings event of football. One or two things must be added when speaking of hotel rooms in London; what’s up with them? We can leave it to say that the standard doesn’t match up to the one here in Sweden and then we are being nice, super nice.

Here’s the view from our hotel room window:

But we did not really mind since in taking the picture above I had to put out my hand through a small window only there to let air in and because this was our window:

The weather that first day, and only full day in London was great! Ok, it was a bit cold, it was below freezing, but there was a clear blue sky for most of the day.

Here you have Camilla outside of our hotel. Just before we pop down to Gloucester Road for breakfast:

After breakfast we took the underground to Carnaby (picture of me) and then to Covent Garden (picture of a lot of people and part of the garden) and started our shopping walk round the city eating out day:

The last ting we did before leaving the Covent Garden and Seven Dials area was to take a time machine on Floral Street, back to the ’80s, where we hooked up with Michael Jackson on the set of the video shoot for Thiller. We did it in a kind of Gullivers Travels to Liliput sort of fashion where we ended up being huge to Michael being tiny… and in a store front window… displaying a bracelet:

We did some tourist stuff as well. We got on the underground once again and rode all of two stops to Piccadilly Circus where we did not do much except eat at TGI Friday’s which was good.

Last thing we did before heading back to the hotel, recouping for the football match, was to walk back down to Carnaby. We had gotten a tip from a guy at the Stüssy store at Seven Dials that New Era had a store there, over at Brewer Street. We found it. I bought a cap. That cap, a New Era/Staple Design colaboration, is a story in itself but this post is long as it is, so I’m just giving you the picture:

So were back at the hotel and we, Mr. John Potter and Mrs. Lorraine Potter had our tickets in order:

At around 1800h we started to make our way up to the stadium; The Emirates Stadium. More Arsenal supporters came on at every underground stop and when it was time to get of, at Arsenal underground station, the train was packed. All we had to do was follow the vast crowd of anticipating fans towards the arena:

It was a massive feeling entering the stadium and seeing the pitch opening itself up as corridor became terraces:

Ok. The game didn’t really go according to plan. Tottenham, whom Arsenal played, and their 4-4 equalizer in the 94:th minute was a bit anti-climactic. Still, having had a few days to reflect upon it I know I got to see a great game. (Also: having just seen Arsenal lose to Stoke away on the television I’m more pissed off about that than anything.) Just some thoughts in bullet point to sum up the Tottenham game:

• A football team should not loose or draw at home.
• A football team when 3:rd in the league should not loose or draw to the team dead last.
• A football team should not loose or draw when scoring four goals.
• A football team should not loose or draw when leading 4-2 in the 89:th minute.
• A football team should not loose or dra when leading 4-3 in the 92:nd minute.
• A football team should not concede a goal in the 94:th minute.

That’s about it.

Oh. Back to the top. How do I know the flight to London wasn’t on time? Well because the one home was and when a Ryanair flight is on time the play a little fanfare over the airplanes sound system followed by an announcement saying that Ryanair is on time more that any other airline, over 90% of the time. I wonder if they ar on time because of lousy knowledge of time. Our tickets stated a flight time of 1h 55min but bout out flights were estimated by the captain to take 1h 25h. It might just be that they salt the estimated time on the ticket just a tad. Don’t you think?

After the game we did not have time for much more than to ride back to the hotel, sleep and fly home.

Until next time London; Bye bye!

Oh and Onemountain; if you write a post as grand as this one you are allowed to use this many tags! And now you’re tagged as well!