The Capital Solo

This is definitely not the first post I've written about London and it probably won't be the last. If you know me at all then you'll know that I kind of really love me a slice of London. So it was only fitting that for my 20th birthday I take a trip there by myself to explore more of the city. Having never been on my own before I was actually feeling very confident that I could do it all. And let me tell you , I nailed it! The trains, the tubes (fun with the strike), finding my hotel, and generally finding my way around. Luckily I knew my way quite well anyways so that helped a lot. 3 days there and by the end I didn't want to leave.

I really liked the solitary metal box theng. I liked how everyone ignored it and walked right on by without a second glance.

Walking along Piccadilly I found myself faced with this geometric cloud sculpture. That's what you get when you're curious and not entirely sure where you're gonna end up.

I can't remember what this little inside shopping area was called but it was extremely fancy and I was not worthy. Let's just say it lead to New Bond Street.

My curiosity lead me to my crib for the night. I'd never seen the palace in the physicality before so this was a great surprise to stumble upon.

The dream car on the way to South Bank. Mwah!

The evening was drawing in on my last night and I decided to take a seat in front of Big Ben. I saw Koray Hussein taking a photo on the steps for Maybeldner's instagram. Not realising who it was I later messaged him on instagram about the happy coincidence. 

Finishing where I began, in Trafalgar Square. I loved the lighting. It was on the verge of it being completely dark and all the lights were on. My favourite time to be in the city. 

My love affair with London will be never ending and I already miss it. 

One day I shall call it home, although it already feels like it to me. 

Thanks for reading.

All links are in red.

G x

Grammin'

Okay yea, it's been a while since we last spoke. I just looked how long it's been and I'm gonna pretend it's not real and would love for you to do the same. But I'm here bringing a new post to you which I very much hope you'll enjoy. 

Lets give you a little update. In a couple of weeks I'll be moving back into my house with the best two people I could ever hope to live with. However, this means only one thing, I'll be in my final year of uni. But again, lets pretend that's not real for now and worry about it later when I actually need to. 

I've visited a couple new places this summer and had a great time on all of the visits. I started off going to Reading to see the bae, then to London on my own with a cheeky night out with friend (definitely hurt my ankle that night) and then I went to Essex to surprise a friend for her birthday. Housemates reunited! It was all a barrel of fun really.

So onto the post, you all have instagram right? Yea me too. And I've really gotten into it recently. I'm turning into one of those people that has a theme and everything. I got the whole muted colours and pastel hues running all over my page and I love it.

Here's some shameless self plugging simply cos I like my page so much and I'm not afraid to say it......

You can find me @geeewalks or here.

I figured that instagram is something a lot of use probably have in common so why not share. If you've got an account you'd like to share then for sure leave it in the comments and we can all take a look.

I do hope you like mine as well and that you've enjoyed this little post. Hopefully I can get back on my blogging tracks. Perhaps I'll blog about tomorrow as I've agreed to partake in a hefty amount of exercise and I'm not entirely sure why I did that.

Thanks for reading everyone.

G x

London Baby! | Part Two

Greetings!

Continuing from my last London post, which if you haven't seen already then here it is. Third day into our trip and we headed to Kings Cross St. Pancras on the tube. Man it was a long tube ride. Probably an hours long. I like the tube but I've not spent that long on it in one go before. Some of the group were definitely ready to get off by the time we got there. The main attraction to Kings Cross is (you may have guessed already) Harry Potter, with the shop and the mock up of the trolley going through the wall in to platform 9 and three quarters. If you don't know what I'm on about then I highly suggest you find out. It's Harry Potter for crying out loud!

Inside the station. I liked the shapes the lines created.

Outside the station.

From Kings Cross we took a bus to Camden. I'd always wanted to go to Camden and man alive the market is a maze and a half. I could easily get lost in there.

The well known sign of Camden Lock.

I like this display of old cameras. Very nicely presented guys. 10 points from me.

Some sheeshas were dotted around.

There was lots to see and do in the market. We came across a shop called Cyberdog. It's a rave style clothes and accessories store which apparently turns into a club at night too. Gabbie and I ended up attacking each other with UV paint. Oh the maturity levels. Got to keep it fun though right? haha. We sat in the sun and grabbed a bite to eat later in the day. I had a chinese which was a delicious and quite a reasonable price too. 

Day four. The final day. Our get up and go time got later and later each day so we didn't do anything till about 2pm. We are all students, what do you expect. We took a trip to Knightsbridge and went to the Natural History Museum for the rest of our day. I didn't realise there was more than one entrance as I have been before and we went to a part I had not been before. We all had a fun time. There's lots of buttons to press and things to watch and as big kids we were all in our element. We may have played a spot of ninja spies too.

We had to lug our cases and bags around with us the last days as check out was at 10am. The building was gorgeous outside. I love the muted earthy colours of the brick.

It's a blue bloody whale!

We obviously had to take a trip to the gift shop as well and have a mess around with anything and everything we found in there. We were all knackered towards the end of the day so we headed to the bus station in Victoria to grab some food and sit down. Although our bus journey was 3 hours and I was tired Gabbie and I made it a fun trip home as we both love The 1975 so we were dancing all over the bus  to the album and entertaining our group. It passed the time, I had a great time but probably annoyed some people with our singing and dancing haha. The trip went so quickly. This time last week I was in London. City withdrawal symptoms!

But anyways it was a lovely trip before we all went home for the summer. It shall be weird not seeing all the uni friends for a while but thats what Skype is for.

I hope you liked these two London posts. I've already got my next two posts lined up and ready to go very soon.

Till next time.

Gemima x

London Baby! | Part One

Greetings!

Okay is it really sad that i've reached next colour on my post-it notes and i'm really happy about it…? I'm on greek now! Yaayyy. Haha.

Anyway moving along. So a group of my friends and I took a short, 3 and a bit days to London last Friday. We stayed in a hotel in Hounslow which is west London (zone 5 tube wise). The Hotel was right near one our friends house so it was lucky that her mum made us food some days. We took a bus to get to London. Took about 3- 4 hours and we were dropped off in Victoria. Day One was therefore mainly travelling and getting into Victoria by about 1pm. We headed straight to the hotel which was a tube ride and 20 minute was. And Oh My Glob! That 20 minute walk in 23degrees was horrendous. Do not recommend. Nope! Not at all. We were all pretty knackered and felt gross from the heat when we finally reached to hotel so showers and then food was in order. But even though we didn't really do much that evening it was still fun and we all had a laugh as ever.

Day two. It was pouring down with rain and of course, none of us were prepared for such events. So a short walk to telco to buy lunch was enough to make us all look like drowned rats. Buying umbrellas at telco was necessary. But the moment we had all spent a fiver on one it immediately stopped raining and didn't continue at all for the rest of our trip. Winner! However, a tube ride to Piccadilly it was. 

Evidence of the downpour that morning.

First stop of the day, Hamleys. Walking down Regent Street and I was just basking in the amazing buildings. I think they are gorgeous! I could go on for ages about how amazing I think they are, but on with the day. 

So, erm, Hamleys is really quite huge. What is it, like 4 storeys and has an underground bit too. The only thing that made me want to get the hell out of there was the mass of children running around. Now i'm not the hugest fan on children so a hug toy store, and me in the middle, probably not the ideal scenario. However, it was still fun just being with my friends and there was some weird and awesome things in there. So we spent a couple of hours in there so we went and sat on the steps by the statue at Piccadilly Circus to eat lunch. I noticed a huge Waterstones down the road and being a group of illustrators, we weren't leaving till we had been in. 

The weather was gorgeous still and really hot.

We went down the road to TokyoToys next as most of my friends are anime fans so and instant attraction to the shop was taken. After we went to get some bubble tea and then onto a comic/ graphic novel store. I have no idea where it is as I was just taking in the pretty buildings whilst Jay lead us everywhere. She is the Londoner and whose house we were staying near. But in this store we found one of our tutors books which was quite cool. A much talked about shop which I'd never visited was the last stop in central.

Forbidden Planet. There was soooo many awesome things in here. Game of Thrones Pop figures, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Adventure Time and loads more. Downstairs was a huge load of books, comics and everything.  It was my favourite shop of the day. Although I wish the Sherlock section was bigger as I am a big fan of the series. We were all craving a drink after so we walked until we found somewhere and of course we found  a Costa. I discovered that I really like the Original Iced Lemonade. Do recommend. I seems to go mad on the lemon drinks whilst in London.

I really liked the illustration on the wall in Costa so I got a quick snap of it for y'all. We went to Jays house to eat again and had a delicious curry.We stayed up and listened to some creepy pasta on youtube in the dark at the hotel.  And Dan told us all about Slender too which I then later dreamt he was in the room that night. Not good. Before bed Gabbie and I had a girly sesh a did some face masks to end the day so we were all fresh faced for the next. 

So that was the first two days of our trip. There'll be more to come. I hope you enjoyed. Have any of you been to London to live there? I'd love to know.

Till next time.

Gemima x