TheEnglishBlog

We woke up today with sun shining through our window. We had quite a day in front of us. We started off by walking to King’s Cross and getting on the Tube. We took it to Madame Tussauds, the famous wax museum.

In here we could see wax sculptures of a lot of famous people from the whole of history, as for instance The Beatles. The Beatles is one of the most popular acts in the history of music. McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison's band were formed back in the 60's. They have sold more than one billion (!) records and recorded a total of 12 studio albums.

In addition to the many rooms with wax sculptures , Madame Tussauds also has a spectacular 4D cinema. It was really special since not did we only see what was happening on the screen, but there was also video projected all around the globe ceiling. At last we got on a kind of ride through time. We sat in an old style car which moved around on rails, and from there we saw different happenings made out of wax. I did not think that Madame Tussauds was that great. Of course it was fun to take pictures next to famous people, but the spark lost a bit after seeing the first couple of figures. But nevertheless, together with the cinema it wasn’t that bad.

Here is some pictures we took in Madame Tussauds.

After we left Madame Tussauds we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, were we had man a reservation. The HRC in London was the one that started the whole chain of restaurants all over the world. The idea of mixing rock and tasty food and drinks appeals to a great part of the world and the popularity of these cafes has been huge. When we were in London I got to know how the whole thing with artist giving away their guitars and stuff began. It was apparently Eric Clapton who first gave HRC his guitar to mark his favourite seat. Then Pete Townsend from the Who sent his guitar to the cafe with a note that said “Mine’s as good as his.” And then it was off.

Eating at Hard Rock Cafe was the perfect warm up for the Muse gig. We got on the tube in direction of Wembley Stadium. Wembley Stadium is the second largest stadium in Europe, only beaten by Camp Nou in Barcelona. The first stadium on this site, Empire Stadium, was built in 1923. But in 2007 new Wembley Stadium opened. The band that opened new Wembley was actually Muse, and that turned out to be a massive success. It has a capacity of approximately 90,000 and a circumference of 1 km. Wembley is well known for its gigantic arch above the stadium.

We picked up our tickets outside the stadium and were really eager to get inside. The view that met us was really mind-blowing. It was so incredibly huge. We got into place and waited for the first warm up band to begin. Sadly we did not risk taking our camera inside, so all I got myself was this poor picture, but I guess it gives you an idea of the amount of people who were there.

The first band on stage was I Am Arrows. They were OK, but nothing more than that. But then White Lies got on stage. I’ve seen them once before so my expectations were pretty high. They played really well and the crowd sang along. But I was a bit disappointed that they played a lot of songs from their upcoming record which I therefore never have heard before. The third and last warm up band was Biffy Clyro. They were truly amazing. They got the crowd going. Several mosh pits actually appeared. After they left the stage the whole stadium was filled with anticipation for Muse.

When they finally got on stage it was electric. The sound was amazing and with their enormous pyramid shaped stage filled with all sorts of video screens and lights it was truly amazing. It was a lot of rememberable moments throughout the gig. For instance during one of the songs a giant UFO suddenly appeared behind the stage, before floating around over the crowd. How awesome isn't that? Muse delivered an immense performance which I don’t think I will see anything like in a long time, if ever again.

You can see some great pictures from the gig by clicking here and here :)

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I’m now sitting in the hotel room. Tomorrow morning we are going home. This weekend has been great. I will definitely go back to London again. So much is going on here that this city will never get boring.

Thank you for reading my travel blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Bye, bye! :-)

Today we woke up to a pretty surprising breakfast at our hotel. And actually no, it was a positive surprise. Of course the variety could’ve been better, but we got a real proper British breakfast. From there we headed towards the bus station were we again used our tickets from yesterday on the sightseeing bus (it was a 2-day ticket). We planned to visit the science museum.

On our way there we saw some new historical places. First we went by the Big Ben. This is the nickname of the great clock that has been one of London’s favourite landmarks since it was built, more than 150 years ago. The minuet hand on the clock is 4.3 metres long, and clock itself weighs almost 14 tons.

We then saw another famous landmark in London, the Tower Bridge. The bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge and is easily recognised be its eccentric two towers in each end. The bridge was build over the River Thames in 1894 and is 244 metres long. Tower Bridge is often mistakenly referred to as London Bridge. But the London Bridge is another bridge which lies some hundred further up the River Thames.

At last we ended up outside the Science Museum. This museum must be one of the only museums I’ve ever looked really forward to visit. It is really huge, and has got all kinds of interesting things to see. Everything from steam engines to an IMAX cinema can be found is this huge building which is right next to the Natural History Museum. We were in the museum for several hours. There was just too much too see in there. I especially enjoyed the Apollo landing module, which was really interesting to see.

When we felt we had seen enough we went to get something to eat. We ended up at Pizza Hut. The pizza was really good, and since the whole family were starving it was much needed. After we had eaten we went to get my friend, Sverre, who finally had arrived. We then went shopping. Some of the highlights were HMV, a really large CD, DVD and Game store, the Apple Store which were extremely large as well, and also Hamley’s. One of the world’s largest toy shop. When we were done shopping we headed for the hotel to catch some sleep. Tomorrow we will reach the main goal of this trip, the Muse gig.

I’m throwing in a picture I took of the sun behind the River Thames, just for fun.

Ciao ;-)

After we had got settled in our really “London’ish” hotel, we took the Tube down to the core of London. The London Underground has been in operation since 1863 and today it carries more than one billion passengers a year and makes three and a half million journeys each day, on 11 lines serving, 270 stations.

When we came out of the underground system we ended up in the middle of Oxford Street, in between a huge amount of people as far as the eye can see. Oxford Street is a major trough fare and a very popular shopping street for tourist and Londoners. From there we went down to Piccadilly Circus. I was kind of disappointed by it though, since I can’t get all the fuzz about that place. It’s basically just an open square with a few pretty big ads on some walls. But maybe that’s just me. Anyway, here we got tickets for a sightseeing bus. It was a hop on, hop off thingy which took us around in the whole city. We got to see a lot of historical and interesting places and buildings. I’m going to tell you about some of them here.

One of the first things we saw was the St Paul’s Cathedral. St Paul’s is the seat of the Bishop of London and is the fourth “version.” The cathedral is located on the highest point in the city of London, and with its 111 metres it’s an iconic part of the London skyline. The architect behind this masterpiece was Sir Christopher Wren. By the St Paul's Cathedral there was a huge flag. The flag of Great Britain. It is called the Union Jack and was adopted in 1801.

When the bus took us further around the city we saw something that in this last Millennium has become one of the most famous attractions in the city, The London Eye. This huge ferris wheel is 135 metres tall and was built with 32 egg-shaped capsules. From the top you can perceive up to 40 km of London around. The eye is the UK’s most popular paid for attraction with its 3.5 million visitors a year. All though the London Eye is very popular we did not visit it, mainly because of the insanely long queues.

After we felt we had seen enough of the city we hopped of the bus, seeking for a place to eat. We ended up on an Italian restaurant which I don't rembember the name of. The meal did not go as smoothly as we’d wish for, (the waitress seemed to have forgotten about or order, which lead to a fairly long wait) but the resupply was much needed. We then headed back to our hotel and got to where I’m sitting no. Now I’m going to watch an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” before I get some sleep.

Good night :)