*brushes WordPress cobwebs away...* So I just got back from London a couple of hours ago and obviously can't sleep, that's pretty much self-explanatory. I did bring my tripod, my DSLR, and my old but still trusty Canon S90 for easy shots...however, it was overall harder than I expected to thoughtfully capture London in what is essentially under 5 glorious days with 2 of those days tied to a separate itinerary which was also fun. In essence, Mom and I were suddenly treated to this trip (which slightly explains my Houdini on the blog as I rushed to get Visa requirements together at the last minute), but she was also there for work. We didn't have an unlimited wifi connection at our disposal and given that every time our keycards let us in we were always tempted to just untidily pass out on our beds I decided to forego the plan of blogging daily while I was there and just collect photos and videos and give you my best glimpses in one go.
We were kind of on a down-to-the-wire budget because this God-given trip came at the end of the month so though I got a couple beauty bits for you to see most are drugstore...none are, I have to say, terribly exciting, and no, I didn't come home with any Charlotte Tilbury (boo). We were fortunate enough though to be staying at Kensington in a hotel just beside Kensington Palace a.k.a. the younger royals' London home. Stay alert for my youtube vid...I'll move quick on recording that video for you, expect it this weekend. London weather was way more than fine when we were there, it even got extremely sunny on our last two days, locals agreed with us, quite a contrast to the week prior. I told a British friend of mine whom we intended to visit but didn't get to see "Oh, we'll bring the sunshine!" and voila, the weather cooperated with my cheeky claim. If you see any photos with me in them it's thanks to Mom who's actually very good at taking pictures. England, you have my heart, and I must say without exaggeration, more than any foreign city I've been to so far...I've got plans for you. Click through to see the full photo stream.
We begin with our first morning, just when the sun stretched across dawn. I won't be ruining this photo montage for you with a ton of words. So proceed to scroll, ladies and gentlemen.
I tried to give myself a long lead on documenting so I wouldn't feel too pressured. I chose to really be in the moment for the majority...even if at every flower-embellished street corner my left hand would short of have to stop my right from shooting. I didn't want to come home with the realization that I only saw London through my phone or through a lens and never really spent time with Mom...so I had to gauge. I'm pretty proud of me and Mum ("o" to "u" edit intended) given that we toured London while sharing a room, took buses and left the city for Oxford to visit the university and see C.S. Lewis' home (and come back, let's not forget), plus on-foot we also took the tube on our last day to visit Baker Street, the Tate Modern, and Soho in one go after having watched ASAP London's performances the day before in front row seats. We also managed to have only one mother-daughter meltdown on the last day LOL...obviously while deciding where to go with the time we had left. All in all though, now that I look at all the photographs together, I think we made a no less than splendid effort to see what we could from September 2nd through to the 7th. What do you think?
