Amazing London: the City full of mystery

Today, I share the music of a renowned British Jazz Artist, from Essex: Jamie Cullum. The music behind London's landscape: “I'm All Over It”.

The train arrived on the perfect time. Awesome was going to be the whole following weekend. I was visiting London for the first time since I've been living in Cambridge (in absolute terms, the twelfth time indeed). Being involved in the City: its culture, its tradition, its landmarks, its nightlife (difficult to compare to Spain, though), its citizens, its buildings, streets and districts,... is always a breathtaking experience, it is nothing that vanishes once you live it.

My closest friend was going to be there, as we previously arranged. The idea was to meet each other at a neuralgic point of London and then, after a typical English dinner, trying to localize our youth hostel. Things weren't going to be that easy (peasy lemon squeezy). During the week, the weather forecast predicted extremely awful (freezing like hell) weather and, yep, they were totally right (sugar, mate!). Drops were falling incessantly and the wind was making us feeling what is to catch a cold, wandering around desperately for a heating (or something similar to it). Arriving to the district we ain't have any idea where the bloody place was, god dammit. Even a call to the receptionist wasn't that helpful, either. It actually made things worse. After hours walking in a roundabout way, (unbelievable, lads), we could finally find our destination.

The first night was great, a good experience that made us notice how different really English people spend their nightlife. They normally drink beer in the pub and also do a little “pub crawling” before going to the night club. Then, you can find some of them meandering in the corridor next of the toilet's door when you go to “powder your nose” (it is not what you think,it is an English idiom as well as euphemism, nasty-minded).

On Saturday, we had a great opportunity of visiting the city centre, specially its commercial places like Picadilly Circus and Oxford Street. A massive amount of people were invading the streets, rushing out. Some maybe looking for the best items to buy, while some others could be immersed in their professional or domestic matters. The fact that living in an advanced great city can be very stressful, depending on the person, is understandable.

The cosmopolitan nature of London was reflected in how were differences in fashion style, shape, outfit and general appearance of the pedestrians. Hypothetically, I was seeing from models and designers, businessmen and women to rock stars, musicians, painters, rapers, … Such a varied fauna.

Multicoloured streets, plenty of houses distinct in colour, shape, height, design and age; the harmonic coexistence of the old victorian London with the current financial and commercial City was showing one of the most beautiful views of it. Undoubtedly, we witnessed a urban masterpiece and also my favorite City around the Old Continent. Spring was not showing its best face, in fact, it was snowing continously. It made the fantastic postcard.

We had an exciting night in Pacha, close to Victoria Square, where the friendliness of the girl in charge of the public relationship just made us spend a pleasant time there.

On Sunday, we decided to do a tour around the huge City. Sightseeing was in the top of our preferences. Unfortunately, there was only space at the top of the bus, hardly covered, and the thermometer indicated unbearable 0 degrees celsius (not too hot). Paying attention to the guide and knowing what was happening outside the bus were difficult tasks to do taking into account that we were trembling and moving constantly. However, we could enjoy the lovely view of the Parliament's building in Westminster, the Big Ben, Harrods, the Courts of Justice, Hyde Park, Green Park, Buckingham Palace, Hard Rock Café, David Cameron's house in Downing Street, James Matthew Barrie's House in front of the sculpture of his creation, the fiction character Peter Pan, the flat where Ringo, Paul, John and George (The Beatles) were living for the first and only time in their lives, the posh and upper-class districts of Kensington and Chelsea, Knightsbride, Mayfair and Sloane Street, the London Tower, the London Eye, the Thames' bridge,... Furthermore, the intriguing dark side of the City was exposed as well: unresolved crimes, legends involving phantoms, strange suicides and serial killers such as Jack the Ripper.

Finally, although we could get inside the bus, the excessively low temperatures pushed us to stop at Saint Paul's Cathedral (marvellous monumental building dated from 1708). We couldn't get in, time was precious and short, so we split our ways and got back to our respective houses.

Many landmarks were left to see. I'll better wait for the next summer, if the weather is favourable...