Probably the best New Year’s Eve of my life 2/3

Jan 08 2017 January 8, 2017 August 10, 2018 No Comment by JustJessie

Probably the best New Year’s Eve of my life 2/3

From adventure to adventure.. Our next days in London!

On the 30th of December, our third day in London, we went to the Hither Green station and took a train to Waterloo East and had a really nice moment where we realized again how friendly the British’s are. In the train was a couple with a little girl, she was screaming extremely loud and wouldn’t stop. It was very embarrassing for the parents, what you could see in the look they gave their fellow travelers and they were apologizing the whole time, saying it never happened before. That’s when we noticed how nice and understanding the British’s are. No one said a word about the little girl, a man asked them if they wanted his seat and stood up. When the girl stopped screaming several people started talking to the parents and told them they would totally understand it and described similar stories that they had with their own children and when they went out of the train everybody who passed the parents said it was no problem and smiled at them.
Madlen and I were both really surprised because in Germany the situation would probably be totally different. People would look angrily and annoyed at the parents (as if they would do it on purpose! Mother to daughter: “when we get into the train you start screaming as loud as you can!”) and there would probably be also someone who would tell the parents to make their child quit. When they would get out they would just look angrily at the parents. Great to be a German!
When we arrived the Waterloo station we went to the London Eye to collect our tickets that we bought the day before and headed to the Houses of Parliament for our audio tour. It was a really foggy and cold day so we were glad that this day was for our tour. A authentic British feeling LOL. Before we started our tour we drank a tea (shame on us: the only one we drank in 7 days..) in the Café on the Parliament property and headed then in the Westminster Hall to get our audio guides and start our tour. The tour was really interesting! We took an audio tour because we both don’t like guided group-tours and with the audio we could have our own speed for visiting the Parliament. Sadly it was just in the beginning allowed to take pictures and in the most beautiful parts not. But nevermind: I definitely recommend visiting the Houses of Parliament for your next London trip if you haven’t seen it yet! Not only that it was really interesting to listen to the whole story about the building, it is also really nice to look at! Unfortunately was everything behind the Lords Chamber closed for visitors because of restoration work so we haven’t seen the Prince’s Chamber, Royal Gallery, Norman Porch and Robing Room which was a pity because we were really interested in it.
Afterwards we walked back to the London Eye and found an Arcade (Namco Funscape) in the County Hall next to the Sea life. It was for us both the first time in an arcade and we had there some serious fun with air hockey, dance machines, photobooth and the atmosphere that you’ve just seen in movies before. Aaaand maybe someone lost her second scarf. Maybe..
From the arcade went we to the London Dungeon (on the way someone bought a new scarf.. just maybe) and got tickets for the next available tour at 7 PM. So we had some time to spend until then and went to eat something and also bought white area tickets for the Westminster Bridge for next day’s New Year’s Eve firework show.
The London Dungeon was amazing! We both had no idea what we should expect from it so it was even more funnier to experience it. It’s like a ghost train that one know from amusement parks but way more realistic and just great haha. It’s all middle age themed and shows some of the famous horror-history of London such as Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd with incredible special effects, gorgeous actors and in total 110 minutes of fear and fun. There’s also a boat ride and at the end is a small free-fall-tower the Drop Dead which was (as you can see on the picture in the gallery) totally relaxing.. *Narrator speaking silently in the corner*: “At this day she experienced plain horror”. Conclusion after visiting London Dungeon: A total recommendation for everyone who visits London!
After around 15 minutes non-stop-laughing about our picture were we heading back to the hostel.

First thing to do to survive a New Year’s Eve party: Sleep until noon! Check ✓
Since we thought it would be extremely overcrowded in the area all around the London Eye we were going directly from the Hostel to the white area and stood there at 5.30 PM (one hour before official entry). At 7.15 PM was the actual entry and after we were controlled we ran to the bridge railing to get a good view. In the beginning we found a space which wasn’t that good because it was nearly directly at the side of the London Eye, so I ran further to find another spot for us. I found one were we could stand where a person took like twice as much space as he needed so I asked him politely if he could move a bit to the left (I was seriously polite! I’m German, I know how to be rude!! That’s in our genes!) Apparently the person next to the man has seen that differently and before the man could answer me, the guy told me (un-asked) that I would be extremely rude and that they were there before us and pushed me away (Come on! The f***? I haven’t told the guy “f*** off and give me your spot”). And then I’m the one who’s being rude. Yea of course.
After some time standing behind them we went to the back side of the bridge and that was way better because there you had space to move, dance and have fun! And that was exactly what we were doing! And in contrast to what we thought the whole area was really empty and there were just people directly at the railing. We were partying the whole night with great music and between the London Eye and the Big Ben was just the perfect place to be. When the Big Ben started ranging and signalizing that we hit Midnight the countdown for the firework show started at it was just incredible! I can’t explain it! One has to be there and experience for oneself! (For the interested readers is here the video from BBC One’s live stream of the spectacle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0qPC46McwA) It was by far the best night of my life and I’m sure it’ll be the best New Year’s Eve that I’ll ever experienced!
At around 1 AM we wanted to head back to the hostel but because of the huge amount of people who all wanted to enter the Waterloo Station was there a really long queue and we thought it would be the best if we just walk to the next bus station. At 3 AM we were finally in our beds and able to fall asleep.