I've made it to London!

On Friday it was a lovely sunny day, so I took myself off for a good walk around Bournemouth. Mels and I walked in together and she took care of some personal business while I walked to the station to book my ticket to London the following day. The station isn't far from my old flat, so I walked the route to there and checked out my old neighbourhood. I then walked the short distance to the cliff tops (at the end of my old street) and took the long, scenic route back to Mels & Simon's for my last night there.

Mels cooked us a lovely Thai curry and before I knew it, it was the morning and I was off!

The bus ride to London seemed to fly by, and it was another lovely day. I got to Victoria Coach Station and was met by lovely Dereck. I haven't seen him in ages and we actually did the running-down-the-street-towards-each-other-to give-the-other-a-hug thing! He kindly took my rather heavy pack off me. I've left a bunch of things down at Mels, and I'm going to have to do a cull before I head to SA, as I won't be able to fit everything in!

Derka fixed me up with an Oyster card for my stay and then we were off to Haringay to drop my s*** off at his house.

Where Derka lives is kind of like Turkey Town! There's a high concentration of Turks living here, and so a lot of great Turkish restaurants. We had a fabulous lunch at one of them then walked to Wood Green and back, which was about two Tube stops away. It was a nice walk and gave me a chance to see this neck of the woods. As I never lived in London, I've only seen the touristy parts and never made it out this way before (apart from when I first moved to the UK, fully intending to live in London and went for a flat in Turnpike Lane, which isn't far from here. I got the flat, but ended up living in Bournemouth instead!).

When we got back, we had pina coladas with Derka's flatties and then got ready to go out. On the way to the bus stop there were a lot of very happy men about, cheering and tooting their car horns. There had been some big football match on (involving Turkish teams?) and they were pretty stoked about the outcome! We caught up with our friend Mark, and they showed me the London gay scene (Derka and Mark are both gay). We headed for Soho, which is an area I'm not very familiar with, but I saw a lot of theatres and I want to go to at least one of them while I'm here!

We started off at Yard bar, which was a nice place - the half naked barmen probably had something to do with it! After a while there we went to KU Bar until they closed and then came home on one of the late buses.

In Derka's part of town, as well as many other parts in London I'm sure, there are some shops open 24 hours a day. We walked past fruit and vege shops and Turkish shops that were still open at almost 1am. I wanted a kebab, but didn't have enough money, so we both went and got some hummus and a pide each. We ate a bit before bed, but the rest was eaten for breakfast.

Sunday morning was a lazy one. I spent it in Dereck's bedroom watching the Hollyoakes omnibus and a few episodes of Friends before we realised the time and eventually made it out of the house and caught a bus to Camden.

It was a beautiful day - maybe the weather is finally starting to improve!

We had a good wander around Camden Markets, and got lunch there too. I had a very nice vego quesedilla, which I was really enjoying until I found a hair in there - ugh!

My £4 Asda bag broke on the way and I thought I'd be able to find a replacement there, but nothing really took my fancy, which is strange as there is just about everything there you could ever want. Including cute guys - as Derka kept pointing out every few seconds! We have quite different taste in men though! He also has this thing where he says "meanwhile" when you're having a conversation and he spots a hottie! "Meanwhile" was said quite a bit during the course of the day!

We also went to an amazing shop there called Cyberdog. It's a huge place that sells 'intergalactic space fashion'. The lighting is neon and there is all sorts of stuff there, including a mini sex shop in the basement, where Derka and I had a bit of a laugh with the vibrators!

After hanging out there for a bit, we came back to Haringey and had dinner at the local Turkish. We were going to go for a walk in Finsbury Park after but both ate way too much and went back home to lie down and watch Alan Carr Chatty Man, the episode that Derka and a friend were in the audience for - very funny!

Coming up this week is more London and hopefully heading to Gloucestershire and Bristol/Wells. Hard to believe that this time next week I'll be entering my final week here in England before heading on the next part of the journey!