London: Last Ten Days

My last ten days in London were insane. I became the queen of Life Tetris, slotting in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society ball, two floor guests, the Jubilee, Melbourne friends, Borough Market x 3, French musicals, baking, many many many goodbyes, and terrifyingly last-minute packing. It was sad, it was stressful, and it was fun.

The ten day countdown started with two grand occasions: the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and much more excitingly, the arrival of Sarah, a friend from Dublin. Sarah did much more than simply sleep on a bathmat on my floor. Sarah ate brownies with me in the captain’s quarters of the Golden Hinde, introduced me to The Avengers, held my hand at the London Dungeons, and even ate cupcakes that I accidentally flavoured with soy sauce. 

Sarah and I made a half-hearted effort to engage in Jubilee festivities. At 3pm on Sunday, we decided to wander down to London Bridge and watch the flotilla, only to be turned away by the police due to full audience capacity. Defeated, and daunted by the dreary weather, we took our takeaway noodles back to my kitchen and spent a good couple of hours mocking the BBC commentary. Did you know that the Queen “famously hates beige”?

We did, however, manage to ‘attend’ the Jubilee Concert the next night. My friend Natalie decided to hold her birthday picnic in Hyde Park overlooking one of the giant screens broadcasting the concert from Buckingham Palace. We were briefly rained on, showered with novelty bubbles, plied with picnic food, danced to Elton John (well, I did) and ultimately froze to death. It was great fun. British people turn out to be rather patriotic, especially the ones sporting bowler hats with little Union Jacks on top. 

My first goodbye arrived on Tuesday morning when Sarah left. This was a highly tragic occasion as we’d been having such hilarious fun together. To cheer myself up, I had Polly and Alice around for dinner, after which we watched 10 Things I Hate About You because Polly hadn’t seen it before, and friends don’t let friends behave in such a way.  

On Wednesday, with five days to go, Niki arrived and took up residence on my floor. It was beyond fantastic to catch up with her, Kathy and Edward, all friends from Melbourne, and future travel buddies in Barcelona and the Greek Islands. I saw these three at increasingly random intervals over the next five days as my schedule became more and more hectic. Somewhere in there, Niki and I managed to pop into the British Museum to check out the pilfered Parthenon stuff in preparation for visiting the actual Acropolis.

And then the painful part of my last ten days began in earnest, and I started the devastating process of saying goodbye to my London friends. I farewelled Tori (and family) at Borough Market, Alice at St Ali’s (a suitably Melbournian café near Old Street station), and Vicky from Iolanthe after watching the purple-panted Aussie version of Pirates of Penzance.

On Friday, the goodbyes continued in a fun but heartbreaking stream. Miki and I finally watched Mozart L’Opéra Rock like we’d planned for months on end, which was absolutely amazing. I then went to dinner with Polly and Kyveli at an Italian restaurant in a rather nice area of Chelsea that I’d never visited before. We attempted to attend a philosophy night at the French Institute before giving up and going for drinks and dancing in a bar on the south bank of the Thames.

Saturday was a particularly crazy day, starting with Josh-and-Muney-baking in the morning. It was almost successful baking, too. My last ten days in London were marked by some sort of cooking curse. I spent a good couple of unexpected hours at a last-minute hairdressing appointment. I then dropped into Borough Market for one final farewell before meeting Fiona at Bea’s of Bloomsbury near St Paul’s. It was an absolutely lovely day. The blue sky was clearly designed as a London farewell just for me.

Cara came over for dinner and watched me take down the first few posters from my wall. Several people warned me not to leave packing until the last minute, so I left it until the last midnight. 

Those final hours before midnight were great. Cara and I met up with Niki and Nabila at The Anchor (near London Bridge) for Crabbies. It was when I got back home that the hellishness kicked in. I packed and dissembled feverishly for three and a half hours until I flopped into bed, then woke at 8am and continued the effort, pausing only for a delicious parting brunch with Polly and Kyveli on Bermondsey Street. And then it was back to the packing, and the panicking, and the general manic stressfulness of it all.

Somehow I was only forty-five minutes late meeting Kathy, Niki and Edward. Somehow we made it to London Bridge station in time. Somehow we caught the right plane to Barcelona. The only positives to leaving packing to the absolute last minute were that I got to spend ten full days hanging out with the best people in London and that I was too crazy stressed to be overly despondent about ending my incredible exchange year.

My love to everyone who made the past ten months so wonderful. Come to Melbourne or else.