London

Oslo has not seen any sun for weeks now, it is cold and grey-white and I found it difficult believing that the sun does still exists... . So I quickly booked a flight to London to search for the sun. Maybe London wasn't the right place to look for it though... very unsurprisingly it rained, and rained, and rained...! But never mind, I was also looking forward to meet old friends I had not seen for ages and do some classic London sightseeing!

First thing we did was getting totally lost between tons of imported cheap chinese and creative London stuff at the Camden market. Coming from glamorous and chic Oslo, the fancy and cheap Camden market is heaven! I bought a dress and ear rings and could have bought a dozen more items if I only was traveling with a suitcase... . After running around between the open-air stalls for hours and crossing London bridge to have a glimpse of the Tower bridge and the new Shard tower, we were totally wet and frozen and had to warm ourselves by visiting the big modern art museum "Tate Modern". Famous pictures of Kandinsky, Dalí, Picasso and many more are seemingly unprotected displayed and can be examined up close.

On the second day we started somewhat earlier to have enough time to pass by famous Big Ben, St. James Park and Buckingham palace before totally loosing track of time in the Natural History Museum. The impressive building has so many fascinating things on display that half a day is not enough to explore it. There is of course the famous Darwin statue, a piece of the moon from the last Apollo mission, a Dodo skeleton, the model of a scary T-Rex, a Moa, at least three stuffed species of Birds-of-Paradise and many many more things... . In addition there was also the "Wildlife photographer of the year" exhibition with extraordinary animal and landscape pictures.

Of course I ended every day with a delicious international dinner - pizza on the first day, followed by Vietnamese and Indian cuisine. So nice to go out for dinner again - what a contrast to our daily pasta at home ;)

And here's the whole story summarized in pictures:

London tourist classics:	phone box,	bus n' bobbies,	underground.
London Bitch-Kitsch.	Big Ben.	Queen's Life Guard	Wow, Darwin!
London in the rain..!	The Shard.	Tate Modern art.	Art by Mary Martin.
Over the river Thames.	Tate Modern outside.	Moa in the NHM.	St. James Park.
Natural History Museum.	Tate Modern.	Russian Revol. Posters.	Art by Gerhard Richter.

Tower Bridge	Tate Modern art.	Hummingbirds at NHM.
Bali memorial.	Male Smew.	Duck at St. James Park. ID?
Dodos in the NHM.	Dalí's Metamorphosis of Narcissus.	Art at Tate Modern.
Starling.	St. Paul's church.	Natural History Museum.
So many cheap stuff...	... at Camden market.	London bus.
London through a London bus.	Pub at Finchley central.	Cup cakes at the Hummingbird cafe.

A really big thank you to the three girls who made my visit to London so enjoyable! Thanks for acting as a tourist guide, a hostel and for driving hours to meet me in London!! Hope to welcome all of you in Oslo some time!

PS: Just before take-off, the clouds disappeared and suddenly there was blue sky and a bright bright sun!!