London

So when we got back from our epic trip, my darling friend Sophia had arrived. She's been here for a month after teaching in a school in Thailand. We wandered around London and entertained couchsurfers. She did a London bus tour and saw all of the tourist sites that I am yet to see(!) and a Jack the Ripper Tour (in the area I live in) and generally made me feel like a bad London visitor! But a very good Londoner...

So I started thinking about all the things that I want to do, and associate London with, and should do while I'm here. TimeOut is a GREAT place to start, because they have a list! I use TimeOut to find out about gigs and restaurants mainly, but it is my favourite London resource. So, while I don't want to do all 101 Things to do in London - Ultimate Guide; I am very willing to get through a fair bit.

I took a long weekend for Sophie's final days here which instigated the making of this The-Tourist-Things-In-London-I-Should-Do.

Museums, Galleries and Exhibits

• British Museum – this might take a day, and it has most of the Acropolis and other countries historical artefacts in, but still amazing things too see.
• British Library
• Charles Dickens Museum – CHARLES DICKENS!
• London's secret galleries – I think I like the idea of this mainly 
• The Tate Britain and Tate Modern  - The Tate modern is my favouritist EVER. Well, maybe not ever, but it is insanely cool on a Friday night when no one is there. (I’m so cool, that’s how I spend MY Friday nights…)
• Natural History Museum – This has real life dinosaur bones.
• Grant Museum of Zoology
• Pollock's Toy Museum – This looks creepy because of all the dolls.
• Saatchi Gallery – Enuff said.
• London's public sculptures – Another Time Out thing
• Wellcome Collection
• London Dungeon – I went to this with Sophie. I think you need to be less hungover than we to fully appreciate this. And possibly less sober.

Historical Places

• Tower of London – I pass this everyday without thinking ‘there is a castle with a moat in the middle of the city, and it holds the crown jewels.’
• Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guards
• Royal Observatory – so cool! I haven’t been in but it’s in Greenwich which is looooovely, and I like observatories a lot, so will do this at some point.
• Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
• Big Ben and Westminster

Markets and locals

• Camden Market – famous.
• Greenwich – the whole area is pretty, and park filled, and doesn’t feel like London, and has a market with awesome food.
• Portobello Market – LOVE! Huge, amazing food, antiques, and vintage clothes to spend hours trying on. Almost made me want to live in West London. Maybe when I’m rich.
• Regent's Canal
• London Zoo
• London City Farms – there are farms in London. This is only slightly less weird than the fact that there is a castle in the middle.
• Hampstead Heath and the Lidos – outdoor pools!
• Hyde Park
• Columbia Road Flower Market – my Sunday local.

Other

• Cabaret – I get sent an email from Time Out about cabaret all the time. So I guess this is something I should do.
• Barclay's Bikes – London has this great automated bike hire scheme where you borrow a bike from the side of the road and take it to the next parking spot to drop it off, and it it free for 30 mins, and some amount of money for after.
• Go to the West End to see a musical
• London Eye
• Eat Brick Lane Bagels, Bad British fish and chips, drink pints of warm beer and eat jellied eels from Tubby Isaacs little street cart.
• Have the best Indian meals EVER! Or Pakistani, because Tayyabs rocks my world.

Some of these I may not do, cause I don’t actually care that much about the changing of the guard, or Big Ben, and I really don’t want to eat a jellied eel. Some of these things I do on a regular basis anyway (the other food-related goods, the markets, walking the canal, and others I’ve been there, done that, but figure I’ll make a good big list for all of you who decide to visit me!)