Lodon is London!
Hyde Park
Our dream to visit London has come true! I think everybody wishes to
visit London and see everything with own eyes. We know a lot about London.
London is the capital of England (Great Britain). It is a wonderful
city. Really wonderful! It is a very old city, too. There are a lot of places of interest:
museums, monuments and parks there.
There are many theatres and cinemas in London, as well as many
galleries.
I have visited a lot of cities, and they differ from each other. I am
sure that every city or town has it’s own peculiarities. I want to tell you our
impressions of London.
First of all public transport. The main means of transport are buses,
the underground and taxi cabs. There are no trams or trolleybuses in London. It is our
first surprise!
It is unusual for a big city. Red London double-decker buses have
become the symbol of London. It’s a surprise how a huge bus can go through the narrow
central streets of overcrowded London. Today there are also double-deckers of different
colours: green, black and yellow. They are often decorated with advertising slogans.
Secondly London is a green city, indeed! There are a lot of parks and
gardens there. Our hotel was near Hyde Park and our children came there to rest, to play
different games and to look at the flowers and trees. We also visited St. James’
and Regent’s Park.
They say that real Londoners don’t live in London, they have their
own private houses. We saw such houses not far from Windsor. Every house in the suburbs or
in the country has a garden. There’s usually a pond and a flowerbed. There’s a mixture
of different trees and bushes. English people take good care of their gardens.
The next thing that surprised us was the absense of teenagers in the
streets. (We saw them only in the museums.) One Englishman explained that pupils are at
school till 4 p.m. and after school they try to earn money for their needs. They do
baby-sitting, help old people, do homework with small children and so on. I think it’s
very useful for children.
The next subject is British cuisine. If you ask somebody to name some
typically English dishes they will probably say “Fish and chips”. and it’s true! We
lived in Paddington and there were a lot of different Indian, Chinese, French and Italian
restaurants. In London you’ll also find Indonesian, Mexican and Greek restaurants too.
They are very popular. So it is difficult to find an English restaurant with traditional
cuisine.
Every country is proud of its past and London has a lot of things to
see. There are many places of interest: the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the Tower,
Tower Bridge, Westminster Abby, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the British Museum
(we were impressed by Egyptian mummies and ancient Greek sculptures), the National History
Museum, Madame Tussaud’s Museum and the residences of the Queen, Buckingham Palace and
Windsor. All of them have a long history.
Our children were impressed by everything, but most of all by Madame
Tussaud’s Museum. Madame Tussaud’s Museum is an exhibition of hundreds of life-size
wax models of famous people of yesterday and today. Here we can meet Elton John, David
Beckham, Marilyn Monroe, Putin, Picasso, the Royal Family, Julia Roberts, the Beatles and
many others: singers, writers, sportsmen, politicians, movie stars, etc. It seems that we
are on a visit to these popular and famous people.
And, of course, shopping. Oxford Street is really the main shopping
street. It is very long and there are a lot of big and small shops for different tastes.
Seven days were enough to visit the main sightseeings and feel the
special atmosphere of London.
But we’d like to go to London once more. We’d like to lie on the
green grass in the parks, to watch the swans and pelicans, to enjoy beautiful flowers and
trees, to speak to polite and calm English people, to sit in the cafй and read an English
newspaper. People might say that you may do these things in Moscow, too. Of course, we
can, but… not in the same way, because London is London!
By Natalia Korotayeva,
School “Phoenix”, Moscow
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