New Year's Eve in London

Every year I see the New Year fireworks from Sydney Harbour, Australia and think to myself "I want to be there". In the build up to Christmas and New Year's Eve this year the thought crossed my mind again and I began thinking that within the next few years I might be able to make it there. BUT HANG ON! I haven't even seen the fireworks in London that seem to get better every year!! There's no point spending possibly thousands to get to Australia!

One day!

The things that have put me off going to London before are the wonderful British weather, public transport, crowds and waiting around for hours. This year, without much else planned, my friend Sophie and I began to talk about getting over it and going for it. On the 30th we decided we'd definitely do it.  Here is what happened and a few tips for anybody thinking of doing the same in the years to come.

Being prepared
Like a good girl guide (and being a geographer!) I thought carefully about my outfit and accessories. We honestly had no idea where we'd end up so I wanted to cover all possibilities. I chose to wear fairly thick black tights for warmth, a black vest top and wool jumper, grey light-weight scarf,  denim skirt and grey ankle boots. If we ended up in some kind of bar/club I could just about get away with it by de-layering to the vest top and skirt. I also wore a light-weight pink waterproof and gloves. I didn't want to take a chunky back pack so I crammed as much as I could into the polka-dot shoulder bag I'd received for Christmas. The only extra things I took apart from the usual hand bag bits were a camera and compact umbrella. 

Getting to London
We set off from Reading at about 5pm on the high speed service to London Paddington. It takes 30-40 minutes. It was busy but we found two seats close to each other.

London
We stepped off the train and looked at each other "Errrr where shall we go?" We knew we would be heading towards the Thames/London Eye/Big Ben at some point but hadn't planned anything for the in between. Soph suggested Winter Wonderland as she had never been and so we headed for Hyde Park on the tube.

The area is set up like a German market and also has fairground rides for various ages and an ice rink. I'd been in 2009 and enjoyed the thrill rides but didn't pay much attention to the food outlets and market stalls. I had a better wander around this time and there were actually some really pretty and authentic gifts for sale. No thrill rides for me this time!

Mulled wine and mulled cider. Yummmmmmmm

We then decided to head towards Marble Arch. Sophie got her trusty phone map app out and had a look at which restaurants were nearby. She's good like that. We headed for a nearby Prezzo and were surprised to be sat down almost straight away. It wasn't totally rammed like we'd anticipated. We had a really lovely meal, we weren't rushed at all and even had time to come up with our New Year resolutions.

Hopefully a bottle of Rose didn't make us over ambitious.

We left the restaurant around 8.30pm. I had read that the 'official' firework viewing areas by the River Thames often fill up by 9-10pm. If we got there and it was rammed we had thought about heading to Primrose Hill and viewing them from a distance (a shout out on Facebook recommended this). We wondered down Oxford Street (which had been closed to normal traffic) to Bond Street Station and got on the tube to Westminster. The tube was not very busy but Westminster station was seriously crowded. They were holding people back to allow the crowds to leave the station safely. Alarm bells were ringing a bit at this point - just what I had feared!

We got out of the station to hear an announcement that all viewing areas were full and people should head towards Trafalgar Square for different viewing areas. The crowds died down slightly about 50m from the station and we decided to have a look around. The whole area had been made traffic free. Having seen the fireworks on TV in previous years I knew that being somewhere near Big Ben would provide a reasonably good view as this is one of the camera shots the BBC uses. Quite a lot of people were standing/sitting on the roads and pavement edges. The large grassed area next to Westminster Abbey had a few people dotted on it and we headed in that direction. This is when Sophie revealed the most important preparation of the whole night....2 BIG BLACK BIN BAGS! We found a good spot and promptly set up camp on our bin bags. People standing around were envious, we could tell by the looks. It was only 9.15pm...they had a lot of standing time left.

Sophie is my hero

I'm pretty sure we were not in an 'official' viewing area but it still had loud speakers, a big screen and lots of stewards. We made it just in time because Westminster station was closed at 9.30pm. I think we were slightly thinking 'we're going to be sat here for ages' and hearing a nearby man saying something like "we've still got an entire football match, including half time, to wait" was a bit disheartening. However, the time actually went pretty quickly in my opinion, girly chat and silly photo taking were the way forward. Thank god we had those bin bags to sit on. 

Some time passed...Nihal from Radio 1 started playing some tunes on the loudspeaker at 10pm and Soph revealed another winner...

Party snacks!!!

At 11.15pm we cracked open the mini wines, 3 for £5 from Sainsbury's (I had bought these earlier in the day and carried them in a plastic bag, classy).
It was soon 11.30pm, bums were getting a bit numb, the atmosphere was good, it wasn't raining, we decided to stand up for good! 

London 'went live' on BBC1 and soon the count down began!

Gabby Logan from t'telly!

Time for the sparkling!

The fireworks were super exciting. You can watch them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e8vfRTsFU4 

We could hear the accompanying music etc through the loud speakers.

Here's a snippet of what it was like for us:

The only disadvantage was that we couldn't see the smaller fireworks that are set off in front of the London Eye. Even so, it was an amazing experience!

Getting home
Getting out of the area was hectic. Sensibly, Westminster tube station was closed until 2am but this meant that everyone seemed to head in the same direction towards Victoria Station. We decided to avoid the crowds in the station and carried on walking to Sloane Square. We walked for about an hour. I also had my first experience of using one of those toilets that pops out of the ground, not as fun as it looks! I think we caught the train from Paddington at about 2am and it was busy. I was quite impressed that there were trains towards Reading throughout the night leaving about every half an hour. We fell into bed and Sophie's (decided to save myself an expensive taxi ride) at about 4am and didn't wake until 12.30pm. 

Top tips for New Year's Eve in London
1. Dress sensibly
2. Take some drinks and snacks
3. Have some idea of where you're heading to view the fireworks.
4. If travelling on public transport - know when the last train home is!
5. Don't stress if you don't get into an 'official' viewing area. From what I saw on TV this year, some of the people at the front of the river banks, with the best views, had been there since 3pm! Even if you got there at 7-8pm that is still 4 hours without being able to sit down, move properly or go to the toilet. Not fun in my opinion.
TOP TIP: Take something to sit on!! I would have been complaining if I had been standing up for 3 hours! Bin bags don't take up much room.

I had better start saving for Sydney...