Earlier this week I was running around like a headless chicken trying to get last minute train tickets from London to Glasgow. Why last minute? Don’t even go there. Anyway I racked my brains and abused Google but I could not get tickets for less than £200 per person. To be paying that amount of money would be insane, so wrote off the trip until someone recommended going by coach. I had travelled across country before on a coach but it was not my most memorable or comfortable trip yet so the thought had no occurred to me.

Scouring around on Google trying to find tickets, I found National Express. They had available seats and good deals too so we decided to take the plunge and get tickets. It was going to be an eight hour bus trip so we opted for the departure time in the middle of the night. At least we would be asleep for most of the journey. Arrived at Victoria Coach Station at around 22:00 and we sat around with what looked like hundreds of other people opting to travel by coach. The coach bus itself was not big but it was going to have to do. They do not sell any refreshments on the coaches, so if you decide to use them, get your own snacks and drinks before the time.

The journey itself felt quick as busses are allowed to do 100mph on the motorways, loved it. All coaches come with safety belts which are required by law. My biggest concern was that I needed to have a toilet facility on the coach and luckily all of them have one. Not the most spacious place but it will do. The coach made two stops where people could grab a quick snack and stretch their legs and we used them each time. They do not allocate a lot of time on these stops, about 15 each, so you have to make it quick.

It was definitely an experience travelling in the middle of the night. I would recommend you give them at least a go before not opting to travel by coach. It would probably save you a small fortune if you want to explore the United Kingdom. A word of advice, if you are planning on travelling at night, take a travel pillow with as some coaches can be quite uncomfortable to sleep in. Oh, grab an Ipod or something with music, it helps. The National Express coaches can really be the cheaper alternative.

Exploring London can be a daunting task most of the time but you should make some time to set your inner-child free and let them explore London. There are always constant changes about in London; you might see something now that will disappear within weeks. We went exploring on Sunday and hit central London. Amazingly we managed to walk from Piccadilly Circus all the way to Oxford Street, Soho and back and we saw so much.

This is then we discovered the new Nokia store in Reagent Street, just off Piccadilly Circus. It is not too far from the Apple store, if you know where that is. The best thing about this Nokia store is that it is interactive. They have a few stalls where you can sit on a stool and explore the new phone from top to bottom, if you want.

Guess this post is not as informative as you would have liked but at least we took a few interesting photos to spice it up with! It shows you that you do not have to spend money to explore London and to have fun or at least to be entertained.

Time sure flies when you are having fun and the time has come for me to renew my passport. This is not a fun task but it has to be done if I want to stay here in the United Kingdom and continue to travel around Europe.

Considering that I am a foreigner, I need to visit my country’s embassy to apply for a new passport. This is not always an easy task to do especially when there is no information available on the Internet to help me along. This will be why you will read of my trip to the Namibian Embassy!

I was gob smacked when I found out Namibia had an Embassy office in the heart of London but had no website, not even a page on the official website for Namibia with contact details. Luckily they were listed in a few directories and I was able to get advice by phoning them first.  You will need to apply for a new passport in the last two months before your current Namibian passport expires.

Standard List of items Required:

• 2 x Passport Photos (Colour)
• Copy of your Birth Certificate (Make sure it is the Namibian one if you are born before 1990 – they will not accept the South African one)
• Copy of your ID or a copy of your ID receipt if you haven’t collected your ID yet.
• Copy of your current Passport.
• £20 payable only in cash.

The Namibian Embassy will then give you a form to fill in which is fairly simple and straight forward and will take all the copies and hand back the passport. The documents are sent back to Namibia for processing and they can not exactly tell you when it will be ready for collection. They will however take a contact number for you to tell you when it is ready.

So, come back for the edited version of this post as and when I will receive my new passport. Until then, please hold thumbs for me that it will be quick and painless!

The Namibian Embassy’s address is : No 6 Chandos Street, London, W1G 9LU. You can reach them on 0207 636 6244!