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Changing of the guard - Buckingham Palace
What we could see of it anyway...complete tourist madness! G'day everyone,
Well, we have done London, Amsterdam and are now in the gorgeous Croatia and I now understand why Josie raves about it so much.
But first, London. We arrived early Tuesday morning, checked into our dive of a hotel (seriously you can't get anything decent there for less than $200 per night), and then we slept! I know it sounds like we're sleeping this trip away sometimes but it's tough going all this changing of time zones and it's not being kind to our bodies. Anyway, we got up around 9pm and went and checked out Piccadilly, Leicester Square and then had dinner in China Town before heading back to sleep some more. The next day Stu woke up sick again and spent the day in bed. I was coming in and out because I didn't really want to waste a day but by midday I gave up and had a 'nap' too. Woke up at 7pm! Went out for dinner again, then back to sleep. There's a recurring theme here. The next day we both woke up well (I was a little blocked up but wasn't going to let it stop us, so we took off for the
day. Did the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Southbank etc etc before heading back to our new and improved hotel (Sally and Colin put us into a 5 star hotel overlooking Chelsea Harbour as a wedding present - loving them!) to catch up with Sally and the kids. Spent the next couple of hours chatting and waiting for Colin to finish work, then we jumped in a cab and headed to Covent Garden to catch up with the Antarctica crew from London. Except only one turned up...but that's a whole other story. (Sorry, this is really annoying because on this keyboard the z is where the y normally is at home so I' constantly having to re-type things! If you see z's just put a y there!) Anyway, was great to catch up with Steve, and Sal and Colin in the ever happening Covent Garden. Left there after a few too many long island iced teas and headed back to the hotel where we crashed into Sal and Colin's room to get stuck into that bloody duty free Vodka we're still carrying around! About midnight I fell asleep mid one of Colin's sentences, signifying the end
of the night! I'd been awake for 21 hours!
Left for Amsterdam after a lovely brekky overlooking Chelsea Harbour with Sal, Col and the kids.
And so comes the clogs and cheese. Or, the red light district, a show, a canal tour and a trip around the Heineken factory in our case. I love Amsterdam and I think Stu did too - he was certainly surprised about the amount of canals there.
And that brings us to Makarska, Croatia. This place is heaven on earth and if there was another place I could see my pa living it would be here. Where the sea meets the mountains and the scenery is spectacular. Josie's Dad met us at the airport and got us back to Makarska (about an hour and a half away by bus) where her Aunt was waiting to feed us after showing us our room. We talked over lunch and then Dean (Jo's Dad) gave us the 3 hour guided tour complete with our first swim since Thailand. It was gorgeous!
Hard to describe this place. There are buildings showing war wounds from when the Turks invaded centuries ago, pebble beaches, views you don't
think exist except in fairy tales and lovely lovely people that can't speak English but try anyway! It's good having a bi-lingual guide though!
We're undecided whether to go crazy trying to fit everything in (a trip to the village where Jo's Grandad lives which is 90 minutes away), a cruise to some of the beautiful islands which takes up a full day and an overnight trip to Dubnovnik about 4 hours away by coach or to just take in the ambience of Makarska. Because we're sick we're tending to the latter but we know we'll regret being here and not doing the rest if we don't. Will keep you posted. We now fly from here on Friday afternoon to Joburg via Frankfurt having canned Venice because we just can't face the 12 hr trip there for the 24 hrs we'll get in return. Bear in mind we're both not well and Stu seems to have passed the cold back to me in time for my stay in Croatia.
It will be hard to leave here but I am excited about Africa and how beautiful and different it's going to be from everything I've ever seen before.
I'm frustrated with this keyboard so that's all you're getting for today! Will be in touch soon.
Ky
xx
PS As I type this Stu is still sleeping...rock a bye baby!
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