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Hi from the Eye
A giant bicycle wheel with a view. Since we last wrote we have absolutely fallen in love with Scotland. It is a beautiful place with friendliest people you could hope to meet. We continued to have a wonderful time with Bonnie and Graham and can't thank them enough for touring us around and showing us all the area has to offer. We went for a few hikes which was always an adventure due to the ever changing weather, but hey we are from Vancouver if we can't handle a little rain who can?
We very much enjoyed the day Bonnie and Graham took us up to Braemar for a hike although thanks to the now-legendary map-reading skills of Nick and Graham it really is lucky that Bonnie and Sarah survived. What was meant to be a short, relaxing two hour hike turned out to be a five hour trek. Basically at one point our two "navigators" decided to put the map away and use their intuition to guide us through this tiny bit of Cairngorms National Park. We all missed a trail and went the long way around a mountain -- a 10 kilometre (or 3 hour) mistake!! Bonnie and I put a brave face on for
The "Not Impressed" Face
Bollocks to your map-reading skills Nick! the way back, but needless to say it'll be one of those stories that lives on at cocktail parties and such. Despite the length it really was one of the most wonderful days. The scenery was awe inspiring and it is possible that the most elaborate picnic we have ever had kept us going in the wet and cold (thanks Bonnie). These people REALLY know how to picnic. We took lessons through a bottle of wine, 5 different cheeses, two meats and bread rolls and cookies.
After having to say goodbye to Bonnie and Graham (and of course Holly - the dog) we took what felt like the longest bus ever! It was a great deal, but it was an overnight bus from Perth to London and we got vertually no sleep. The ticket for both of us was only £28 through the company Megabus. A great deal depending on who sits behind you. We are actually hoping that the ride will be our last overnighter, but you never know - especially in Europe during the World Cup.
We arrived back into London at around 6:15 AM and were able to store our luggage for the day at
Victoria Coach Station. Half asleep or half crazy (you pick) we made our way from the station down to Westminster Abbey. Nick's first view of 3 London sights all came at once: We looked up to see the Abbey, and tucked in behind it was Big Ben, a classic, and behind that was the Millennium Eye. Unfortunately, the Abbey is closed in the early mornings, so we continued through the parliament area...Nick was delighted to see some of his old friends like Winston Churchill and Montgomery standing around! Downing Street was heavily guarded and there's a pretty sturdy security gate, so photos of No. 10 weren't possible, but we continued on to Trafalgar Square. Nick was pumped for a view of the tall Nelson monument but it is undergoing renovations so they have cheekily draped all the scaffolding with a picture of the monument itself. Not worth a shot, but hey, when we were in Windsor castle we saw the bullet that killed Nelson...just as good in a sick sort of way.
From there we walked to Buckingham Palace and arrived too early for the 11:30 AM changing of the guard, so we just took a few photos and
Sarah and Cousin Karen
Seen here enjoying "The Five Minute Box" in front of the Millennium foot bridge aka "Wibbly-Wobbly Bridge" and the Thames River. decided to bide our time walking around in Hyde Park. On our way, we were approaching the Wellington arch (there was some latin on it, and Nick translated this as "I defeated Napoleon and all I got was this lousy arch") and were stopped by a huge procession of the horse guards! We had decided that we would probably miss the changing of the guard at Buckingham so this was a pleasant surprise. Amazing and strange uniforms really made this something to see.
In the late afternoon we met up with Sarah's cousin Karen near Covent Gardens. We went to the Tate Modern art gallery for an eye-opening look at some surrealist art (never dull), then out for pizza, did some catching up and had a wonderful evening!! On our way to our new home at Chalfont St. Peter with "Galapagos Brits" Chris and Deborah, we had to pick up our luggage and navigate about 4-5 changes on the tube in order to arrive at Rickmansworth station. This was Nick's first time on the tube and Sarah desperately wanted him to hear the disembodied voice slowly say "MIND THE GAP", but no such luck...maybe he's been downsized or something.
Even lacking the great motto, the tube is a magnificent piece of engineering and public transport. You need a map just to navigate it, and the map itself looks a bit like a Jackson Pollock painting - a big mess of colour. At each stop a woman's voice tells you what the stop is, what lines you can transfer to, and even which major attractions or sites you can visit! For us this is a bit more up-market than "EXPO LINE..TO...KING GEORGE", which you hear on the Vancouver Skytrain.
After a well-deserved rest we figured that our bodies couldn't handle another tour of London, so we took Wednesday out to have a little tour of the area we are staying in, courtesy of Deborah. We visited the Hellfire caves, initially excavated for road-building and then finally adopted as a meeting point for some influential men of the time. The largest cavern was used as a dining hall at some point and we felt like renting it out for a dinner or two ourselves. Imagine...dinner in a cavern. How cool is that? Following the caves we went to a Model Village which started in 1929 with a few small buildings
221b Baker Street
"Watson! Get the bloody door already!" (about waist high but incredibly detailed) and progressed until it is now literally a walk-through park with a model train running through. We liked it because it made us feel tall. That rarely happens.
That night we had a rather raucous time reunited with 4 of the 6 "Galapagos Brits"...it still amazes us that we met these people at the beginning of our trip and now we are staying with them and having such a wonderful time here! Thursday we trundled off to London again, back for more. This time we stopped at Baker St. Station for a bite to eat, and so Nick could drag Sarah to 221b Baker Street - home of the legendary Sherlock Holmes. The English are such good sports about the whole thing, they've set up a Sherlock museum at the address, and there are a number of coffee shops and souvenir shops nearby sporting his name. From Baker Street, your Tube Experts travelled to Tower Hill station where the Tower of London can be found. We saw the Tower, which is excellent but always packed with tourists, and whizzed by the Crown Jewels twice. Twice because there are actually two conveyor belts on
either side of a number of jewelled crowns and regalia...if you're sneaky or the place isn't packed with tourists you can go down one side then around the steps and down the other side. It is totally worth it- we were transfixed by the sparkling diamonds. Nick got his picture taken with the Beefeaters (guards, not the gin) and asked one of them where they got their nickname. The answer the guard gave is that they don't know, it's been lost to history.
After the Tower we walked along the Thames and since it turned out to be a beautiful day we went up the Millennium Eye for a nice view of London. Between the Eye and the rather phallic "Gherkin" building on the north bank, there are some strange new buildings going up on the London skyline. This makes for, if nothing else, some fun pictures.
Today was a nice, relaxing, do nothing day in the bustling metropolis of Chalfont St. Peter (if you had trouble finding Slough, don't bother). We are recharging for perhaps one last tour in London before flying out to France on the 29th.
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Martin
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Sky train nostalgia!
I spent some months in Vancouver recently. And having used the sky train there a lot of the time, I miss the "Expo Line to King George" announcements! :p I come from Liverpool, and here we have similar announcements on our trains as they have on sky train too. Nothing so elaborate as the London tourism announcements. Just a woman who sounds very much like Joanna Lumley telling us what good or nasty part of town where coming up to! :D I hope you can get around a bit more of the north of England if you get a chance to. It's not as interesting or exciting as London maybe, but I think it might be interesting for you.... Maybe! Enjoy the rest of your trip wherever you go. :D