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Published: September 17th 2008
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First Class zUpgrade
We sleep all the way to London Steven - Thursday/Friday 11/12 September 2008
Well if you want to rest as you fly half way around the world, first class is the way to go although I would not recommend actually paying for it. While very pleasant it did not appear to be that much better. Perhaps I will change my mind when we travel in business class for the rest of the trip. Still it was good to be able to stretch out on the very long leg from Sydney to London.
Singapore was a 1 hour stop, off the plane (not sure why) while they reload food and exchange a few passengers. Very humid!
We arrived in London after flying over India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and Germany. London looked very large from the air as we came in. Through customs (no checks) and off to the Underground. We were told on a tourist web site that this was the best, easiest and cheapest way to get to Piccadilly Circus (where we are staying) and while the trains are regular, it was not easy with 4 suitcases between us.
Arrived, checked in and straight to Carnaby and Oxford Street for some shopping. Beza found a great dress
Queen Beza
Beza trying to use the "Sovereign's entrance" at Parliament House! and a cute skirt and a few other things we may go back to get before we leave. The buildings here are well preserved but modern shops occupy the internals behind the facades. Regent Street is particularly stunning. So far I do feel like I am playing a reality TV version of Monopoly and many of the places and street names are more familiar to me than those of Sydney. Have not got lost yet.
The rest of the day was spent visiting the Royal Academy of Arts and some more window shopping.
Saturday - 13 September 2008
Today is traditional tourist day - Walked down to The Thames past Nelson’s Column, to Downing Street (closed off for security apart from the press), Police carrying what look like small machine guns! Big Ben and the houses of Parliament and through St James Park to Buckingham Palace. We managed to go on 3 tours there inside the State Rooms, where there was a table (for 100) set up as would be in a state banquet - very impressive and no doubt expensive. We saw some of the Royal art collection and antiquities and the Stables with the carriages. Taxi from
The Gerkin
This one's for Gail! there to the Thames ferry service and along the river to Greenwich Village and the Royal Observatory back to the hotel to get ready for dinner at 6 and Agatha Christie’s, The Mousetrap (now playing for over 50 years). Thought dinner at 6 would not require booking but boy was I wrong! We could not believe how many people were in the West End. It was twice as busy as Sydney in peak hour. We ended up in the corner of Pizza Hut! The play was very good and we finally collapsed into bed late - very tired. We will pace ourselves better next time.
Sunday - 14 September 2008
We had been tracking the events surrounding the Chunnel Fire as today we were to go to Paris for the day on the very fast Eurostar train. Plan was to see the Eifel Tower (lunch there) and spend the afternoon at the Louvre. There were to be limited services now that they cleared the line. What that meant for us, with a booking made two months ago was unclear and you could not get through on the phone. So we turned up to ask (with plan B in our
Origin of the Species
Charles Darwin at the Museum of Natural History heads). Best they could say was they could get us on the next available train there and gain coming back but could not say if that was today, tomorrow or next week - so much for booking ahead. They were working on a first come first served basis were putting people who had no booking ahead of us - needless to say I was somewhat disappointed! Particularly for Beza who really wanted to see Paris. Plan B - Off to Harrods and the National Museums of Natural History and Museum of Science = we has a great, tiring time at the museums and Harrods was incredible. We planned to have lunch there and when I asked one of the staff if they had a restaurant we could sit and eat in, he politely said, “Sir, Harrods has 26 restaurants to choose from”. The place we enormous and Beza got lost in shoe heaven (I must say I was impressed as well) and designer clothes. Beza even managed to try on a pair of $400 jeans but fortunately they did not fit - still they were very nice. Saw some great leather jacket (I am keeping my eye out for Biniam)
East meets west
Beza stradling two hemispheres at Greenwich but at $3000 to $6000 I thought that it would be silly for him to have a jacket more expensive than his first motor bike. Food halls (I counted at least 8 were amazing and had just about anything in gourmet food you could thing of. Back to hotel for a spa, swim and an hour in the steam room before crashing.
Monday 15 September 2008
Off for some Oxford Street shopping and a visit to Madame Tussauds - We had booked a VIP visit. We had to buy a disposable camera as Steven left the camera batery in the charger at the hotel. We will need to get those photos developed and hopefullly get them in digital format as well. Paper photos - how quaint and last century!
The faces were very life like and if you didn’t look at the bodies you would swear they were real! Because the wax hand department wasn’t open for a few hours we ended up leaving and visiting the Sherlock Holmes museum, the Beatles shop, a rock and roll memorabilia store. From there we decided to visit abbey road for a rather cliché but very necessary picture of us crossing the
Mousetrap
Thought we would note the performance we saw - been going for sometime now! street.
After that we returned to Madame Tussauds and got our hands immortalized (apparently not so immortal seeing as I’ve managed to break mine already!). With all that finished we went for some more shopping, then out to dinner at the Rainforest Café
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Today Steven had a meeting with some people at the University of London, leaving me to explore the area. I ended up going to the British Museum and spending some time in book store and an organic supermarket. After I met up with Steven again we got a taxi to collect our bags from La Meridian and to take us to the hotel near Heathrow where we are spending our last night in London.
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