London for fun

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We arrived in London in time for Halloween and a cold spell: both the weather and me, I had a cold and it snowed the day before we arrived.

But despite the colds, we had a ball. It was Steve's first time in London and we mixed in sight seeing with seeing friends.

We stayed with Grant and Kath in Putney, an area of London that is full of Aussies. We sampled two of their local pubs, actually, three, and the delicious Indian restaurant across the road from their house. At home, Steve had a go on Guitar Hero for the first time, and I watched Home and Away with Kath.

For Halloween, we went to their friends' place for a Halloween Party, where we met a bunch of Londoners dressed up in crazy costumes.

Grant took us to Hyde Park on Sunday (when the sun was shining!), where there is a Speakers' Corner - literally anybody can stand on their soap box and wax lyrical about a topic that interests them, frequently about religion, war, conspiracy theories or politics, and generally more ranting than substance. There were a few different people doing this, with a small crowd standing around each one, listening, heckling and arguing back.

We went out for dinner with Felicity, Lauren and her sister Kelly to a Turkish restaurant in town. And then we saw Lauren and Kelly again for a drink at a pub and they gave us their leftover bus tour tickets, so we did the tour the next morning and found out where Elton John lives and a few other things about London. I also met up with Flick again for lunch near her work.

We went to a Spanish restaurant for paella and sangria with Samantha and Justin, and it was lovely to meet Justin and celebrate their engagement.

And on our own we did some touring, mainly to the free things! We went to the Tate Modern Art Gallery and to the British Museum, which provided us with a great overview of the history of the world complete with Egyptian mummies and casks. And we wandered around to Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, etc, and shopped on Oxford Street.

We both agreed London is heaps of fun and great of going out, with so much going on everywhere you turn, and it was a brilliant way to end of overseas adventure before going home...for a while...

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