London

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We finally made it to London. It was only a 6 and half hour flight. We left Toronto late at night and would arrive about 8 in the morning. But some inconsiderate person had a heart attack or something and the pilot was asking if there were any doctors onboard. I told them I had a first-aid certificate but they didn’t seem reassured by that. They decided to go with a real medic that had volunteered his services. Their loss, not mine. Oh well we thought, they’ll look after them alright, get them to hospital in England, the UK has a good Medicare system. Well we got ¾ the way across the Atlantic, 2 hours from Heathrow, and the pilot turned the plane around and headed back to Canada. We landed somewhere in Newfoundland, where we were kept on the plane for 2 hours sitting on the tarmac while the cadaver came out. I don’t know for sure because we weren’t told but I reckon whoever was sick must have died otherwise we wouldn’t have turned around and flown four hours back when we were only 2 hours from London. Anyhow we finally arrived late in the day, a sunny and warm day in London no less, although at first I thought the pilot had over shot the mark a bit and ended up in Bombay, but no it was London. Oh well tomorrow will be nice as well.
The next day it rained and rained and the wind blew and it was cold.
Anyhow we saw most of the sights over the next couple of days. We went to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. The queen came out in her nightie and dressing gown to get the newspaper off the front lawn, waved to everyone, stood in Corgi shit and then went back inside yelling at Phil to get a shovel and clean the mess off the front yard.
Saw the Diana memorial, went to Kensington Palace, said g’day to Ben, walked along the Thames and over the Tower Bridge and kicked the leaves in Hyde Park. Caught a black Taxi, nearly got run over by a double decker bus, (and a taxi, and a lorry and by another taxi. Everyone on the road here is in a big rush. Lots of traffic trying to go lots of places on small narrow roads). Tried to see the Prime minister at Downing St but security was a bit tight. Went shopping in Harrods, but quickly found out that it was out of our price range. They had, and I kid you not, a hot water bottle cover on sale for ₤250. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY FLIPPIN” POUNDS for a hot water bottle cover. That’s about $650 Australian. If you could afford that then you think you could afford an electric blanket and wouldn’t need a hot water bottle.
Went to the pub and the beer was actually cold. Was going to drink English beer, but all they have on tap is German, Dutch and Belgium Beer as well as 10 taps of Fosters.
London is very hard to get around due to its design. You’d think that the Romans would have thought of that when they started building the place and that narrow winding roads wouldn’t be much chop in the 21st century. I think we would need a week here just to work out where everything is, and then probably another month to see it all.
We picked up a hire car on our last day from the city centre. I’ve heard lots of horror stories about driving in London, but actually it was pretty good. Probably made easier by the fact that they drive on the correct side of the road. Anyhow we headed down the M4, going west, just as it started to rain, again.
Oh and it gets dark at 4 o’clock.

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Comments

[GiuliaSocial]

London
Nice picture of this amazing city! (I live there adn I love watching photo from foreing point of view). Giulia