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Published: March 17th 2005
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London
See, I told you it was big! Well, I'm sure you all (except maybe Andrew, judging by his comment...) will be pleased to know that we arrived safely in London at about lunchtime yesterday.
The landing part of the flight was really really cool - London is absolutely huge! Yes, I know that's probably rather an obvious statement, but the enormity of it really hits you from the air. From Heathrow we had to find our way to the Royal National hotel where we are staying, a seemingly simple task... which in the end turned into a bit of an 'adventure'. It turns out that the train loop that runs between the terminals at Heathrow is being upgraded, so we had to get a bus from the terminal to the nearest train staion - that was easy enough. From there we lugged suitcases and luggage up and down innumerable stairs until we eventually found ourselves at Picadilly Circus - at which point (after more stairs and a phone call) we discovered that we really wanted to be at another station entirely - so back to the tube we went. In the end we found our way to the hotel, and after some minor dramas checking in, secured
Your friendly local policeman
Having a chuckle at the tourists so keen to take his photo... ourselves a bed for the night.
Our anti-jetlag theory seems to have worked - so today we've had a full day of seeing the sights. We decided to avoid the tube and just take the nice, easy, touristy option of the hop on hop off bus - I'd DEFINATELY recommend that option! The company we went with had really good live tour guides - and we even got a river cruise down the Thames for free.
One of our first stops was Buckingham Palace, and as Debbie put it 'we arrived and it just started doing stuff'. We just had time to take a couple of snaps of the palace and the guards, when a whole pile of motorbike police turned up, and more guards came out...it turns out it was all in preparation for the Italian PM to leave - it was pretty cool to watch anyway. I even got a nice shot of the most sterotypical English bobby (although he lauged when he realised I was taking his photo...I'm such a tourist!)
We had a go on the London Eye which was incredible - and only £12 (hey - the pound sign is really easy
A little bit of security
We arrived at the palace, and suddenly this while line of motorcycle police arrived. One by one they appeared and parked in a line. I wonder if they practice that to find on this keyboard). The view was amazing - although we were getting pretty hot inside the capsule! The weather has been pretty good - it hasnt really rained at all, and its been warm - we didn't even need to take jackets today (although the wind was pretty cold sometimes!)
St Pauls Cathedral was another really cool spot - its the kind of place you could definately spend a really long time looking at, but even on our fairly short look around it was incredible. We went into the crypt and saw where so many famous people are burried - some of the ones I remember are William Blake (the poet), the guy who invented penacillin, the guy who first started translating the Bible into English, and the guy who started Boys Brigade (William Alexander something?). Lots of military type people were there too - such a broad range of people, with nothing else in common, it struck me as kind of a reminder that no matter who we are we all have a limited time here on earth. The other fascinating part of St Pauls was all the artwork - a lot of the building was
London phone boxes
The beginning of the phone box saga... being restored while we were there, but you could still see most of the amazing stuff on the ceilings. There were some really impressive paintings on the wall too - one depicting the crucifixion of Jesus really struck me - it just shows so much anguish on His face. I got a postcard of it - but it doesn't do the painting justice.
At the moment I'm in the Contiki basement, where we have a meeting in an hours time with our tour guide before we begin the Contiki bit of our tour tomorrow. I'm only just getting used to the idea that I'm in London, and tomorrow night I'll be in Amsterdam! I'm loving London though...
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anonymous
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London
Hey Shell, sounds like you're having a ball :D I'd heard how big it was from Jon but i have no real concept of it - definately know what you mean by having to experience it. I'm loving the updates - thanks for setting this up :) things here are going along, i've only skipped one lecture and one tute so far :) And i had a good reason for each - really! ..........decided i'd email you, so check your personal mails when you get time. love ya, jac. - Jac