London aka "Big Smoke"

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I have well and truly left the African sun behind me. Next time round Cape Town and Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) are on the cards. I would be mad to go back to Zim, but apparently Victoria Falls is still quite safe. Although I might just view it from the Zambian border to be safe! It is one of the several natural wonders of the world.. so it's worth a look.

I flew onboard British Airway's #sitting_between_2big_people_who_don't_like2_share_armrests to Dublin. Met by my Irish cousins, who very kindly put me up until I found my Irish footing. In the first couple of days I was painting the town Black!? Ah yes black, the colour of nation’s icon - Guinness! You haven't tasted Guinness, till you've tasted it in Dublin.

After a week in Dublin I decided to see what the dark side was like.. No not Guinness, London!
The flight to London was 50 bucks return! Bargain! Although once there, London eats your kiwi dollars faster

than a weather change in Hamilton (NZ).

Bad Arrival / Worse Arrival
It really turned pear-shaped on my arrival into London, it was 11:00pm and I had to catch the London underground to my stay for the nite. Slite problemo.. I had no idea what the underground looked like! Now bear in mind I had done my homework, I fitted my phone with state of the art London mapping..

I knew exactly what station to go 2 and exactly what path to travel.
But to no avail, I ended up taking a train (that I swear looked like an underground) to the opposite direction to where I wanted to go, a kind Englishman did signal that I could take a different underground. Now running round like a mad man (tube closes at 12:30pm) I lost sight of the intended station, and in the English darkness I stumbled across another station (later found to be the dodgiest part of town).

I took a gamble as to which side of the tracks was going my way, oh ya guessed wrong.. now going, again the opposite direction (not a completely unfamiliar feeling to me) I got off, looked at a station bench which would have been ideal for sleep, except it was kitted out with the best anti-sleep mechanism money can buy.

Short story I got in on the very last train of the night.

The rest of the time in London was a bit more subdued, I explored such landmarks as the:

• London Bridge
  
• Big Ben (By accident at 4am)
  
• London Red Light District (Again completely by accident… haha)
  
• The Barnwell Horse Stables (Owned by my uncle and world famous in our family)
  

Quiet one for London this time round, I'l tackle the major attractions next time.

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Photos

NZ vs SA cricket
Haha no bigger insult - Dan Vettori attending an SA prize giving in his socks

NZ Crew
Out for Ginni's Birthday

On the Beach in Ireland
Apparently Bono bought one of these.
They were used to warm Ireland of would be attacking vikings.

London City
Carnage on the street

Comments

[Tim]

Wassuppp
Sounds fat as bro, London is off the chain!!!!!! Heaps of eye candy too, fun times, keep up the good work.

[Brendon]

The tube in london...
Mate, we've all been there, so don't worry about it. In fact, you picked the best time to travel on the tube, theres a fair bit of action on the tube at that hour of night....keep riding it, you might get lucky!! Next time you are in London, you might want to make the little effort and go to Brick Lane, and get a curry, nothing better to make you earn a good thirst.... Have fun, keep the updates coming!

[Dan]

Howdy
Sounds like good times bro! donning the tshirt over there i see....If only it were summer here! nice photos too. Hope all is well and groovy!