Blogs from Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 724

We started the day with a walk through St. James Park, which sits in front of Buckingham Palace. We observed the guards training for the official Trooping of the Colour next Saturday and walked along the stream filled with beautiful swans, ducks and pelicans. The perennial beds were lovely. We then headed to the Royal Mews-----what are mews you are wondering. . .it is the area where the horses, carriages and all their gear is kept. We have seen row houses that have mews running between them---much like the alleys in Newport behind the houses. At the Royal Mews we saw many of the carriages used during state parades, etc. The horses were phenomenal-----we agreed the stables were cleaner than our houses sometimes are!! After the mews it was lunchtime (you know we never miss a ... read more

Ok, so today was our “take it slow” day, which was a nice change of pace. We woke up this morning around 8:30 am, and showered and got ready to go. No breakfast for me. We headed first to the British Museum, which is also massive. I think we might have seen less than ½ of it. We did see the Rosetta Stone, and the gigantic Reading Room, and the Egyptian mummies, including a mummified cat. Meow! I also saw the Easter Island heads, reviving some Chilean pride. We didn’t spend too long there, though, and so we headed through Russell Square Gardens and to the metro. Before heading to the metro, we stopped at TESCO once again where I had a Sprite, a KitKat bar, and Prawn Cocktail chips for a breakfast snack (₤1.89). The ... read more

Love of London Well, that’s it for London. We’ve packed the last two years of our lives into assorted boxes for freighting back to NZ and into our own bulging backpacks. It’s Africa or broke (or more accurately, Africa then broke)! Our time in England has been wonderful. It’s clichéd to say, but I just don’t know where our last two years have gone. We’ve had a lot of good times and have been lucky enough to share them with some great friends. We have perhaps been guilty of neglecting London and England a little in favour of more exotic destinations during our time here. In our defence though, the whole short break to Europe thing is just heaven for New Zealanders - so many countries so easily reached. Real kid in candy store stuff. ... read more

Well, another busy day with a lot of walking. It was one of those days where we did a lot of stuff, but didn’t spend a lot of time, so it was hard to tell. That’s how I prefer it actually; I’d rather do everything, even if only for a little while, then to spend too long at one place and miss out on something else. Anyways, I woke up and showered around 7:30 this morning. We were up til close to 1:30 or something last night. We picked up some breakfast at the Tesco 24-hour mark. I wasn’t feeling so hot, but I picked up a chocolate croissant (₤.89), which ended up being a mistake. We were a bit early on the metro, so we waited outside the Russell Square station until we could ride, ... read more

Day 58: June 2 - NETHERLANDS - Amsterdam (Belgium and France in transit), ENGLAND - Dover, London Accommodation: St Paul’s YHA, London I had a bit of a hangover this morning and was still a little bit drunk, most likely thanks to the 10% alcohol Belgian beer I'd had the night before on top of the other 8 beers or so I'd had. I had a shower, went downstairs to have breakfast, and had about 5 minutes to pack everything into my bag which was all over the floor in my little corner. I was too tired to pack properly and didn't realise I hadn't packed my favourite jumper, which I wouldn't find out until almost a week later when I tried to find it backpacking in Belgium. Back onto the bus and we were waving ... read more