It's London Calling

Today is our third day in London, and we leave tomorrow for five days in Paris. We are getting used to London a little by now, but that first glimpse of Piccadilly Circus when we walked up from the underground was almost overwhelming, a bit surreal in fact. The sheer amount of activity, of lights, of people was, for a few minutes, an over stimulation of the senses. You see these images on TV and film, but somehow it is never quite like being there.

Our first day was spent seeing the biggies; Parliament House, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, etc. They are all wonderful buildings, but there are so many tourists in London, it is hard to really appreciate them (and a lot of these tourists are French and Italian school groups, and they are sooooooooooo annoying).

The British Houses of Parliament

Yesterday, we took a one-hour trip down the Thames, and coming back hopped off at the Tower of London. What was of particular interest to me was what has become known as Traitor’s Gate. This is where many famous Brits, including my favourite, Sir Thomas Moore, came to their ends, in Moore’s case because he refused to recognise Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boylen, herself sentenced to death by Henry three years later.

Tower of London

Tower Bridge from the Thames ferry

By far, one of the features of London for us has been beautiful Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, in which we spent two wonderful hours in the sun (don’t worry, the rain was to return later in the day, almost like clockwork). There is no doubt, London’s gardens are superlative. The grass was green and lush, and the plants’ colours vibrant and dazzling, sort of like Peechelba in summer (lol).

We found these lovely Italian fountains in Kensington Gardens - I'm think of installing one back home.

Getting ready for the changing of the guard, Hyde Park

Last night we went to see two Aussie acts at a gig; Elizabeth Rose and Hermitude. It was good to be surrounded by so many Australians, and a loud cheer rang out when Elizabeth mentioned Triple J. It made me feel a little bit homesick. I would ever have thought of myself as overly jingoistic, but it is amazing how traveling overseas really makes you focus on your own culture.

London has a population of over eight million, and most of those eight million seem to always be traveling on the same train as us. Seriously, the tube and its stations are ALWAYS packed, irrespective of the time of day or night. Fortunately, tube trains go every few minutes, but they are so full commuters are literally hanging out of the doors. Notwithstanding this, the system seems to work remarkably well. 

The Globe Theatre - (not the original)

To finish this post, last night we had an interesting experience, of the worst sort. At around 1.00 am, we were woken up by a VERY loud conversation next door, I gather a phone conversation. It went on for half an hour, then an hour, and eventually we banged on the door politely and asked for some consideration. Two hours went by, then three hours, and all the time our room was filling with cigarette smoke from next door (our room must be a family room as it has an adjoining door). At 4.00 am, completed exhausted, we went down stairs to the duty manager and asked for another room to sleep in, which they were very happy to do. When we returned to our room at 8.00 this morning, the stench of cigarette smoke was everywhere. By then, next door had quickly checked out and left. My guess is something very weird was taking place, perhaps even something illegal. Alison is a bit like a zombie this morning, no, I mean more so than normal, but I’m a bit more philosophical – it’s all part of the experience.

A look inside Harrods. The doorman took an imprint of our credit card and wanted to see a copy of our recent bank statement before he'd even let us in - what, do we look like riff-raff? Alison and I spent 20 minutes on a game I called 'Spot the Reduced Item' - we couldn't find a single one!