London. So much more than Monopoly led me to believe...

London, home of the Queen (sometimes), Danger Mouse and 7.5 million other people, half of whom seem to be tourists.  Including us.  We spent 9 days in London, partly because there was so much to see, partly because we needed to recover from the time in America, and partly because we had people to catch up with.  People who let us stay with them J!  We stayed with Dave and Selbs (well, mostly just Dave because Selbs was in Luxembourg most of the time) who had only just arrived in London themselves and had found a flat to share with a lovely Saffa couple (Kelvin and Michelle).  So thank you everyone for letting us crash.

  Given that they lived in Wimbledon, we felt a pressing need to go searching for Wombles on Wimbledon Common.  We didn’t find any at all (although suspiciously there were a couple of stuffed ones in the window of a real estate agent nearby).  We noticed that probably as a result of England’s stunning performance at the recent Wimbledon tennis championship there were some English people practicing by playing totem tennis on the common.  Seriously guys, plastic bats and a ball on a string is not going to help you win anything!  Perhaps if cricket balls were on strings the Ashes would be more interesting next time...

Anyway, enough pommie bashing for now.  We were stuck in London for a while (9 days in the end) as we had to wait for the Indian High Commission to process our visas.

However there is heaps to do.  We went to the National Gallery (which is free, therefore good) and wandered around many of the touristy things like Trafalgar Square (also free), Piccadilly Circus (free) and Covent Garden (free �" but only because we didn’t buy anything).  The exchange rate is a real killer over here!  We continued our mission to culture Dave by taking him to the Tate Modern (although we couldn’t convince him to come to the Dali and Film exhibition with us this time) and then to Les Miserables, which was in my mind a slightly superior production to the current Broadway version.  

We followed this up with the obligatory trip to the Tower of London.  This was great.  The beefeaters (I mean, Yeoman Warders) were brilliant tour guides and it was fun just to see the old fortress and the crown jewels.

  Without meaning to pick on the Americans, who are mostly nice people, we seemed to be surrounded by particularly obnoxious ones all day.  Some advice for Americans on holiday... If there is a line, wait in it.  Don’t assume that because you are American you can push in.  Also, if you visit a historical site, don’t assume that you know all there is to know about it already, because you will be wrong.  And most of all, if you visit a foreign country, especially one that is much more ancient than your own, loudly saying “the problem with England is that they’ve got no real history!” while visiting a fortress and palace that dates back to the 12^th century is going to make you sound like a twat (as the English would say).  But overall the tower was great, the guards had furry hats (and looked much younger than I expected), the geezer who showed us around the white tower gave the best description of the value of a codpiece I’ve ever heard, and the whole experience was very interesting.      

The next day we went down to Greenwich via Canary Wharf (the Docklands Light Rail is the best way to go �" lots of fun to go over the various bits of the Thames...).  Greenwich is home to the national maritime museum and royal observatory, both of which were highlights (and free!).  We got to stand on the prime meridian (or in Dave’s case, jump over it) and watched the red ball drop.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Wikipedia will explain.  We also saw John Harrison’s famous clocks (again, Wikipedia...).  We finished up the day with a trip to Abbey Road, to annoy all the traffic in peak hour by walking backwards and forwards over the Beatles zebra crossing (at least we only did it once �" some people were there doing it 20 or so times, trying to get the perfect photo!).

  We were tempted to tell them that 16 year old girls are not going to look like the Beatles no matter how hard they try, but probably not worth the effort in the end.  Incidentally while looking for Abbey Road, we came across Acacia Road, which for anyone who remembers their cartoons is where Bananaman lived �" and there was an abandoned banana lying on the footpath!  Spooky...  We finished up our tour of the area by doing a lap of Lords, which was setting up for the first test between India and England (which was obviously going to end with rain given the weather here recently, so I don’t know why they were bothering).  Anyway, after this we also managed to catch up with Cam, a former hockey teammate who is now living in London and loving it!

The next day started with the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

  This was not what I expected, for a couple of reasons.  First is how many people turn up �" on a normal day there are hundreds of people there to stand outside the gate.  Second is how little you can see, even if you get in a good position.  Third is how polite the huge numbers of police were.  Having previously experience the charm of American cops (see previous entries), we were astonished to hear the bobbies asking the hundreds of people who kept straying outside the barriers to “please move along sir, thank you”.  Even the mounted policeman who had to use his horse to physically push one tourist back into line was polite about it.  Finally and perhaps most surprisingly the marching band that accompanied the changing of the guard signalled this solemn and traditional ceremony by belting out a version of the Star Wars Theme. ..  This may have been due to the Star Wars convention that had just finished (great photos of Storm Troopers riding the tube in the papers!).  Or maybe Her Majesty just likes Star Wars (except for Jar Jar I’m sure).  After this we had a slight change in the kind of attraction we were seeing and went to the Hunterian Museum and the Wellcome Anatomy and Pathology museum at the Royal College of Surgeons.  The first is open to the public and was mostly filled with art students sketching all the weird anatomical specimens.  The second is only open to medical types, which fortunately we managed to convince them that we were (despite our casual dress and lack of stethoscopes).  Both are great collections.  Tash made me leave after I started asking her questions about pathology though.   The next attraction was St Pauls Cathedral, which in hindsight we should have done when we hadn’t been walking all day already.  St Pauls is fantastic.  Make sure you climb the over 530 stairs to the Golden Gallery and look out from the top of the dome over the city.  But make sure you don’t mind heights and rickety staircases or have any heart conditions.  The crypt is also fascinating (where Lord Nelson is buried).  We finished off the day with a trip to Islington to meet Tash’s friend Sooz, who took us out for curry on brick lane.  Good curry, but annoying and pushy service.  (I seem to be complaining about service a lot.  Most of the people are great, I’m just pointing out the bad ones).   Tash was excited as she saw Sooz actually drink a beer, which has often been claimed but never witnessed in Tassie!  On the way home we saw the “Gherkin”  by night.  Again, Wikipedia can help you with this if you’re not sure, but it will probably be listed under Swiss Re...

The next day we went to Westminister Abbey.  The downside of this is that from now on, every church we see is going to be compared with here.  However, they get a bit grabby for your money �" expensive entry, then there are extra charges for tours, guide books, or even the audio docent things.  It’s good to see the Abbey and I know it costs a lot to maintain, but I’d feel more, um.

..Christian towards them if these things were included in the entry price.  After this we headed across the river, past the eye, past the Dali Universe, past the Star Wars Exhibition to the Globe Theatre, where we stood in the yard and watched a 3 hour production of Othello, which was just brilliant.  The planes flying overhead dented the Elizabethan illusion somewhat, but the play was great (and had Tim McInnery as Iago).  Some good ice cream followed the show and we returned to Wimbledon. 

The following day Selbs surprised us by coming back from Luxembourg for the weekend.  We went to Harrods (really, does anyone actually expect me to pay 9 pounds for a pineapple from Costa Rica?) and Tash bought a chocolate donut from the Harrods Krispy Kreme (the only thing that is remotely affordable in the shop).

  This kind of place annoys me with its unnecessary extravagance.  If you can afford to shop here you should think about what better things you should be doing with your money, and how many more pineapples you could buy if you bought them from a normal shop. 

That was pretty much it for London, at least for the moment.  Three things I should mention is the crowded tube in peak hour beats NYC hands down, the traffic is just as crazy as I'd been led to believe (which was fun driving out when we got our car) and that the thunderstorms while we were here while not as impressive as those in Orlando certainly made lots of roads and shops flood.  We'd done lots of wandering around and although we'd been to most of the Monopoly squares we still couldn't find the one where we get 200 pounds for passing go.

...  We finally got our passports back after waiting over a week, so we hired a car and set off to wander around the rest of the country for a few days.  Next stop was Southampton.