London

Buckingham Palace, London
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Wednesday December 6th 2006: London

my journey starts way back on the 6th December 2006... it was a nice sunny day, a typical hot aussie summer day (why did i trade aussie weather for british weather!) but i did, and after being dropped off at the airport by my parents i was off...long plane flight, made even longer by the children sitting in the seats behind, that loved to kick and pull and do just about everything evil that kids do! it was a rather long 23 hour flight!...

First few days in London

View over with Big Ben in the Background
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a quick 90min stop over in Bankok, thailand had us jump off the plane make a toilet stop, walk past the strange little smoking rooms.... kind of amusing watching 50 people all squished into a small glass room, all smoking, and the room itself slowly filling with smoke... well it was for us non smoking folk...

back through a security check, just in case in the 10mins we'd managed to smuggle in a knife or something... who knows what you can find to buy in an airport! we were back again for the final leg of the flight... i'm not sure i like the whole having the shorter section of the flight first... you cant even think hey that's half way...food was so so... airport food... cant say to much about it. managed to clear customs in Heathrow after multiple questions about what i'm doing and how i came to have an ancestry visa, and where i'm going etc...successfully found my way to the airport tube station... helped mainly by the many sign posts, pointing the way!...

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bought my ticket to russell square and went through the ticket gate... guess who's silly... me...firstly to get to the station you have to go through a whole heap of metal barriers.... that are really close together so they're obviously put there by security to give the guys monitoring the security footage something to laugh about...cause you'd thing that most of the people wanting to gain access to the station would be carrying suitcases (it is an airport you know)..but these silly metal things make it near impossible to get through.. and they're about knee high... so if you have a heavy suitcase it's annoying as anything... anyways i got through them, and i put my ticket into the machine, and the doors open, so i head on in, dragging my suitcase behind me... and the stupid thing shuts on my hand... leaving me and my suitcase stuck with a barrier between us...i'm standing there thinking shite... what now... there's no way i can lean over the gate (it's alost as tall as me) and pick up my suitcase and lift it over...there's no one really around to help...

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mmmmmmmmmmm luckily this guy comes along and after a chuckle helps me lift my suitcase over the fence... (thanks random guy!)

so me and my case are now reunited, we continue on with our journey...there's not much of a wait for the train, and i board it... there's a few randoms on the train already, and it starts, and of course me not being aware of how suddenly the tube can start, hasn't got a hold of my suitcase and it goes flying down the middle!!! i laugh... and the others look at me like i'm insane... (bite me!) finally get to russell square station and get off... feeling pretty good about how well i was navigating... that was until i saw the stairs...and lots of them! so being the nice person i am i let the now hoards of people go ahead and i start to climb, and climb... more of a step, then heave, step then heave... asking myself why i packed so much!

Shakespears Globe theatre
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luckily there was only 100 or so stairs and a lovely lift...mmmm a lift....thankfully there's a person on hand here to let me through the wheelchair exit, so i don't get stuck again....and i find a map on the wall and then realise that i know my hotels name.... but not the street it's on... go Ali!

find all the douments and finally work out where i want to go to find the Royal National Hotel and set off..manage to find it without getting lost... kind of hard not to as it was down the street and to the right! and huge, so kind of hard not to miss it.

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since it's 8am and i can't check in till atleast 2pm, i decided to leave my suitcase etc at the hotel and head off to explore.call home and let them know i actually arrived... and decided that after sitting on a plane for all those hours what more do i want to do than get on a bus! so i jump on one of the hop on hop off bus tours and let them take me around...at least that way i didn't have to think too much.

went and had a look at Buckinham Palace, no changing of the guards today, will have to come back tomorrow to see them. pretty much just did the loop and then headed back to the hotel... went down to the basement to check in at 2pm, and grabbed my luggage and with a few directions from the concierge headed up the lifts to try find my room...

Trafalgar Square
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i say try, as try as you might it takes forever to find your room.... there's about 300 rooms per floor in each section...and the room numbers aren't in any particular room... so you'll be walking along a corridor and the numbers are getting bigger, then all of a sudden they've jumped 155 and they're going in another order... bizarre...anyways eventually found my room (room 1204) and had a long overdue shower, and change of clothes...  finally feel human again get a choice of bed as my roommate isn't here wohooooooooo... but she soon shows up...another aussie, but from queensland, and she gets to jet off tomorrow for her tour.... jealous... now that i'm here i want to head off too!

after chatting for awhile we both decide we're tired and have a nanna nap.. only to wake up at 6... have some dinner, and go back to sleep....

Thursday December 7th 2006 london

after getting and early night last night, and our nanna nap in the afternoon, elissa and i were wide awake at 4am..... so we watched some tv, talked as she packed and repacked her stuff ready to go on tour... headed back to sleep for a few more hours after she left, and got back up at 9... hopped back on the bus this moring, a good thing the tickets were for 48hours, and headed back into leister square, here i decided to go try to catch the changing of the guards... got to Buckinham palace at 1030, and hour before it was to start, and was all set to stand and wait for it all to start...

it was a beautiful sunny day, and i had a fantastic spot.then within a matter of seconds it went from the lovely clear skies, to thunder and lightning and torrential rain, to sun again, after 15mins...(i hard from back ome that it was a mini hurricane that caused flooding in some parts of london)so we all got completely drowned, only to have them tell us that due to the rain, the changing of the guards wouldn't be on today...and they tell us this 5 mins before it was to have started... rude buggers.

So just ended up hanging around on the bus again randomly looking at things. started to get cold, might need to invest in a pair of nice warm gloves, and an umbrella after todays adventure! found a supermarket, thanks to the map on the back of the hotel key (weird but came in handy) and went and got some banana's... mmmmm yumand cheap too...and awaited the arrival of my new roomate (the one that never came... so i had the whole room to myself... exciting!)

Friday 8th December london

well after not getting a room mate last night, got up bright and early, and snuck into breakie in the hotel for free.... there was a little thing saying that breakfast was not included in our room fees, in the small print of my contiki documets, however the hotel slip said otherwise...so i snuck down and they let me in for a free continential breakfast. called home to say hi, before leaving to venture out on the tube again. managed to work out how to buy myself a travel card (unlimited travel) on one of those ticket machines... and headed off...

decided to go visit the famous Harrods, as it was still wet and rainy, made my way to knightsbridge station, and found my way from there... OMG there were some lovely things to be seen in there... found a delightful pair of gloves that i contemplated buying... that was until i read the price.... (150pounds!) now $150 is a lot to spend on gloves, add into that the exchange rate, and you'd be paying$375 Aus for them... no thanks... i quickly put them down! (supposedly there was a pet shop in there too where you could buy elephants)

From there i decided to be adventurous and go and check out shakespeares globe theatre... couldn't really make out which station i was meant to get off at... ended up getting off at waterloo, and walking there, following the river, and the odd sign... took about 30mins to find it, and it was sprinkling on and off.

i loved it... i've always been a fan of the movie shakespare in love... and loved the theatre in it... just sitting there in the empty theatre was amazing, i'm going to make it one of my things to do while in london, to see a play of some sort at that theatre... but i think they only do those in summer....from there i headed back to leister square, and walked down to trafalgar square and took my token pictures...

got to see the xmas tree donated from norway... they were in the process of putting up lights and decorations. headed back to russell square and met up with my new roommate, seems she's on the same tour as me...headed down to our pre tour meeting, which lasted a grand total of 10mins, a hi bye thank you...

then everyone went their separate ways... meg and i headed to the supermarket to stock up on some cold and flu tablets( feeling confident we're going to get sick!), and grab some snacks for the long bus drive tomorrow... managed to buy a pair of gloves too, so now i'm all set..