London

Day 0 - Travel

A thimble of fluid

The illustrious journey began at 8:30pm at the Brisbane airport. After saying goodbye to our family and friends, we checked in and waited for our 10:30pm flight. We initially had to endure a 9 hour flight to Taipei, which apparently went well for one sleepy individual.
 

Subsequently we had a 4 hour stopover at Taipei and enjoyed an asian meal at the airport. From there we flew 3.5 hours to humid Bangkok and had a 2 hour stopover there. Jeremy and Martin drank some putrid smelling tapwater from the Bangkok taps. The last leg of the journey involved a painful 14 hour flight from Bangkok to London, we watched the black seas and the deserts of middle east and asia pass by underneath. After 32.5 hours in transit we arrived at Heathrow Airport exhausted to say the least.
Our first port of call was Victoria Station. To get there we took the tube from Heathrow, and dragged our tortured fatigued bodies onto carriage and endured a very vibrating train whilst carrying all our heavy luggage. Conversely Londoners had to endure our smell. We arrived in London Victoria Station and checked into the hotel (Stanley House). To celebrate our epic transit we grabbed a beer at the Shakespeare hotel, ironically a pint of fosters, retiring back to Stanley house for our first proper sleep in 48 hours.

 Day 1 - London (Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, The Wicked)

Mind the Gap

A short 8 hours later after falling asleep in our beds we awoke and headed downstairs for a hearty english breakfast and coffee served by who we found out to be Romanians before buying a ticket to the state rooms at Buckingham Palace. We got there at 8:30 but the tickets we bought were for 11:15 so using our ingenuity we quickly walked to Westminster Abbey and had a look there. There was a free audio tour which went through each area. We saw the resting place of many royals, poets, scientists etc including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. We briskly walked back to Buckingham Palace and toured through the state rooms before walking the gardens and having lunch and some local beers again at Shakespeare hotel.
After having some real English food for lunch (Bangers and Mash) we walked to Parliment house and took a tour of the royal rooms and the house of Lords. We also toured the house of commons and learnt how votes were made. Finally we entered the Grand Hall, the only surviving original part of the Houses of Parliament. This hall is where President Obama addressed the English people and where historical figures such as Sir Thomas Moore and Guy Fawkes were trialled.
Finally that night we attended the threatre and saw "Wicked" the antithesis of the Wizard of Oz at the Apollo Theatre.

Westminster Abbey (only photo "inside" I could take)

Buckingham Palace (out the back to the gardens)

Standing with the local Police outside The Houses of Parliament (and Big Ben)

 Day 2 - The Cotswolds Tour (Warwick Castle, Stratford Upon Avon, Oxford, the Cotswolds) 

Quoting Shakespeare

Again we had a quick breakfast and hurried to the bus station for our tour. We drove through inner city London on the bus sitting next to Colonel Sanders, a white haired American, before arriving at Warwick castle where we daringly climbed the walls and happened to stumble upon a firing trebuchet.

We then drove to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace/early home/deathplace of William Shakespeare and visited his home. We then had coffee, cake and scones at a nearby cafe. There were also some drama students who would perform any Shakespeare at our request. Jeremy requested Mercurito Queen Mab's speech to which the man replied "I hate that speech" and refused to perform it. A great troupe indeed. However the woman agreed to perform Mercurito's death speech which was poor in our books as she read from a book. We continued driving through the beautiful Cotswolds and saw a number of towns with thatched roofed houses and passed by the birthplace and grave of the war mungerer Winsten Churchhill. This was on the way to Oxford, the 2nd oldest university in the world. Oxford was stunning and the highlight of the tour, its history apitimises the pursuit of academic excellence.
We toured the Christchurch college, one of 39 at Oxford, where we saw the steps and great hall used in the film Harry Potter.

Christchurch College at Oxford

We passed by the reading rooms and buildings of the Boolean library. We saw many of the pubs with all kinds of remarkable historical figures drank, including the one where Bob Hawke set the 11 second record of drinking a yard of beer. ONce we arrived back in town we had fish and chips for dinner as recommended by the tour guide Phil, which wasn't any better than what we get in Australia.

Day 3 - London (Tower of London, St Pauls Cathedral, Trafalga Square)Beefeater
We slept in this morning later than usual before being served breakfast by our now familiar Romanian waitresses, one of whom was muscily like Arnold Swartznegger and was in all likelihood some kind of athlete.
We then made our way to the Victoria Coach Station to drop our bags off for the day as we would be leaving from there that night to Amsterdam. Jeremy was umming and erring whether to spend the three and a half euros to stow a bag all day. "If it was 50cent more I would carry it with me" he said. We then made our way to the Tower of London and got a guided tour by a loud Welshman and afterwards saw the Crown Jewels. We then walked to St Pauls Cathedral but after looking inside decided that it wasn't worth our time and the 18 odd Euro to have a look around. After seeing Westminster Abbey, we decided we had already seen the pinacle of grand buildings in London. Our next adventure took us to Trafalga square where we explored the free Art Gallery which was enormous. We didn't have much time here so we left and headed back to Victoria Coach Station and jumped on board the bus to Amsterdam. Thus endeth London.

Tower of London

St Paul's Cathedral