Palaces, Parliament, Paintings and Pizza

Day Eight – London
Our last full day in London and plenty left to do as I said yesterday. We queue jumped breakfast becasue there was four of us. I tried not to look back at the line and I imagine there were plenty of unhappy faces, not including ours obviously ;-)

Another Underground adventure saw us pop out at Westminster. The London Eye didn't open til 10am so we wandered down to look at the Houses of Parliament, Wesminster Abbey and a few other things besides. We got some absolutely magic photos of the above and met a really nice American guy who offered to take on of the four of us. We also saw the statues of Oliver Cromwell (Boo! Hiss!) and Richard the Lionheart outside the Houses of Parliament.

From there we wandered over the bridge to the London Eye to buy tickets. This is going to be a bit of a rant so skip to the next paragrapgh if you don't want to read the sweary stuff. I checked their website and it said GBP30.00 for a family of four. Fair enough, I thought. We don't have a printer so I couldn't buy online and print tickets myself, nor did it say *anywhere* that the prices online were different. I figured we'd just get them down there with a bit of a line-up. It turns out there is NO FUCKING FAMILY TICKET AT THE GATE. They charged us nearly GBP60, i.e.) almost FUCKING DOUBLE, for the same thing because we didn't buy online. This was a bit on the rude side to begin with. Having said that, when I politely asked what the story was the surly woman behind the counter gave me the brush off and quite rudely told me more or less "take it or leave it". I paid up less than happily as you can imagine. Expensive is one thing, expensive and "pay up and get-the-fuck-out" is another altogether.

Back outside I had a couple of goos frabas and tried to put it behind me knowing there was no point worrying too much about it. I figured at least I could enjoy the ride. To be honest, the actual ride itself is a *massive* anti-climax. OK, you're a fair way up in the air and can see a long way but otherwise it's not that special at all. The mappy gadget they give you helps pick stuff out but by now we knew what most stuff was anyway. Other than that you're looking at a big city which in many parts looks just like other big cities. Even at 30 quid that would have been far more than the experience was worth. If you're reading this and planing to go on the London Eye, BUY TICKETS ONLINE and try climbing St Paul's cathedral dome first. Some other Aussies told us that was much better anyway.

Surely from here the day could only get better. A longish walk through St James's Park got us down to Buck Palace for the changing of the guard. On the way we say a bunch more squirrels, some OCD geese fascinated with the lock on a gate and some nice views. There was already a substantial crowd waiting to see the show when we got there (even 40 minutes before KO) and no chance of getting close to the palace fence. We found a pretty decent spot alonside the road knowing the guys would have to march past to get inside anyways. I've always been kind of "yeah, whatever" about the changing of the guard but I admit it was great fun. They do make a real show of it, the bands are excellent obviously and the whole thing just looks proper old-skool crazy military. We got some great pics and even though we couldn't see the changing ceremony itself felt we got a good show.

Walking towards Hyde Park Corner alongside Green Park we had a real stroke of luck. By complete arse the Horse Guards went trotting past in full kit and we saw the whole thing. These guys look the absolute business. I pity them for how much work they must go through keeping their kit so shiny. I snapped a few mad pics as they want by and by the end of it my mood was 100% improved from an hour beforehand. Sometimes its better to be lucky than good!

At the end of Consitution Hill is the Wellington Arch and a group of war memorials and monuments. The arch has a statue of Peace on top but orginally had a statue of the great man himself. He lived right across the road in what is now called Apsley House and had his statue removed because he didn't like look at himself every day. The entrance to Hyde Park Corner tube station is a bit of a surprise, being lined with some really tiday carvings depicting the Battle of Waterloo. Inside the station entrance there are murals and more info about the battle.

Two quick stops got us back to Bond Street and we stopped for lunch. Afterwards we walked back down Oxford Street, stopping to buy books, take a few more photos. Back at the room we organised a few things and started getting ready to go out for dinner.

We caught the Tube down to Picadilly Circus and then walked the rest of the way down to Trafalgar Square. We were meeting an old friend called Dennis for dinner. I was at high school with Dennis and Jenni and I met at a party at his house. We rarely see one another as Dennis lives in London so this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Dinner wasn't until 6:30pm so we had a couple of hours to kill. We'd left early to avoid a strike on the Tube. We took some pics of Trafalgar Square including Nelson's Column, the fountains and the new(ish) massive model of a ship in a bottle. I've seen pics of them assembling the model and it looks even better in real life.

We also had time to duck into the National Gallery for about 90 minutes and we are very grateful we did. Amongst all the other amazing stuff we saw we got to see the Arnolfini Wedding, van Gogh's Sunflowers, plenty of Monet including The Water-lily Pond, The Battle of San Romano, Boticelli's Venus and Mars, Renoir's Umbrellas and Nymph, lots of Degas' ballet dancers and much more. There was also piles of very tidy impressionist and cubist stuff by Cezanne, Seurat and others.

From there we headed off to meet Dennis for dinner. We spent about an hour and a half in a great pizza and pasta place just catching up on who is doing what and to whom. A very pleasant evening and the food was excellent to boot.

The trip back on the Tube was a doddle as everyone had got out early due to the strike. If anything it was easier than usual. Back in the hotel we all crashed, today being one of the busiest we've had.

Cheers,
Millsy