Day 3, Monday 4th September

~Explored London with Peter, Margaret and Family~

(This is a mix of emails and journal entries - hence the 1st and 3rd person narrative jumps!)

I woke up around 5-5.30am, all ready to start the day! But I stayed in bed for a small time before getting up and making my way to the shower. There was only 1 shower in my part of the building. The wonderful thing was that I never had to wait in line. People seemed to organise themselves without even trying! Only once did I have to wait about 5mins for somebody to come out. Every other time, the room was free. There was also a bath, but I refuse to use a bath, especially a shared one.

My accommodation is really nice. All Christians here...at breakfast we have allocated seats, and I've met some really nice people. This morning the seating arrangements were a bit bungled, so the “singles table” was over-crowded! Margaret, the lady in the room next to mine, and I found a table and a few minutes later, a family arrived and discovered they were allocated to the table we chose. They were really nice and from Blackburn (Melbourne, about half an hour’s drive from where I live). Peter and Margaret, and their 3 kids: 2 girls and a boy. Now I feel bad that I can’t remember their names (boy was John?) They were so nice. They offered for me to join them exploring London. We arrived on the same day, and discovered we were leaving on the same day. So we went into town together on the tube which was nice. I was their "4th child" for the day! They were really nice.

Because it was our first day, we decided to go on the Hop On Hop Off Bus. When we bought out tickets, the man said something like, “isn’t it sad about Steve Irwin…” and we were like, “huh?” We had no idea that Steve Irwin had died and he was on the front page of the London papers and also on the news – but we didn’t see the news! Or the papers til the end of the day.

I’d planned on seeing the Changing of the Guards tomorrow…I’d confirmed the dates online, but the tour guide on the bus said it was on today, not tomorrow! So we got off the bus and literally ran to see it… we were a little late and only really saw the end part. We decided it’s not worth returning to see more on another day because apparently we saw the main part anyway. Oh well.

While we were in the onlooking crowd, and English man with funny teeth said, “That’s your gate!” We didn’t realise there was a gate for every country in the commonwealth surrounding the front of the palace. Without realising, we were standing to the side of the Australia Gate! I love it when people state the “obvious” to you when you are oblivious to the facts! If he hadn’t said that I would not have known.

We had to walk through Hyde to get back to the bus, and we saw all these deck chairs…so had a quick sit for fun. Margaret suggested sitting in a chair for a photo, so we did…

Somebody then approached her asking for money… suddenly we were aware that these chairs are not fancy decorations, but actually a money-making scheme! She was lucky because she told the person we were only taking photos and we quickly left and didn’t have to pay. On the way out, we saw the relevant signs! Haha!

We had lunch at an English pub. I had “Topped Wedges with cheese and bacon” which was like mashed potato wedges covered with a slice of bacon and cheese. It wasn’t too bad. I wanted to try something different. I also had lemonade. Peter and Margaret paid for me.
The smoke in the pub was pretty bad, and the lighting very dark, but I noticed the waitress put us in a corner that seemed to be as far from the smoke as possible, so that was nice. I don’t know if it was deliberate, but it seemed so. She was also from some European country – Polish or Netherlands or something. We found most eating places had European waitresses, which to me was slightly disappointing because I didn’t hear many English accents :p But they were nice people. No complaints J

We then went back on the bus and got off at St Paul's Cathedral....veerrry expensive (like everything else here!) It cost L9 (don’t have the pound symbol! About AUS$22-25) just to go inside a church! But it seemed worth the money just to be able to say we came to London and went there…AND we climbed the 530 steps up the dome!!! The view was amazing! Who needs a personal trainer after that workout!!! Hahaha! It took a while… I deliberately took it slow because I was aware of the possibility of re-tearing my tendon, which I didn’t! [I think few days later, my tendon was thanking me!]

It was a beautiful church. It was my first experience of a huge, well known, traditional church. I didn’t like the cost of the experience, but it was worth the experience. It is such a huge church! And in the middle of the city. I have photos showing just how inner-city it is!

Next step, back on the bus to the included Thames river cruise, which was a nice end of the tour. That was my last stop with this family because I had organised to meet Victor, a friend from back home. He has been living and working in a few different countries over the years. We parted ways and I looked for directions to our meeting point. He called me to say he’ll be late, so I did some shopping – the supermarket was like a 7/11 and I couldn’t find much except for drinks, which I stored for later ;)