Dear all, I have sad news. After they were made to walk for 8 hours around London today, my legs, feet and lower back have all consulted their unions and ordered an immediate stop work meeting. Oh god, they are so stiff I can barely move. Judging by the whimpering coming from Aaron's direction, he's in a similar state.
So today, our first full day in London was a truly busy one. I laughed at one point that I could go home now as I'd seen everything in London already.
An interjection - apologies for this being the first blog of the trip. I had a few drafts started but due to shaky internet access I couldn't complete them. I'll do a summary of the transit (including Singapore) later. Lonag story short - Business Class is really nice. (Surprise.)
So this morning Aaron and I woke up around five, and dawdled around until about 8am where we went to the breakfast included in our hotel room. It was delicious and huge, although I very subconsciously looked for vegemite!
Around 9:30 we met my parents in law outside of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. For those that don't know my father in law was born in England so they decided to meet us over here for a few days so we can see some of his childhood. Today was really about sightseeing though, so we headed for Buckingham Palace.
I was perhaps a little underwhelmed by Buckingham Palace, it didn't feel as spectacular as I expected, but the statue out the front - the Queen Victoria Memorial - with the gold top - I stared at for ages. We then walked through St James Park so I could see squirrels -yes seriously, my love for squirrels is legendary, and then off to Westminster to see 10 Downing Street (well what you can see through the security), Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey (didn't go in), the Boudicca statue - which was my favourite sight of the morning - and walked along the Thames. The weather suddenly turned at this point so we ran through the rain to a pub for lunch.
After lunch - at a very English pub called the Sherlock Holmes - Aaron and I were treated to our first Tube ride. Not at all sure I understand the fuss. The trains were very fast sure, but the stations had so many stairs and paths that I felt like it was quicker (and less stressful on my knees!) just to walk between stops!
Hmmm, I was so tired I couldn't finish this! So here I am trying to remember what else we did while fighting with the internet here which is nicely free but has very low signal and is consequently slower than well...me walking.
So where we went on the Tube was to Convent Garden, to the London Transport Museum, my father in law's choice. In all honesty I'm a big fan of car history but I can glaze over a bit about the history of public transport, so I'm the wrong person to ask about whether it was good or not, in terms of being a museum. It wasn't bad though as a way to spend time, and it was interesting to note the vehicles that reasonated with my father in law and his early childhood in London.
After the Transport Museum, we headed towards Oxford Street, but decided to walk around Regent and Carnaby Street instead. All it really made me think was about how poor, fat and uncool I was. I'm in no way hipster or aristocratic enough to survive in London!
After a quick dinner of Pizza Hut, we came back here and basically passed out from a mixture of tiredness and the sheer pain. 24 hours later I'm still in pain.
One great thing of note - zero jetlag - for either of us. At the end of yesterday I was excited to have seen things I always wanted to see, but the sleepiness and pain I felt was really clouding me and I was tired and sore which made me grumpy and I admit to not enjoying it as hugely as I hoped. How do I feel at the end of Day 2? We'll see in the next blog!
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