London Adventures

Ok, been a relative while since entries, so lets go:

Christmas Eve:
Esther and I realised that we didn't have presents for anyone we were staying with, so we wandered into central London to buy presents. In the end, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as you'd expect.
We went to church for an 11:30pm service at the local church. It was a high Church Of England church, so all the incense and things was a bit foreign. Oh, that and the prayers to Mary. There were plenty of songs and millions of creeds and things and we ended up standing for most of the service. It was pretty interesting.
As it was Christmas Day by the time we'd finished at church, I called home and spoke to Mum, Dad and Dale which was pretty good as I hadn't spoken to them for a few weeks.

Christmas Day:
Sat around aaaaaaaaalll day. Lyn and Robyn cooked a Turkey, ham and all sorts of other goodies. We stuffed our faces with so much food it was nuts. The rest of the day consisted of lying around and watching Top Gear.

Boxing Day:
Esther and I went out to look at London's sights. As museums were shut, we did all the outdoor things. Unfortunately, everyone else who was a tourist had the same idea.
We started out at Buckingham Palace. We tried to get there in time to see the changing of the guard and early enough to get a good spot. Unfortunately, the trains kinda stuffed us up and we got there VERY late. By the time we got there most of the cool stuff had happened, and any chance of seeing it was gone, s we took a few photos and left.
We hopped off the train at Big Ben. It was very weird because Big Ben was NOWHERE as tall as I imagined. Its really quite short. The face of the clock is very wide, but the actual height of the tower isn't really that high. The Houses of Parliament looked quite nice. The building itself is very ornate with lots of cool stonework and things.
Westminster Abbey, what a disappointment. Its a really boring looking building. As you need to pay and the line to get in was HUGE we didn't go in, but the outside was really boring. Oh well.
Next we walked up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. On the way there we passed Downing Street where Mr Brown lives and also past where the Cavalry are based. We got to see the changing of the horses and men with swords who's job it was to yell at people if they got too close to certain buildings. Pretty funny when it happened to someone.
Trafalgar Square was alright, it has statues and fountains and things.
Next we went to London Bridge, then walked along the Thames to Tower Bridge. We were kinda bored by the point so we took photos of us jumping around being ninjas in front of the bridge. That night I watched Arsenal have a pitiful draw with Portsmouth. yuck.

London Landmark photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23885&l=7fb37&id=544876388


Jumping and fun photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23886&l=124dd&id=544876388

27th:
This day Esther and I went out with Robyn and Cam to the British Museum. They have pretty much everything from Greece and Egypt there. The story is that everything was 'donated' to the museum. Pity it was stolen by the people who donated it in the first place. They seriously have a huge amount of stuff. That said, I was more interested in the building itself, rather than the exhibits. The next place we went was Covent Garden, which wasn't actually a garden, but a place where they have lots of markets and things. Tasty banana and cream crepes were eaten there.

28th:
This day Esther was sick, but Robyn, Cam, Alexander and I went out to the British Library. THIS place was great. The have the earliest version of Paul's letters in existence, some of the oldest bibles to exist, the Magna Carta (two out of the four originals, plus an updated version), early books by writers such as Jane Austen and Emily Bronte, original Beatles lyric sheets, Scott's diary open to the last entry and many other really awesome things. I had to go find the USA Embassy (long story, but I might be classed as a illegal immigrant there), which I couldn't fix up what needed to be fixed up when I got there, so I went wandering. I got COMPLETELY LOST. It started raining. I got soaked. Because I cut the arms off my thermals to make gloves, I looked like a soaked and wet bum, so when I found my way and got on a train, people looked a me and shook their heads. Pretty funny now that I look back at it.

Yesterday:
We went out to the Imperial War Museum. We had a race with some of Robyn and Cams friends to get there. We got there first and so they were 'the tippo'. On the way there we found a sweet 'trainspotters' shop where they sold many train books and models. I'm going to go back there without everyone else so I can look at everything properly.
The war museum was HUGE and we spent most of the day there. Some cool things were the wartime posters and all the spy gear they had.
That night I got to watch Arsenal beat Everton 4 goals to 1. Pretty brilliant especially as Everton were up 1-0 at half time. One guy was so annoyed at half time that he kicked over a chair and left. Everyone had a good laugh at how he left after Arsenal had kicked their third goal.

Today:
We had another race to the statue of Winston Churchill, but the others won by a long way (we hadn't left the house) so we were The Tippo today. We walked past the Cavalry again and went to Trafalgar Square again, but this time Esther and I split from the main pack when we entered the National Gallery. We had a look at an exhibit about Stained Glass, went and looked at some famous paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir ad other various people. You're jealous, I know it.
We wandered down to the Palace again to take better photos now that less people were there, but instead took jumping photos again.
Tonight was just sitting around eating pie. Yummo.

Photos will be soon!