Hi All,
Accomodation. Ever watched the bill on the ABC? We booked some cheapish accommodation online and got a warning from Lauren, a friend of the family, saying that it was probably the worst crime area in London so we got online again, read some crime statistic, cancelled our booking, lost our 60 pound deposit which is probably better than losing our lives, and chose some reasonably priced accommodation in Paddington. This has turned out to be excellent as it in a budget hotel overlooking a beautiful park, has a bathroom and a communal kitchen. It also is only about 200m from Hyde park so we walk through on our way to town each day which is wonderful with the different birds, dogs and owners ,the occasional squad of the Queens soldiers and squirrels.
I have a wow entry. Wow the city area is huge! We are still too tight to take the metro anywhere in London (editor: Couldn’t this be interpreted as fitness conscious or environmentally friendly ?) so we are walking 15 km a day minimum on average. Not so bad because we are eating about 20km worth of calories each.
Vanessa just looked at our budget and whilst we are under budget we are barely under budget for our 3 months in the European union. A bit of a shock with the outgoing expenditure going from paper to reality but it has been a great section of our journey and we aren’t complaining and wouldn’t change anything other than the exchange rate
Sunday
British Museum. One of the worlds classic museums. The British were great at nicking bits and pieces from other countries for their collections. There are so many displays that it is not possible to view the museum in one day. I loved the carved Syrian picture board display about the lion kills. We will have to go back again and have a better look at the early British section.
National Art Gallery. Oh no. As we rounded the corner of Trafalgar Square we heard what sound like a large rally or demonstration .It turned out to be a Remembrance March and Freedom Rally commemorating 25 years of the Sikh Holocaust. There were thousands in attendances pleading for recognition and
We
We walked past big ben across the Thames then wandered along to the Polish Wildlife photograph exhibition which was just short of the Tate Modern. An excellent display and the buskers weren´t too bad either with the best being a very active flowerpot person.
We continued down to the Tower Bridge and started to cross onto to find it opening at the centre. A little wait for a sailing craft to pass under the bridge and then walked across and headed back along oxford street to the hotel.
I finally have backed up the photographs for the last 11 months. It was a bit of a pain and cost 10 pounds. The multimedia player has a damaged USB port so I had to remove the hard drive and get a computer repair place to use a hard drive caddy to copy the files onto another hard drive. So I dropped the hard drives off with the small repair place and expected to pick up the drives with the backup. When we got to the shop they asked what our drives looked like. That is our drive with our last 11 months of data. Not impressed. They dug them out of their pile and I kept on going back a checking on them in the evening until it was done. I realised later that they had slightly damage the cover of the multimedia device but there is nothing that can be done. It was a relief when I got the drives back.
Monday
Free 3hr Royal London Tour with Sandemans New London tours. This was great more because the guide was a ball of energy arts graduate who had an excellent sense of theatre and kept us entertained the whole time. We visited the standard tourist places from Hyde park, Buckingham palace and the change of the guard to Big Ben along the way. I was tired just from watching her run around when talking to the group. We even gave her a tip at the end of the tour.
Tate Modern full of contemporary CRAP. You know the type. Blank canvas with a stripe down the edge with a 4 million dollar price tag. We have been in them all over the world and still haven’t convinced ourselves that it is art and have the feeling that it was about the personality of the `artist` rather than the quality of their `work`.
Stumbled into St James cathedral after 5pm and discovered that it was free for ´worshippers´ and other tourists who had previous thought about entering the cathedral between 0900hrs -1600hrs only to discover that it was 11 pound to which they were heard to respond No bloody way mate.
Tuesday
We decided that we would not walk so far today. So off to Hyde park for our daily dose of fresh air -Queen’s mounted guards, dogs and their owners , swans , squirrels etc etc The Diana fountain is the worst fountain I have ever seen. Shame on you England. We then went off to window shopping in Harrods and view the Diana memorial. After lunch in a nearby park we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Victoria and Albert Museum. This is another enormous gallery and is surely a mecca for art students and designers. My museum fuel tank is almost empty so it was hard going. At least there were some interactive parts such as the ´guess what this item was used for?´ which we scored 1 out of 12 on two different sections. Well they were tricky items. Would you recognise a glove finger spreader or a wooden mouse trap that actually squashed the mouse caught in the act?
There was a video room running interesting 12 minute video clips from 1898. I can’t remember the show but on the ABC there was a series with talking plasticine animals in the style of Wallace and Gromit. Two old British men who sounded just like chickens in the series were going on about the current video clip not matching the timetable. So what I thought to myself. Then after a while my thoughts went out my mouth. ´´Ooooi´ will you shut up mate as were watching the video segment!´. They cleared out of the room soon after and came back later and apologised. Hmmm. Have to work on my manners. Too long on the road I think.
Absolutely loved the gallery but again it is one that should be sampled slowly rather than consumed in one hit.
We then wandered down to the Royal Albert hall and found that the stage production ´the king and I´ was opening on Friday night and there were still tickets available. We splurged and snapped up tickets for ourselves. Only one drama now. Which of our clothes to wear. What smells the least? Maybe we had better wash our socks. We had better be prepared as we probably will have royalty sitting next to us and we don’t want Queen Elizabeth whispering to Philip ´What is that dreadful smell? Did you step in something on the way out of the palace? Check your shoes Philips…´ and it will be us like the guilty anonymous person in the packed elevator who continues to stare at the floor level indicator when his strange smell permeates the air and has people looking accusingly at each other.
We had an old British favourite for tea tonight. fish and chips from a Pakistani fish and chips place around the corner. Ready in seconds. They pulled the fish and chips out of warmer. Thought this was going be really bad. But it was actually quite good. Even the soggy chips.
We have discovered that various newspapers are handed out freely to anyone and everyone but to date our best find as been a magazine dedicated to Australian and New Zealand backpacks and we would like to share a new cooking website that we have found one which is sure to become a hit in everyones home and maybe an address that you can share with your fellow classmates at cooking school on Monday Fred???
