Finally made it to the UK.
Australia was great, especially catching up with everyone although there were lots of errands to run and loose ends to tie up so I was very busy every day.
Caught up with nearly everyone I wanted to. Had a pre-birthday dinner with the family and another pre-birthday gathering with friends the day before I flew out which was really good.
As for getting to London itself, it was pretty uneventful. I slept probably a third of the trip, dozed another third of the trip and gawked around the plan for the final third. Abu Dhabi was brief but interesting. The surrounding desert reminding me of many video games I had played but more realistic. There was no alcoholic beverages on the flight either. I assume that was due to the UAE laws or something.
Abu Dhabi to London was about as exciting as this blog entry has been so far (ie - only of interest to a few) and I passed the time playing the shit out of the video game 'Tetris'. Interesting fact; I never knew why it was called Tetris all these years. I thought it was Russian for something like 'game' or 'block game' but it turns out that a 'Tetris' is when you remove four lines of blocks in one swoop. There ya go, trivia heads.
Probably the most difficult part of the trip was getting from Paddington station to Great Portland Street station. It was quite sprawling and I was sent in the wrong direction several times, but I eventually made it to Great Portland St station and from there it was just a short walk to my friend Tim's house in Camden Town.
It's very picturesque here and certainly different from Australia. It's certainly a lot 'greyer', but not in a bad way, it's just more subdued. Personally I think it's really quaint.
So now I'm just twiddling my thumbs at 6:05am which isn't too bad. I went to bed around 10pm local time after spending the afternoon with Tim's girlfriend Claire and going for a walk around Regents park until Tim got home from work. It's good to see familiar faces again although I am missing the Australian crew already.
Tomorrow, er today, I'm off to watch the T20 world cup. NZ vs SA. Australia have been dumped out of the tournament which is brilliant. Ricky Ponting will no doubt be throwing a tantrum which makes today the happiest day of my life.
Right y'all. I'm off to sleep (again).
