Now it's off to London we go, travelling First Class on the Eurostar. I couldn't manage to stay awake for the whole journey. But I was awake for the important bits - being served lunch and going into and out of the tunnel or Chunnel as they call it. Our motel in London is directly across the road from Hyde Park and only two minutes walk in one direction to a Tube station and two minutes walk in the other direction to a pub. The pub was called The Swan but Lindee and I referred to it as our local. Using the Underground was very easy and made even easier by the fact that we already had Oyster cards (like Myki cards in Melbourne but better) which friends who had recently visited London had given us.
Our first outing was to the Portobello Road Market. Fortunately for my bank account I have my 'don't buy anything too big, too heavy or too fragile' shopping rule. Which doesn't mean I didn't make any purchases, it just means I exercised a level of restraint. Then back to our motel to get ready for an evening at the theatre. We saw Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre in the West End. We had great seats in the front row of the Dress Circle. Fantastic performances from all the cast members! We could pre-order our drinks for interval before the show started. We ordered the half bottle of champagne and were thrilled to discover at the break that it was French champagne. A really lovely night out.
