London

Last weekend we hit London. Eeish!! It hit right back and left us breathless. Its not a place than can be described easily, and best seen with ones own eyes. A "sensory overload" as Gaylene put it and if UK village life is an education, then London is a higher grade final maths exam paper... like nothing youth ever seen before.


We got in early on Saturday and were educated in the way of the tube and things such as "keep right, pass left", and "mind the gap". London is obsessed with the obscure little space between the train and the station siding. You even get "Mind the Gap" T-shirts.



We spent most of the day on a "hop-on, hop-off" bus tour which was a great way to get a first impression of the city, because in 2 hours it will whizz you past all the main touristy places, and then give you the opportunity to go back and visit them at your leisure.

I wasn't sure we would find much uses for our Buffs until the cold wind attacked, and we were one beanie down. We were all given headphones through which we were informed about the sites we were seeing.

Our trusty guides Al and Chants, without whom we would probably still be trying to navigate our way home.

Apparently Big Ben is the name of the bell inside, and the clocktower is actually called St Stephens Tower.

The houses of parliament are incredible, as must be the resilience of the few who were camping outside protesting.

We were lucky enough to pass the Changing of the Guards as it was about to start. Very impressive looking fellas. Being completely uneducated as to what all the marching back and forward actually meant, we did however find it a little drawn out.

Apparently we weren't the only ones.

Tower bridge with the HMS Belfast on the right. This is an old warship which remains on the Thames as a tourist attraction.

Being tourist is hard work so by this time of the afternoon I (Gaylene) found my batteries where running low but of course Wal was running on Duracel as you can see! This was where we boarded a cruise boat down the Thames.

No, unfortunately this is not an Afrikaans coffee shop in the middle of London, but this is just to show you how much PRET we were having!

Considered checking into this little joint for the night, but weren't quite sure how suitable it would be so decided to press on. Our first day in London was concluded with our first Starbucks coffee, apparently something of UK institution.

Its all self service here, and at R700 a tank you think there would be some help.

We returned to London on Sunday to visit Alan's (G's boet) church called Kensington Temple. A cooking church which we enjoyed thoroughly! http://www.kt.org/ . Spoke about how we can learn from Isaac and make the most of land in which the Lord has placed us. Hmm..

The church building is located just around the corner form the famous Portobello Road, so headed of there afterwards. Its an interesting, seriously cosmo little market street offering anything and everything!

The Portobello road market is where Notting Hill was filmed in. Anyone remember the 'blue door'? Well we went searching for it. Turns out there are about a hundred billion blue doors in London. Nonetheless we think we found it, we just need to go back and watch the movie again to be sure.

Harrods was quite an education! Only for the rich and famous I would say! G had a ball in the clothes and shoe floors. She was very patient with her clueless husband, who thought the "KG" sign above one corner of the shoe floor meant they were sold by the kilogram. I'm now wiser and know that KG is a designer. You can buy Jimmy Choo shoes for a cool R13,000. Converting into rands takes your breathe away. Think we now know our R13.5 times tables off by heart. Anyone for a grand piano for a cool R850k?

The Carter's introduced us to Krispy Kreme doughnuts. After analysing the prices we realised it would work out cheaper to a buy a dozen than just 2 each. We had to repent afterwards!

Queenie was next on our list to visit. Buckingham Palace was quite impressive to say the least. We were determined that the freezing cold weather was not going to put a dampen on it cos after all we are tourists, hardcore tourists and have payed big money to be here, so 9deg C was not going to stop us....no, not us!

Monday was a bank Holiday (public holiday) and our tour guides were not complaining! Off we went, still braving the cold which now felt like 7deg C, don't think i have felt the cold like that ever before! Place of destination.....Cambridge!

This is a little shop selling the most amazing chocolate that one could only dream of!

Museums are great things to visit when the weather is miz.... we visited the Fitzwilliam Museum, rated as one of the best small museums in the world.

And eventually took shelter from the cold and rain whenever and wherever we could. Chambridge is such a beautiful town. It has a very similar feel to Grahamstown - very much a student town. As you can see the main form of transport is bicycles. There were hundreds of them located everywhere, but mostly around the university campus. We will be back when the weather is better and we can do more exploring.