2. London

So after crashing to death on monday night at shockas house, i woke up ready to explore! Shock lives in Putney which is known as a bit of an 'aussie' part of london, lots of ausies and kiwis live here. He lives in a nice house on a nice street. He went off to work and I went to take a free walking tour which i really enjoyed, it was bloody hot aswell which made it great. The tour took in buckingham palace, hyde park, green park, trafalgar square, big ben and parliment house. I was most impressed by parliment house, what an amazing building. The tour guide told lots of stories about royalty and politics along the way which fascinated me.

I spent all day in westminster just taking it in on southbank like looking at the street performers and the london eye. This week I have also checked out natural history museum, architeture museam, science museum, imperial war museum and the churchill warrooms. Out of all of it i loved the imperial war museum, i learnt so much about the war and the holocost expo was extremely confronting and moving, seeing actual shoes of the people killed all stacked up like they were in the 1940's was disturbing and so real. I knew the holocost was horrible but the more you learn about it the more disturbing it becomes. Overall, amazing museum and free entry too! woo hoo.

Apart from the touristy things ive also been to a few great pubs and been for some nice walks. I went to a gig in Huxton square to see an aussie band tim & jean, they were rubbish, but the night was fun. All week i have been trying to shake the jetlag and i think i am almost there. Unfortunatley i have just picked up a nasty cold which is really dissapointing, hoping i can shake it in the next few days.

London in general is quite brilliant, very impressed with the tube system, handling it like a pro now. I noticed that this is how MYKI is meant to work!! Melbourne has clearly tried to steal a number of initiaves such as the oyster card (MYKI = fail), public transport bike hiring facilities (fail) and the london eye (melbourne eye = fail). But i will give it to australia for getting rid of one cent coins and having traffic lights that go green, yellow, red not Red, yellow, green, what is the point of that!!

Anyway i have purchased a ticket on the dutch flyer which is an overnight ferry to amsterdam where im meeting a friend from work Simone for my birthday. Looking forward to the trip and destination so ill post you how i go.

Keep in touch, hope everything there is well and darcy n mum are on the mend. Sounds like cats are doing ace and Greg Davie has kicked the police commissioners ass. what else is new??

Say hi to Benny for me.

x