Night Location: London, UK

Song of the Day: I Still Call Australia Home - The Boy from Oz

Mummisode of the Day: We were running really late to see The Comedy of Errors, and as luck would have it we got caught in one of the most torrential downpours of our lives. We blundered in to the theatre dripping wet. Mum had her feathers on that when soaked smell like wet dog. The poor lady she sat down next to had to turn away to cope with the smell. How embarrassing!

For the past week, we have been in London. It is difficult to describe the emotions that we are feeling having come to the conclusion of our European adventure. We feel that London has been a good transition point on the long journey home.

We flew into London on Boxing Day, which in retrospect was possibly ill-advised, given that the Boxing Day sales in the city are manic. To add to the chaos, the public transport system decided to go on strike, meaning that we had to catch a Black Cab/people-mover from the airport to our apartment. Amber is in love with Black Cabs so did not find the traffic jam annoying and spent a large part of the journey trying to convince David to buy one on their return home. Apparently they can be imported.

After negotiating with the cleaner of our apartment that we were to leave over 1000 pounds in a drawer on our departure, we set off to explore Bayswater and find a traditional curry house. Hooray for no more cheese spatzel!

Since then we have busy continuing our cultural education. How awesome is London!

1. Wicked

2. The Complete works of William Shakespeare - Abridged

3a. The Lion King (Amber and David)

3b. The Thirty-Nine Steps (Mum, Dad and Gemma)

4. St Martin's in the Field - Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', etc

5. Evensong at Westminster Abbey - New Year's Eve

6. The Mousetrap

7. The Comedy of Errors (by far the best!)

On the 27th we decided to brave Oxford Street and the hordes of holiday shoppers out in the Boxing Day sales. We were pleasantly surprised at how quiet the streets were, having been warned by Gareth that we were going to die in a crushing incident. Feeling slightly smug at our triumph we returned home only to see on the news that there had been a stabbing that had shut down most of the street that day over a pair of runners.

David and Amber went on their second trip to the British Museum after which Amber said a teary farewell as David headed home to start paying off the trip.

Food highlights: Mexican, Mexican and more Mexican plus a fair bit of Jamie's Italian.

Our last day in London was spent visiting Windsor Castle and learning about its intrigues. We visited the chapel which holds many English monarchs including King Henry VIII.

We landed in Sydney, going from sub-zero temperatures to a heat wave. The trip was as long as we remembered, except the frustration was added to in Bangkok where we had to go through two unnecessary security check points at one of which Gemma's jacket was jammed into the zipper of her Country Road bag, as it was at capacity.

In reflection, highlights of the trip include:

1. The Garden of Villa Cimbrone at Ravello

2. Eating at 'da Gemma' in Amalfi

3. Swimming in the aqua waters of Capri

4. Riding the walls of Luca

5. Walking the Cinque Terre

6. Climbing the tallest tower in San Gimignano

7. The thermal baths of Budapest

8. The segway tour of Prague

9. WWI battlefields tour at Ypres

10. "Coming home" to St Malo

11. Scaling Puy Mary in the Dordogne

12. Playing in the snow in Wengen

13. Drinking kinderpunch in Nuremberg at the Christmas markets

14. Singing Christmas carols on Christmas Eve in German

15. The Comedy of Errors - London

And there concludes this Halliday Holiday adventure.