Hello everyone, Well I've made it up to Scotland after a great time in London. Most of my news is about London-hence the picture of Westminster and the London Eye! On Tuesday I went to Greenwich and had a fantastic time looking around the Royal Observatory. It is the place where the longitude and time for the world is set so it was quite neat to have my photo taken with one foot on either side of the meridan line which divides the world into East and West! It also made me aware of how far away NZ is from here with Greenwich being 0 degrees and Wellington 174 degrees east!! I then took a boat trip back along the Thames to central London which was wonderful. It was a warm sunny afternoon (after a cloudy start to the day) and I got spectacular views of the Tower of London, London Bridge and all of the various famous landmarks like St Pauls Cathedral, Shakesphere's Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern Museum, the monment commerating the great fires of London and the Houses of Parliament. Then in the evening I met up with Duncan and Toots and we went up on the London Eye. It had cleared during the day to reveal a beautiful evening, perfect for viewing London from above. We were so luck to have a "pod" to ourselves-normally you would squeeze 20-30 people into each one. We went right on dusk and the lights were just starting to come on around the city. It looked really spectacular. Duncan took some photos on his digital camera so when he emails them to me I'll put them up on this site. Yesterday was yet another beautiful warm sunny day-my main task was to secure a seat-well standing position for the Proms. First though I met up with my cousin, Rachel for lunch. It was so great to see her again. We walked around Southbank and had lunch outside the Tate Modern. I then made my way to the Royal Albert Hall and joined the "Prommers" line. From about 3pm I staked my claim and read a book until the tickets went on sale at 5pm. We were let in at 6:30pm and the concert started at 7pm. I was pleased I got there early as I was about the get an excellent standing place in the arena, 3 rows from the front of the orchestra! The hall inside is so ornate-just incredible with all the tiers of seating, the individual boxes where people can have their box self catered with champagne! and the upper stalls not to mention the arena area where people stand-like me! It is known as the promming area and the atmosphere is just great. Last night the concert was presented by the Czech Philimonia (sorry I don't think that's the correct spelling-you'll have to forgive me Carina and Craig!) and they played a programme by Dvorak including the 9th ("New World") Symphony. They were also joined by a wonderful Japanese violinist. It was a fantastic concert with a wonderful atmosphere-I'm so pleased I was able to go. I can now say when they show the last night of the Proms from the Royal Albert Hall on TV "I've been there-stood there!!" I hope Carina and Craig you get there one day-it really is a wonderful experience. Today was much less exciting-spend most of the day getting to Heathrow airport (there are downsides to London and the traffic and problems with the underground are two of them!) I left plenty of time to get from Duncan and Toot's place to Heathrow and I needed it all. There was a problem on the Picadilly Line which meant the trains got held up for a while then when I reached Heathrow my plane was delayed almost an hour becasue of heavy air traffic at Heathrow. Still I'm sure it could of been worse. .. Andrina met me at the airport which was great and we took the bus back to town and to Andrina and Dean's flat in Newhaven where I met Dean. It was great to see them both again and I'm looking forward to spending time over the weekend with them as we explore the sights of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Okay that's it from me for now. Love, Sonia :-)