PAUL

Our tour around the south of England began on the Tuesday before Easter, with the nation's capital, London. After a slightly frantic morning of hair cuts put off until the last minute (Paul) and cooking up the remaining contents of our fridge to then freeze so as not to let it go to waste (mostly Lisa's doing), we managed to get ourselves into the Leeds city centre to catch our bus to London. Funnily enough, it cost us more to get from home to the city (£1.50 each) than it did for the bus from Leeds to London (£1 each, how good is that?!)

We arrived at the London Victoria Coach Station and, with packs on backs, made our way to the Victoria Train/Underground Station. After some walking around and a quick burger from a nice little English restaurant called McDonalds, we eventually worked out that the large airport style departure boards were for the over ground intercity trains and that we needed to go downstairs to the London Underground a.k.a. the Tube. Once we figured it out we were one our way to Earl's Court Station on the westbound district line (that's the green line for those of you playing at home).

Our accommodation of choice was a small youth hostel above a bottle-o with single yellow door as the only street front on Earl's Court Road, west of the city. It was a very small place but served its purpose and the continental breakfasts with croissants, ham and cheese made a good start to each day.

We started the next day with a walk through the rather posh "Royal Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea" on our way to Victoria to buy our tickets for the sight seeing bus. Once aboard the open top double-decker bus, we listened to the pre-recorded commentary as we passed the many London sights including Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Madame Tussaude's Wax Museum, Baker Street, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge and London Tower where we eventually got off. Unfortunately, due to the traffic, we were stuck on Regent Street for a long time and eventually had to cut out part of the usual bus route through Westminster.

At the Tower of London we were guided around the grounds by a very entertaining Yeoman Guard (Beefeater) and heard tales of murders and executions that took place in and near the Tower. Interesting fact: to apply for such a position you must have served at least 20 years in the armed forces and all Yeoman guards and their families live within the grounds of the Tower (which is in fact made up of a number of buildings, towers and large walls). Highlights here were the selection of the royal armouries collection housed in the White Tower including suites of armour worn by English Kings, and the crown jewels which include the "First Star of Africa" - the largest diamond in the world - and a solid gold punch bowl that Li reckons she could swim in.

A brief trip back on the sight seeing bus took us across the Thames to the south side of the river where we went in search of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. This is a faithful reconstruction of the Globe Theatre as it would have been, to the best of the Trust's knowledge, in the 17th century when Shakespeare was writing and producing some of his most famous plays including MacBeth and Hamlet. We took a tour of the theatre and even had the pleasure of watching a group of school children rehearsing and then performing a combination of scenes from Shakespeare's plays. Have a look at the photos; it truly was like stepping back in time.

We ended our first day in London with a stroll at dusk along the south bank of the Thames to the London Eye to take a 30 minute "flight" above London. The wheel moves very slowly (though still fast enough to make low light photos very difficult to take) and passengers have to hop on as it goes past. The pods can hold up to 25 people and have enough room to walk around so you can enjoy the 360 degree views of the city.

A quick ride on the Tube (with our newly purchased, multi-trip oyster cards, which eventually saved us over £10 each on transport and which we were discouraged from buying by 2 transport info people - there is definitely a scam to rip tourists off) saw us back to our hostel to indulge in some quick food and trashy T.V. before crashing in preparation for the next day…