It's just over 24 hours since we arrived in London from Chatham, and we're still here! We set off with GPS programmed for the London City Airport (where we had to drop off the rental car), and managed to get there without any real deviations or hitting traffic. With the car dropped off, we had our first real culture shock when we spotted a couple of cops with machine guns at the ready, outside the terminal. Definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto (I'll come back to this reference in a minute).

We got a taxi from the airport to our hotel. I had originally planned to use public transport, but Jaime persuaded me that it was better to bundle all our bags into a taxi, and save the stress for later. It wasn't a traditional black London taxicab, but it did the trick, and 30 mins later we were at the Melbourne House Hotel on Belgrave Road.

It's a nice little hotel - somewhere between a backpackers and a B&B. The room isn't huge, but it does have an ensuite with shower and toilet, and the room's on the ground floor, so we didn't have to lug our bags up the stairs! We had a couple of hours to kill before check in, so we ventured out to check out the neighborhood, and stumbled on Westminster Cathedral. It wasn't quite as expansive as the York Minster, but it was impressive in its own way. I thought it was much older than it actually was (it was opened in 1895), and fascinatingly it's still not finished. It was amazing to see such ornate chapels only halfway decorated, with the bare brick celings next to the golden mosaics, and donation boxes to enable the church to be finished.

While Jaime rested, I tested out my Oyster card and the London public transport system. Without getting lost, diverted, mugged or knifed, I managed to figure out the bus timetable and found my way to Leicester Square. There was a discount booth for theatre tickets, where I managed to buy full price tickets for a show at no extra charge! ;). So we went to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre in Victoria. It's sort of a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, asking the question "how did the Wicked Witch of the West become wicked?". It's been running since 2006, which means it's got a way to go to catch up with classics such as Les Mis or Phantom, but it was brilliant! Great singing and songs, an excellent story and characterization, and the staging was awesome. Totally worth it!

We went to the Natural History Museum today, taking the Underground from Victoria Station to South Kensington. It was just short hop, but it was quite exciting. The Oyster card makes it dead simple. Walk in to the station, swipe your card to get through the turnstile, jump on a train, and then get off and swipe your card at the other end, and it calculates the fare automatically. Brilliant!

The Natural History Museum is stunning! No disrespect to NZ, but we simply have no museums which come even close to the Natural History Museum. We explored the dinosaur galleries, which Josh would have absolutely loved, and the mammal galleries, and the mineral gallery, including The Vault, which housed some very rare and precious items including part of a meteorite from Mars, and a collection of naturally coloured diamonds, some of which glow in the dark.

We also checked out the Cocoon, which is part of the Darwin Cntre. This is a massive, modern interactive exhibition about the process of collecting and analyzing the items which are included in the museum's collection. Especially cool is the NaturePlus card. It's a small barcoded card which you can use to "record" parts of the exhibition that you like, and then use the card's barcode to look up those items you've saved online later. Together with the interactive touch projections, it was really cool!

So our first 24 hours in London has been pretty busy. Loads of people, but that's to be expected in a city this size. The public transport system impressed, and where we're staying is relatively quiet (apart from the squealing cats I just heard). We've only got two more days here, and we're hoping to take in Parliament, the War Cabinet, Battersea Park, and the Science Museum along with the choir concert on Saturday. Right - that's enough. Exhausted now. Need sleep...