London - Off to see the Queen!

LONDON - Off to see the Queen!

After some good rest we set off for a big couple of days in London! On Day 1 (the 25th of May) we ventured out to find our way to NEW OXFORD ST. We jumped on the tube confident as ever. The tube here is amazing actually, it is SO EASY to get around and almost impossible to get lost. While you are on the train it tells you what the next stop is and what lines the next station can interchange to. When you come down the stairs at the station there are signs which tell you what side of the platform goes where and lists all the stations. The train goes really fast as well, not like Melbourne. It either goes underground or over bridges and roads so it never has to go through a rail crossing. We also noticed that there are NO overhead wires for an electrical connection to the train. There are extra rails on the line that obviously carry the power to the train somehow, after careful observation we realised the train has to touch both of these rails to complete the circuit. An interesting way, but also very efficient way of doing things also!

The transport system also have these groovy cards called OYSTER CARDS. This is a charge card system for the tube as well as buses in London. You purchase them at train station offices and charge them up, then you just swipe them whenever you take a trip. You can actually register them as well in case you lose them or they get stolen, they will actually refund the cash you had on the old card onto the new one they issue you. Very Cool!

At New Oxford street, we made our way to the office of 1st Contact. These lovely people (after charging us a fee) organised our UK Mobile Phone SIM cards, as well as organising a bank to help us open up accounts. Apparently, it is difficult to get bank accounts without a permanent address in the UK, thank goodness we had the good sense to do a bit of research and organise this before we left home.

Our accommodation here in London is a certainly a change from Melbourne. We are living in a shared house with 11 rooms. There are some rooms with en suites (like ours) and other rooms with both an en suite and a kitchenette. It isn't Buckingham Palace (more of that later), but it is dry and comfortable. Sharing a kitchenette isn't horrendous, and it is a great way of meeting the people who come in and out of this house. The area we are living in is very pretty. The street is lined with big trees with divinely green foliage (very European) . It is also conveniently situated approx 5 mins walk from the tube station as well as being close to banks, supermarkets, post office, newsagents, pharmacies, a few interesting places to eat and even close to yoga, Pilate's and chiropractic services. This place also reminds me of our old place in Melbourne because we are under a flight path, so we regularly get the big planes flying over us as we did in Melbourne.

On Day 2, we made our way to the centre of London for our touristy experience of this city. We got off at Green Park Station. This is a short walk through Green Park over to Buckingham Palace. The park at this time of year is so green and lush the trees are HUGE..and the grass so spongy and inviting. The palace is well, a palace I guess. The flag was up, apparently that means the queen was home. Probably out the back walking her precious corgi's! Around the palace area and Victoria Memorial it was very busy, lots of people taking pictures and hanging around hoping for a glance at the changing of the guard. We made our way around to the Queen's Gallery Shop. The Gallery has a exhibition of Renaissance and Baroque art. We did not actually go into the gallery as it was a bit costly, but we plan to have a squiz at a later date. Thinking out loud I turned to Steve and said "We can always come back another day" to which an English doorman replied in a traditional posh accent "Oh yes, and we look forward to seeing you". I had to contain my laughter until we got well outside..

Our legs took us from the gallery further down to Westminster Cathedral. Talk about WOW factor. We are not normally religious people, but there was something about this cathedral that just demanded respect! It was HUGE, Gothic looking, with a number of separate chapels dedicated to different Saints. As tourist, I was compelled to take a heap of photos, but somewhat felt like I was invading a place of worship, so I turned my flash off and quietly snapped away! We did spend a considerable amount of time there admiring the architecture simply MAJESTIC. Further down the street, we found our way to Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, by the time we reached it, it was closed and we were not allowed to go in and have a look. Something to do at a later date, but we did take a couple of pictures from the outside.

NEXT STOP : Big Ben, Parliament House and the LONDON EYE... How cliche but it has to be done. How to describe it? Well, really it is just the BIG BEN and Parliament House. Again, the architecture of these buildings is something to be admired. TRULY. It was horrendously busy in that area so we took our pictures and moved on. We took a walk across the bridge over to South bank , the aquarium and underneath the London Eye. The queue for the EYE was REALLY LONG, so we figured we'd pick another day to come back and have the EYE experience. I noticed a small box office advertising and selling tickets for a STAR WARS Exhibition/Show. My eyes lit up and thought FABULOUS, we must do it. It runs until September so there is plenty of time to have the ultimate Star Wars experience. *chuckles*

From there, we continued on foot further down South bank hoping to get to London Bridge, HOWEVER in true English Style, the heaven's opened and it began to RAIN! Wet, cold and grumpy, we put our tails between our legs and made a dash for the nearest tube station home.

Pictures for this magnificent tourist type experience : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/