London Town..

Its now the morning of our 3rd day in London. We weren't going to write every day - but by popular demand, here is another update for you!

First off, some of my thoughts about London off the top of my head:
- I am surprised at how green it is! There are parks and trees everywhere and is a beautiful city. I really expected it to be all buildings.. grey and drab. I guess I got this idea from TV shows? I thought it would be too full of people to have all of the park space - but it is really lovely..
- I cant quite get over the fact it is light until 10pm. And light again at 4am.
- I keep laughing that everyone on TV sounds like the guy from the Sooty and Sweep show from when I was little!
- Finding it very easy to get around and navigate the tubes... I actually think I could live here. But then Adam reminds me it is not always 30 degrees.. and I probably wouldnt like it in Winter.

Yesterday was a busy day. We jumped on the tube and headed off for some sightseeing. Perhaps I exaggerated above about how easy the tube is.. because there was certainly a moment or 2 of tension early in the day.. but we wont get into that!

We headed to Buckingham Palace thinking we'd missed the changing of the guards.. but as we approached it was all starting to happen - so it was great timing! This was quite the spectacle and we got some good pics.

We walked through St James park until we reached the Parliament area and the Thames. Saw Big Ben, The London Eye, Trafalger Square, then wandered back through Piccaddilly Circus, Carnaby St and Oxford Circus. We managed to squeeze in some shopping (which we thought was going to have to be a separate day) - so we considered it all very productive! Though our feet were almost numb!

When we got home to Lauren & Jarrods, we all headed around the corner to a pub (The Canonbury) with a fantastic beer garden (possibly the best i have ever seen.. which is kind of odd considering our climate in Australia vs the one here!). We had a dinner of half rotisserie chickens (delicious!) and Lauren and I sipped on Pimms while the boys had beer.
The area that Lauren and Jarrod live in is really great. There are so many pubs close by and it's very pretty. The Mayor of London lived down the street from them until just recently.

As we headed home last night Adam and I were keen to stop at Tesco for more drinks.. we thought it was about 7pm. When Lauren told us it was 9:30, the reality of all the action of the day hit us and we crashed out, with Adam snoring like a road train as soon as he sat down.

Today we look to be heading out into the country somewhere.. currently tossing up between Oxford, Windsor, Brighton, etc.. Then tonight L&J have a car hired for 3 hours to show us the sights by night. We considered headng back to Brick Lane for a curry.. but may do that tomorrow night instead.

We have been busy negotiating with lastminute.com and it looks as though we may be doing afternoon tea at the Park Lane Hotel tomorrow (cross your fingers for us, they dont make it easy to redeem vouchers!).

(Update on the status of my cold: it has moved to the chest region and I'm coughing like an old man nonstop. But in the words of *insert name here* "aint nothing gonna break my stride, nobody's gonna slow me down... oh no.. I got to keep on moving...". This is my anthem.)

Will work out how to add some pics soon. We gotta get this day started!