Tour of London

Fans,

Friday was a busy day. Anna met us at Oxford Circus and played tour guide all day, which was brilliant. While Tim went off in search of internet, Megan and Anna did some of the many shops on Oxford and Regent Streets. Megan is hooked and will be heading back there before long...

After a picnic lunch in Soho Square, we wandered through to Covent Garden, where they have more shops/markets and streets performers. Then after a quick stop at "the New Zealand shop", where Megan bought some marmite and Tim got some pineapple lumps, we visited Trafalgar Square, had a quick walk through the National Art Gallery at Trafalgar Square and then made our way down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

Despite the Queen not being in residence, a policeman holding a machine gun was pacing up and down on the other side of the gates. Bizarre. We had missed the changing of the guard, which was earlier in the day, but we will definitely be back at some stage to watch that.

On Friday night we met up with a good friend of Tim's from his St Bede's days, Simon Bradley, for a few beers across the road from Big Ben. It was great seeing Simon again, he has been in London for over 2 years now and he had plenty of stories and tips to share. It was also nice that our first English pub experience was right underneath Big Ben.

After a few beers, Simon took us round the corner to show us number 10 Downing Street. We had assumed that you could actually walk right past the house, but no such luck. Again big black gates and a policeman with a machine gun were blocking our way. We could just make out what may have been the famous doorway about 50 metres away...

Saturday was "flat hunting day". We went over to Putney to Anna's flat and started searching the websites. We visited a couple of flats in Putney and one was quite nice, but we are hoping to see some more today. It was nice having a few drinks and dinner with Anna in some of Putney's pubs, one of which was right on the River Thames overlooking Putney Bridge. It was beautiful.

Sunday has more flat hunting in store for us. But at 4pm we are meeting up with Shanan and Renee to watch Arsenal v Chelsea in a pub. Exciting times.