London Week 9 - Stones and Baths

This week we decided to take in another show. This time it was a well worn classic, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. You could certainly tell that Joseph was a lot more simple than Wicked. Where Wicked had lots of solo numbers and special effects, Joseph was all about the big group singing and dancing numbers. It was a bit more basic around the effects and things but we still had an enjoyable night.

On the weekend we were off again to visit another place. This time we decided not to do it ourselves, but instead jump on one of the many bus tours to Stonehenge and Bath. The bus tour certainly has its advantages. We had a tour guide who was a well of information and always keen to share it with us throughout the bus trip. We learnt about breweries, painters, architects, the army...you name it he knew it. Unfortunately he had plenty of time to tell us because we spent so much time on the bus, either travelling in the slow moving bank holiday traffic or waiting for the other patrons to get back on the bus (late.) So it took us four hours from leaving London to get to Stonehenge when it should have only been half that time. However, once we finally got there Stonehenge was very cool. We had an audiotour again that took us around the stones and explained all about them. We had heard that there weren't that many of the stones left, but we were sufficiently impressed. There were enough there that we could easily picture what it used to be like.

Then it was on the bus again and off to Bath. Unfortunately it was after 2pm before we even arrive there and with us leaving at 5:30 it was going to be a quick look around. Bath is a beautiful city. Lovely old Victorian Buildings, situated on the river Avon and lots of green parks. Part of the bus trip was a tour around the Roman Baths. It is a combination of ancient roman baths which were rediscovered and converted to Victorian Baths in the 1800s. No taking a dip though. The water was toxic. Another audio tour gave us the insights into what it was like bathing in roman or Victorian times. It was certainly very interesting and you can understand why people flocked to Bath. After that we decided to indulge ourselves with another English tradition Cream Tea (although we didn't do the super expensive one). It was in a little cafe built on a Bridge. One of only a few like it in Europe. After that it was piling back on the bus and off to London. Bath certainly looks like somewhere where we will go back and spend some more time rather than the rush we had this time round.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/LondonWeek9#

London Week 8 - Punch and Party

We started the week out doing something very english. It was the birthday (not sure which) of Mr Punch so we went down to the Covent Garden Church for the celebrations. There were puppet shows galore, all of them putting on their own version of Punch and Judy. The children all seemed somewhat bewildered, but the parents all seemed pretty excited about the "Whoooo Hoooo!'s" and the "Oh no you won't!'s". It certainly makes you think about the fact that such a beloved figure of English family culture is a drunk who beats up his wife and children....We were also treated to seeing children dancing around the maypole. They were all dressed up in their colourful costumes and moving their ribbons around. This was all nice and cute, but the woman who was leading was slightly too overenthusiastic about the whole thing. She clearly spends the whole year preparing for the maypole and this was her day to shine. After that (and seeing the goth puppeteers with their goth puppets...) we had had enough of English culture and decided it was time to head home.

During the week Jess quite rightly decided we hadn't been getting much culture for a while so we went to the Portrait Gallery. The place is 3 floors so we decided that rather than get frustrated by trying to do the whole lot in one night we would do one floor tonight and the rest later. So we got have a good look around all the really old portraits. Famous Kings and Queens of England from early times. Very impressive.

Friday we went back down to Tooting to see Chris and Rachel for the last time before they went back to New Zealand. It was good to catch up with them for the last time for a while, along with Tom and Gini and Tree and Katie.

Saturday it was time for our flatwarming. Contrary to popular opinion it was not a BBQ, but there was certainly plenty of snack food to go around. Cocktail theme worked out well with a mixture of Pims (really Pitchers which is much cheaper...) punch, mojitos, moscow mules and probably a few other drinks which people were experimenting with. Turnout was small but we had a good time nonetheless and partied into the early hours without disturbing the neighbours (we hope).

http://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/LondonWeek8#

London Week 7 - Oxford and the Tube

Another early morning on the weekend as we got ourselves up to head to Paddington Station where we were meeting with Robin and Mary to get the train out to Oxford. We arrived in a very chilly Oxford around 9am, which was before anything opened so we were able to have a look around and a cup of tea before things started getting busy. We hadn't done much study about what to do in Oxford so after a visit to the tourist centre we decided to book ourselves in for a 2 hour walking tour of the city and colleges. Little did we know what we were in for. We got to have a look around several of the colleges and had many of the main highlights of Oxford shown to us. If there was something to know about Oxford, this guy knew it. It was certainly interesting but we were pretty historied out by the time the tour came to an end. Certainly made the old wooden building at Victoria Law School look like nothing special.

After that we decided to take in another Oxford attraction, that being punting on the canal. You could punt yourself or get taken around by a professional punter. After seeing the people trying to punt themselves and worrying about falling into the canal we decided to go the safe route and get driven around. Punting was nice and relaxing and a good chance to just sit back and enjoy. On a hot day it would be great to just pull up and eat a picnic on the side of the canal. When we go to Cambridge we might just try to drive ourselves...

Time was getting on and we decided to head off for lunch. The tour guide had recommended the Turf Tavern for a good feed, not only that it was the oldest pub in Oxford so a good tourist attraction. We had ourselves a nice pint of ale, the girls indulged in a Village Idiot with White Horses for the boys. Unfortunately by the time we got there they were out of any decent food so we had to head down to one of the chain pubs in the main street to satisfy our appetites. After all of that there was time for a quick walk, via the Lewis Carroll shop and back on the train to London.

We kept a low profile during the week, but Saturday we received an invitation to go to a Tube Station Party with Tree. Luckily it wasn't a party at a tube station. Rather the idea was that everyone went along dressed in tube station theme. We spent the day walking via our favourite named suburb Elephant and Castle (it isn't actually very nice) to Old Kent Road. This was not only a chance to get some Monopoly fix but also to head to the Toys R Us and sort out our costumes for the night.

All equipped we headed off to Tree's in Hammersmith and then off to Queen's Park along with Tree and her flatmates for the party. Upon our arrival at the party we donned our costumes and were ready to go. If you have been reading carefully you will have worked out that we decided to go as our favourite Tube Station.....Elephant and Castle. Jess was the Elephant cause Elephants are more exciting. You need to check out the photos to get the full effect though. Tree and her flatmates were dressed as the three blind mice...cause there are lots of mice at the tube station. Some of the costumes included Queen's Park, Bank, White City as well as the always present Maintenance on the Underground Line. It was a good chance to get creative. We had a really great night. It was good meeting a whole bunch of new people and seeing a different part of London. We even learnt the story of how Elephant and Castle got its name. We won't recount the whole story hear, particularly as searching the internet seems to suggest there could be multiple stories, but it was certainly fun at the time.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/LondonWeek7#

London Week 6

This week we managed to get along to our first London Show. It wasn't in the West End, but it was just as grand and flashy. The show is called Wicked and it is basically the story of what you didn't know about the Wizard of Oz, focussing on it all from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North. We don't want to spoil the story any more of that, but it was certainly entertaining and at 20 pounds each it felt like a good value night out.

Saturday and we caught up with Tom and Gini again, on the train out to Windsor. Windsor was one of the highlights of the trip so far. It certainly helped that we had great weather. Things started off with a tour around Windsor Castle. After queueing and heading through metal detectors and x ray machines (just like at the airport) and then we were off. Windsor castle as a tourist attraction is really well done. You get an audio tour each which you can carry around with you and it tells you about all the different parts of the castle and their history. It was no Alcatraz and some of the speakers on the audiotour did tend to go on a bit long (including Price Charles) but overall it gave us a really good insight into the history of the castle. Windsor is also one of the places where the Queen spends her time and it hosts a number of formal royal functions. The chapel in the castle also serves as the burial place for many famous kings and queens. Henry VIII, Charles II and even the Queen Mother are all buried there.

After that we found a nice pub and dug into Steak and Guiness pie, mmmmm tasty and as it turns out very much needed. We decided we needed an after lunch walk, but before that we headed off to a shop that had been recommended to us, the Chocolate Theatre where we munched on our chocolate hedgehogs and bought some chocolate fishes to take away with us (not the marshmallow kind). Then we were off round the back of Windsor Castle for The Long Walk. The Long Walk is basically a path that runs 5km in a perfectly straight line from the back of the castle, through a park, and then out into some larger paddocks filled with deer to a HUGE statue of King George the III on the back of his horse. There were plenty of people sitting there resting before the big 5km back. After that we had burned all that pie out of our systems and were reading for a sleepy train ride back home again. A good day all round.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/LondonWeek6#