Day 6, Thursday, London to Stonehenge, Bath & Wales

Feeling a bit sad to be leaving David and Victoria's place, we packed up and left at our usual lunch-time(!) Our train ride to Fulham on the other side of London was actually the easiest of the lot. Once there, I was surprised to see Stamford Bridge, the (stadium) home of Chelsea Football Club right there. Two streets away we found our car hire place. Dismissing an over-attendant helper, we jumped into a shiny, silver, 3-week-old Peugeot 206 - mmmm - and started driving out of London, something I was a bit apprehensive about.

In no time at all, we had hit the motorway and began our car trip in the beautiful English countryside. Aside from the greenery, every so often you see fields of yellow: rape seeds. After about 90 minutes, suddenly by the side of the road we saw the infamous circle of stones we had targeted:

Truth be told, we just leaned over the fence to get our few snapshots, rather than pay the 7 pounds. Besides we were running late. So it was hit the road, Jack. Getting closer to our destination, we were delayed by a road diversion. The plus was that it took us through Bradford-on-Avon and other quaint little towns like this:

The downside was that by the time we got to Bath, it was after 7pm and the Roman baths had closed for viewing (something that was becoming a theme on the trip!) Still, we wandered around the place a bit and soaked up its beauty:
"Oh, gorgeous! Beautiful! Wish you were here!" I mean, we could be someplace in Rome or something:
This must be nice to stay for a night or two and take a romantic walk by the river:
But enough of all this gorgeousness: it was getting late and we still had a few hours to drive to make our stop for the night in northern Wales! Good for us, it's really easy to find your way on England's roads as everything is marked very well. And our map book was accurate. Still, we had tried as usual to do too much in one day, esp. leaving late, so we arrived at Dave and Denise Kelly's (pastor friends from South Africa who had moved) at... 10.30pm! Think twice before you invite us to stay! Bless the man, he had a huge helping of Chinese takeaways ready for us and a nice cup of tea before we hit the sack...

Day 4 London

Day 4 - Tuesday 6 May (continued)

Hot in the city
Midday was practically sweltering as we boarded the train from Hornchurch into London. At 25 degrees Centigrade, we appeared to be the only ones at home in the heat: everyone else was fanning themselves and puffing out their cheeks. On the platforms we passed, it wasn't uncommon to spot a young guy in his jeans and shirtless.

This ain't no ride through the Andes
At one of the stops, an intriguing guy boarded and flopped down in front of us. He kind of looked part Greek and part Peruvian, well into his fifties and overweight. He wore dark grey cargo pants, a dirty red plaid lumberjack shirt over a dark t-shirt and ported a no-frills shoulder bag. His hand wrapped in a grimy bandage, he leaned on his walking cane. And sweated. Boy, could this guy sweat. Station after station, I had front row seats to him mopping his forehead with a rag that was once a light handkerchief. And he couldn't stop fidgeting. Removing the sweatband from his greasy taupe locks; replacing it; removing it. Parts of his body were always in motion. And the more he fidgeted, the more he sweated. I've never seen anyone so uncomfortable in his body. I hoped for his sake that it was just because of the heat. Somehow I don't think so.

Making plans
We rode the Underground until we could get off near Leicester Square. We had a plan. We checked out the prices at the "TKTS" booth, saw no discount was available, so found cheaper prices at another stall. We booked ourselves into the theatre show we wanted to see later that evening: Billy Elliot. Then we purchased tickets for the next day on a city tour by bus: the "Original City Tour". Plans set and mucho money spent, we grabbed a quick bite at Burger King overlooking the square - "filthy bathrooms", Marsh said; I don't notice these things. Especially since I don't go into the Ladies'. We priced souvenirs at a nearby shop...

Where the streets all have names
Then it was off into Chinatown, on foot:

Oh, ho, Soho
A left, a right, a left and we were into Soho, full of interesting little shops, restaurants and quirky people, to say the least. We passed two giant males, all buff and muscles bulging out of skin-tight t-shirts... and daintily holding hands. We stopped over briefly in an interesting shop of music and magazines going back a few decades:

Drama onstage - less drama offstage
After the debacle the previous day where we were late and rushing for our London Eye ride, we decided things would be different today with getting to the Billy Elliot show. So we made our way with plenty time to spare… except that our bus was halted by ‘rush hour’ traffic gridlock! It took us 45 minutes to traverse Piccadilly Circus. Stress again! Still we found the theatre opposite Victoria station in enough time (that's what they call "Little Ben" in the foreground):

Let the show go on!
In the hour or so before the show was due to start, we wandered around the W. H. Smith bookshop, Marcia adding to her giant collection of stationery (folders!!) Then it was off to the theatre, something I'd been dreaming about since I was about 13. As we made our way inside, they gave many of us a free upgrade to better seats. I like. And the show was magnificent, truly awesome. They really put on a show in such style, whether it's the actors, the innovative stage design, the costumes or the songs.

Remember it's about a boy in a mining town who wants to do ballet. (The entire audience was treated to Marcia's gasps upon hearing 5-year-olds on the stage swear!) It took about 3 hours, ending at about 11pm, so we had to race to catch the last train back to Dave and Victoria's – apologising for not being able to see them that evening. In bed after midnight. Smiling after the fulfillment of a dream.

Day 2 - the rush to the London Eye

So after church, we parted ways with Karen and went to Leicester Square. We were going to meet up with Karen at Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Beckenham at 4pm.

Since there are no shows on Sundays, we went to an internet cafe to book tickets for the London Eye, and do some banking.

After lots of walking and taking pictures and people-watching, we started making our way back to Beckenham. At Victoria Station we realised that we were never going to make it back by 4pm so phoned Karen to give her new times.

I won't bore you with another one of those waiting-for-the-train pictures because that's what happened then and of course, Dion has LOTS of pics of the back of me, rushing off somewhere :)

Got back to Beckenham, had a delicious satay burger with Karen and Lara (one of Karen's housemates) and rushed home to pack.

We had to say our goodbyes while the cabbie was waiting (on the bright side, no chance of long, drawn-out farewells) and then rush to the station, rush to Travelodge in Liverpool Street, all with those bags that, even though were by now slightly lighter (because my method of baggage control is throwing away my clothes - yes, really), felt GINORMOUS on the underground and along the streets.

We dropped the bags and rushed straight out to the underground station again where we travelled to Tower Bridge. We were SO late as they say you have to be there 30 minutes before your booked time. Our time was 7.30pm and we only got there at 7.40pm but stormed into the office where a nice man said that we could still go.

As we were rushing there, I was thinking, "if we just THROW £23 (R370) down the drain, I'm going to be SO cross".

So the first few minutes were spent calming down from the SPRINT and then we started taking some gorgeous pictures.

This is one of my favourite pictures of the London Eye

I took this one - I feel like a "real" photographer when I take pics like this


Now this amazed me - look how dirty it is. Not a bin in sight, so people just leave their rubbish wherever they want


Afterwards, took some more pics and then went back to Liverpool Street. Had a quick burger at McDonalds and then back to the Travelodge where I TOTALLY collapsed with a headache, sore body and sore feet.

And so we finally realised what everyone else tried to tell us - that we were trying to pack in too much. So we made a new rule - only one or two activities every day because we are not as young as we used to be!!!

Day 2 - Hillsongs with Karen

We decided to go to Hillsongs church with Karen. Karen doesn't normally go there but very kindly decided to go with us to show us the ropes.

We left at about 9.30 to make the 10.30 service and amazingly enough, we were actually early for church! In London! Where it takes forever to get you anywhere! :)

So we decided to go to Starbucks - Dion had his usual, a latte, I had a caramel hot chocolate (yummy!) and Karen had a mango raspberry fruit drink. I'm not up to date with all these new-fangled drinks so I don't know the correct names or the Starbucks lingo :)

Karen pioneered that mango raspberry combo and the people working there kept checking, "are you SURE you want that? We've never done this before so we don't know if it'll be good together" and she was, "yeah, it'll be fine" And it was delicious. So if you're at a Starbucks, get them to make you a mango raspberry fruit drink, a la Karen Stally :)

So here we are in front of the theatre where Hillsongs has their services. I love that there's Queen stuff on a church building - so cool.


Karen and Dion and London's famous red telephone boxes


The underground station right THERE at the church - how convenient


Karen and Marcia in front of Bar Salsa - the place you must NOT go to if you want good food at great value...£25 each - enough said :)


Now my impressions of Hillsongs
Loved...
Big church with lots of people
Wonderful worship and sound
Let you take Starbucks into the auditorium
Excellent greeters and ushers
How soon they start marketing their events. We were there on 4 May and they were already marketing a conference a year away!

Not great...
Bad directions when I needed to get to the loo which was like 2 flights up and FAR, far away *grrrr*

Anyway, there was a guest speaker, Priscilla Schirer, who spoke on hearing God's voice. This was just outstanding and I took pages and pages of notes. The only thing keeping me back from buying CDs and books was the dreaded baggage allowance...

Day 1 - in London with Karen/ Repteens reunion

Clearly we were very good at following directions because we got to Karen's at 9.15 and woke her when we rang the bell :)

After a quick run to Sainsbury's for some staples, we had grilled cheese on toast with tea/ coffee and settled down for a good few hours, catching up.

view from Karen's window while she was preparing the food

- we were taken with how very English everything looked :)

We then had a few hours' sleep and woke, showered and went to a ridiculously expensive place called Bar Salsa, the venue for the Repteens reunion. There were 5 hen nights happening that evening therefore lots of women with bunny ears, etc. :) I danced with two men - the first one was okay but the second one was getting too feely so I left the dance floor before I had to slap him and embarrass the group :)

The cover price including food was £25 per person (R400) and the food was not that great! Somehow, there was £25 too much after we'd settled the bill so we were given the money.

from left to right - Dion, Marcia, Karen, Natalie, Keir and Darren (Rivca taking pic)

Marcia and Karen

from left to right - Keir, Marcia, Rivca, Natalie, Dion and Karen (Darren taking pic)

It was so lovely to meet new people and for Dion to reconnect with old friends. We left at 10.30 but only got home at 12.00 because of all the trains.

Realising it is a whole long story to get anywhere in London because it is so BIG!

Arriving in London

We arrived at London's Heathrow airport on time, shortly after 6am. We went through customs and baggage collection without any problems despite what we'd heard about the English giving South Africans a hard time....and fortunately didn't need to produce the letters from work saying we'd be back on 26th.



I was amazed at how organised the airport was. You have to be really stupid to get lost in there :) I popped into a Marks and Spencer just to have a look at the prices and Dion decided to take a picture of me but was stopped by a policeman who told him they don't allow any pictures in the airport. A big difference from KLIA in Malaysia where we snapped away without anyone giving us a second look :)



We bought our travel cards from the machine for zones 1 - 6 (£7 each) as instructed by our friend, Karen, and followed her (very detailed) directions to the house.



This is me resting on the underground... it's so easy to fall asleep especially after a 10 1/2 hour flight with only 4 hours' sleep!

and this is me waiting for the train at Victoria station - these trains leave EXACTLY on time. Our train this particular morning left at 8.51 and the minute the clock clicked to 51, the train pulled off. Very impressive!

Don't you love this picture? The blue and grey bags are mine and the others are Dion's.