Sorry for the sparse posting lately. I tend to have the problem where I know I want to blog about something in particular, and if that thing ends up being big, then it blocks all other blogging.
Having said that, here’s what’s been blocking me this week: London baby! Liz and I headed off to London for a 3 day weekend last weekend, and had a BLAST. The pictures are here, but I’ll break the trip down into days, in order to make it a bit easier on myself:
Friday:
Liz and I were flying out at 9:50, meaning that we had to aim to get to the airport around 7:50. Which meant leaving the house at 7:00. AM. Ooog. Traffic was pretty nasty, due to it being rainy (you’d think that people in Ireland would know how to drive in the rain. It’s the default weather for this country, dammit! Any way, arrived at the long term parking lot sometime around 8:15. No worries, Aer Lingus has a lovely self-check-in system that worked like a charm. Pretty uneventful flight, a bit bumpy on landing cuz it was quite windy out, but otherwise no worries. Hopped on the tube, and made our way to the Kensington Close Hotel, where we would be staying for the weekend. A GORGEOUS hotel, so close to the High Street Kensington stop, I would definitely stay there again. The room was miniscule by North American standards, but realistically we didn’t need anything more than a bed and a bathroom. From there it was onto the tube again for a trip to the Big Bus, to pick up our tickets. We hopped on the bus, took the red route all around London. This bus tour is a FANTASTIC value. You get a great tour, see TONS of London, and it was a GREAT value. After that, we headed back to the hotel cuz Liz had to get ready for the Backstreet Boys concert. That’s right, we went to London to see the Backstreet Boys, big whoop, wanna fight about it? The concert was in Wembley - and incidentally, I had no idea that Wembley was THE GHETTO. What the hell?!? I have to admit that I didn’t *hate* it. I didn’t *love* it either, but some of the songs were at least enjoyable. I could have done without the 3 teenaged girls behind me who screeched at jet-plane-volume levels every time AJ came up on the screen. Jesus. From there we made our way home, and pretty much passed out. Oh, and Liz absolutely LOVED the concert.
Saturday:
Sleep, wonderful sleep! Liz and I slept in till about 9:30. Not as late as I would have liked, but we wanted to have breakfast before we went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. We went up to Notting Hill to get breakfast, but had NO IDEA where we were so we ended up going to a bagel place for breakfast and hopped back on the tube. Got off at Victoria Station and watched most of the changing of the guard, then got bored. Walked down to St James’ tube station, hopped on the train over to the Tower of London. I had no idea that the “Tower” is really more of a fort/palace. How about that. (Other things I thought I knew about London that are wrong: The big fancy drawbridge in London is Tower Bridge, not London Bridge; Big Ben is just the name of the bell in the Parliament Clock Tower). Toured around the Tower, saw the Crown Jewels (pretty impressive, if a bit repetitive), saw some giant ass ravens, and left. Next up was our cruise on the Thames, which was included free with our Big Bus ticket. However, nobody even checked our tickets as we went onto the boat, so realistically we probably could have done it for free. This was probably my favourite part of the trip - the guide was HILARIOUS. And they’re not actually paid as tour guides, they’re just crew on the boat who do guide duty because the tour company is too cheap to hire real guides. So I tipped him a pound because he cracked me up. From there we did a fair bit of wandering… From the Parliament buildings up to Trafalgar Square, up through Leicester Square to Soho and Chinatown, across to Oxford Circus, down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus. We checked out Lillywhites in Piccadilly Circus, cuz they had a HUGE sale going on, but couldn’t find anything. Then we took the tube over to Covent Garden, where we had dinner at the Covent Garden Grill. Lovely dinner, SO yummy. From there we took a bit of a walk over to Leicester (pronounced “Lester”, incidentally, just like Gloucester is pronounced “Gloster”) Square and had a hot chocolate, then hit the tube again to head to the London Eye. London is GORGEOUS at night, especially St Paul’s Cathedral and Parliament. Didn’t get any really decent pictures though, because the Eye is constantly moving, and it’s enclosed in glass, so if you want a good picture you have to turn off your flash, which then requires a long shutter speed, which results in blurry blurry because you’re moving. Oh well, I have pictures in my BRAIN. Then we went home, and passed out early again. 
Sunday:
Sleeep! Got to sleep in finally, and didn’t really accomplish much. Had a lovely breakfast at the Muffin Man near the hotel, which was YUMMY. Then walked through the Kensington Palace Gardens and Hyde Park to the tube, because we had to catch our flight at 3:50. Only, it turns out, the tube was all buggered along the District line, so we ended up having to take a seriously roundabout route to get to Paddington station, and there we caught the express train to the airport (normally like 16 pounds, but because there was some issue with the tube we could use a 6 pound daily travelcard… yay!). Flew home on another uneventful flight (incidentally, from now on I am always flying emergency door row if I can. The LEG room! Wow!), bus to the car, and drove Liz into town (she was going to the DUBLIN Backstreet Boys concert). Drove home and veged out for a couple hours. Sweet sweet vegetation. Yay!
So that was my trip. In case you’ve forgotten, pictures are in this Flickr Gallery. Enjoy!
