London's Calling

London

December 10th - 13th
We set of on our trip to London on the 10th of December we needed to make sure that the weather was just as freezing in other parts of England as it is here in Manchester...
We took the 4 hour Mega Bus ride for a giant cost of 1 pound and arrived in London at 1:30pm. Some how along the way in our travels we have become the masters at reading and navigating our way around on metro's, subway's, tram's and in this case "the tub" and got to our backpacker's with strangely no problems at all, dropped of our stuff and headed straight back into the city to the Natural History Museum. The building of the Museum was the first of the many amazing ancient beautiful buildings we were about to see in London with huge amounts of detail in the architecture and massive stained glass windows once again Pictures just don't do size and detail justice. We headed back down to the tube once again with no idea where we were in the world and asked the nearest stranger where the most "touristy" part of London is and we headed that way. As we breached the street we couldn't help but notice the huge clock in front of us "Is that Big Ben?" I asked Matt
"...Is that Big Ben?" Matt said.
"I'm pretty sure that's Big Ben" I said "Go ask someone"
So of Matt went like a small town Maori to confirm that we had finally made it to London like we always said we would since before we got married the look of achievement on our faces priceless when we found out it was.
After this we just kept on banging into historical buildings attractions etc. In the three days we spent in London I think we must have crammed in as much as physically possible. Buckingham Palace (where the Queen was home.) St James's Palace, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Mayfair (We now understand why these houses cost so much in Monopoly.) National Art Gallery, The London Eye, Tower of London, a river cruise and a big bus tour that included sights like 10 Downing street, St Paul's Cathedral and where the Queen buys her undies.
But by far I think our highlight was while taking a free tour with the big bus company called The Royal London Walk. You Pretty much walk around with a guide giving you all these royal facts and then you see the whole process of the changing of the Gard's right from St James's to Buckingham Palace. Anyway we were standing outside the gates of St James's Castle and Clarance house where Prince Charles and co live listening to the whole brake down on who lived where and for how long when Prince William with three of his security guards just walk on by like I am talking 1m max away from where Matt and I were standing. Woooh Baby you should have seen our faces Matt and I both turned to look at each other to make sure we were not seeing things and then just stared the whole time I was holding the camera in my hands and it was like I was frozen in a time warp or something then all of a sudden I was like camera, camera but I had gloves on and was freezing and was so confused I didn't know if you were allowed to take photos cause it was like no one else had seen him I finally turned it on but by this time he had walked by so I ran to the side of the road but only got his back grrr! The lady behind me hadn't even seen him she was asking "was that a Prince?" I think the tour guide was just as shocked as us cause he didn't see Prince William till after he had passed right behind him. Some guys chased after him for photo's after they realised who it was which I thought was shocking cause I am a firm believer in that being how princess Di Died.
Anyway unbelievable! What are the odds of seeing Royalty while your in London wow, I still can't believe it. So when you look at our Photo's and see the four guys in suites Prince William is the 2nd from the left.
So that was what our trip consisted of. It was freezing, way worse then Manchester but at least it wasn't raining for the whole time we were there praise God. The trip was really good we loved it and Matt didn't get sick on the bus... bonus.

Pics for London Trip
http://picasaweb.google.com/mattblairmail/London?authkey=ntDKUmPP7sw