Day 40 - ENG

Yet another touristy day today. Scored a lift with Natacha who picks Julie up of a morning and she was kind enough to drop me off at Grays station. Made it to Tower Hill where I wandered around seeing if there was a decent vantage point I could use for a time-lapse of London Tower and had a crappy English breakfast.

Picked up Sarah's keys and dropped off the suitcase at her place. I then figured as I was in her neck of the woods, I'd go check out a few things around there. First on the list was the Natural History Museum. It's pretty big and has several sections like dinosaurs and marine life and stuff but a bit of a highlight was that they were hosting some Shell sponsored wildlife photographer of the year event so I check it out. There was some amazing photos in there with interesting stories to go along with them.

As it was actually part of the same building, I headed around to the Science Museum. It was pretty interesting and spread across several floors. There was space stuff on the bottom along with other machinery and stuff. Left level had boats and stuff including decent sized models of countless passenger liners and war ships although I didn't see one for the Titanic. Above that there was stuff for medical developments and for flight. People whinge about wars (and rightly so) however as necessity is the mother of all invention, without the world wars there would be many developments like radar, flight and engine technology and rocket power which would not have been invented and refined during the times which they were.

Headed to the VNA (Victoria and Albert) Museum next which has a hugh collection of just stuff. There's cartoons (actually big paintings in this case by that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle inspired artist called Raphael), iron (there was some intricate stuff here however ironwork is kinda lost on me), glass, architecture, regional exhibitions, sculpture and other things that people might like to look at.

Then to bide my time I wandered along one of the high streets. Ended up strolling into Harrods and it was pretty apparent that I was the pleb amongst the crowd. Managed to locate the entertainment section which had a Pioneer display. Us Aussies usually get screwed with pricing however unless it's just Harrods, we aren't the only ones. The screens I'm contemplating between for the townhouse were almost the same in pounds! So we're not doing too badly.

Met Sarah and bought dinner for later. I headed back to Gavin's to get the notebook and then had dinner at Sarah's and stayed the night.

Day 39 - ENG

Cookie says...
The last time I spent most of the day at Julie's, it was pretty much a dead day with the two highlights being seeing a movie with Gavin and Sarah... and waking up...

This time it was different. Julie took the day off school as her sickness had overcome her. Turned out that the other teacher from her trip had also called in sick. Sleeping in was the order of the day until we decided that the washing had to be done and there was a fair bit to do.

The rest of the day was made up of countless cups of tea and water, we watched a few Planet Earth movies (they're truly amazing to watch and are on the list of high def titles I will buy should I ever move into my townhouse), I made a few trips to the shop and cooked us some pasta for lunch. I hadn't cooked this dish for close to a year so I was a bit worried as although it's fairly simple, it's easy to get wrong if the timing isn't right. Fortunately Julie liked it (although her sickness might have stuffed her taste buds) but it was pretty yummy.

So, this time I really enjoyed hanging out here and I think Julie did too as I was here to see to her every need : )

Day 38 - DE

Cookie says...
Once again Adam was up before us and with breaky done, we were outa there. Decided to find some botanical gardens which we walked around for a bit. Just before we left we descended upon a playground and had some fun with some of those seat see-saw's for a bit of mindless fun in the morning. Thought we'd try some tough laps for a bit and take in what the city looks like and then after dropping the car off, we headed for some lunch. We wanted to find a typical German pub or beerhaus however all we could manage was a cafe. Wasn't the smartest of moves as we bussed it there and hoofed it back at a great rate of knots to try and make the next bus to the airport. And that was a no. So we sat in the railway station for a bit and then we bailed.

Trip to the airport was quite a way however this time we could see the country side. Offloaded ourselves, checked in and sat around waiting with a few hot chocolates. I picked up some chocolate duty free too. We boarded our plane and as this airport probably wasn't the biggest and busiest around, the pilot was able to taxi and leave in one swoop and just to show he was either good, tough or a bit of a cowboy, he'd actually gunned it while half way around the corner coming onto the main drag. The landing at the other end was a bit sudden too. I think the gound snuck up on them but we hit hard and stuck.

Exited, boarder control came and went and then found the baggage and high tailed it for the expres train to Liverpool Street Station. Initially I'd planned on staying at Sarah's however as Julie was sick and it was dark, I decided I'd see her home instead. Turned out there was a bit of track work going on so we had to offload prior to Liverpool and then tube it to intercept the C2C service that left Fenchurch St.

Arrived at Chafford Hundred, picked up some Chinese for dinner I had a bit of a chat with the other housemates of Julie's and then called it a night.