The small child woke us up super early so I volunteered to take her for a walk. It was a public holiday so that meant that the streets pretty much had no one on them and it was kind of eerie walking around a massive city like London and only seeing the odd soul here and there.
After it was 7 bongs, I realised there was no cafes that were going on open on a public holiday this early and headed to Hyde park. Willow was happy to see some squirrels, lots of water fowl and even some horses.
I got back and collected Heidi and we went down for breakfast, which didn’t start until 8:30 bongs, being a public holiday. It was a continental breakfast, sire, so it only took a minute, after which we went and got the tube to borough markets, which was closed.
Then we went for a walk along southbank area, until we got to the Tate Modern museum. It is quite hard to find out where the art is supposed to be in this thing. After taking in a minimum acceptable amount of culture, we gave up and went to the lookout at level 10, which was provided a nice view over old London town.
Disembarking the Tate Modern’s exit ramp we continued along the Southbank area and after taking in the Globe theatre we stumbled across the Founders Arms to have another English cultural experience a scotch egg and flat, barely cold ale. Willow fell asleep soon after we left so we found a place nearby to have an uninterrupted lunch and massive 250mL wine. I figured with so much cultural experience I’d better keep the ball rolling and had a battered fish and chips with mushy peas.
Afterwards we went to go back home from Waterloo Station, but it turned out to be a bit of a problem getting into the place. There was one entrance we went past with a lot of stairs which wasn’t ideal with the pram so we walked around the block trying to find an underground entrance. There was construction around most of the station which didn’t help. The closer we got, the more we seemed to be further away, until we ended up going through Leake St tunnel, which although was a bit of a cultural experience there were quite a lot of small plastic bags littering the ground and the air smelt like Nimbin.
After getting out of the tunnel we asked a guy in hiviz who looked like he hung around there a lot where waterloo underground was and he directed us to go through the carpark entry. Thank god, we had finally gained entry to Waterloo, its access being more confusing than the battle or the ABBA song.
We got back to the hotel for some quiet time and afterwards Heidi and Willow were pretty much exhausted and alseep, so I hoofed it across town to go see Laci and Paul who you may remember from such blogs as "Not too chablis", "More Champagne!" and "The fat duck bill" in Mildmay to catchup for dinner at 19 bongs. The awesome weather finally broke with a storm, but luckily we were already in the pub tucking into some toulose sausages and potatoes.
On normal weekdays the continental breakfast (,sire) is at 7:30 bongs so we only needed to go for a short walk to the local cafe to kill time after the small child got up. Although I don’t order them flat white coffee has really taken off here and has been on nearly every cafe menu we’ve been to.
Today the main plans were to get a SIM and see the changing of the guards. Willow fell asleep on the way at around 10 bongs which was slightly annoying as it would have been nice to have another uninterrupted lunch, but anyway what are you going to do.
We watched the changing of the guards and the London skies opened up to remind us of where we were. After a bit of pomp and ceremony we went back to get a picture of Willow in front of the Big Ben but apparently they’re fixing the old bong keeper and there was scaffolding all around it. It is still bonging though, however apparently the work is going to be another 3 or so years.
We had lunch at a pub called the Swan, near Hyde Park. Being soft Sydney siders we’d had enough London weather and just went home afterwards. Apparently Willow and I were still a bit sick/jet lagged and ended up retiring at around 5 bongs for the evening.
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