A very full day so far

We all slept reasonably well last night - we managed to stay away until just after 9pm, and woke up about 6 in the morning. The place we're staying at (which is near Hyde Park) serves a beautiful buffet breakfast, so we all really hoed in. Actual bacon, luscious oranges and some very strong coffee. At the time i felt a bit guilty about how much i ate, but given all the walking we did today i think it was for the best.

About half a kilometre from us is Kensington Gardens. Walking into the Gardens was a shock to the system - it is beautiful, huge and a vivid green that residents of Australia have probably forgotten even exists. There were large numbers of people walking, riding bikes and taking their dogs out.

We continued on through Hyde Park up the banks of the Serpentine River. We passed a number of war memorials, including one for Australian involvement in conflicts. We were all a little scandalised that the poppies that had been left at our memorial were paper ones. It seems a bit tacky.

From there we walked up towards Buckingham Palace. Along the way there we saw our first squirrel. I'm not really sure if they look cute or over-caffeinated, but we saw quite a few today.

Buckingham Palace was very impressive. Unfortunately i forgot my ARM t-shirt for a photo (mostly joking). It's weird with places like that which are iconic. It's a strange feeling to be standing in front of a place that you've seen so often before. You feel a bit dumb going 'Wow, this place really does exist'. We didn't see the changing of the guard, but i did see a policewoman toting an MP5 sub-machine gun, and got a picture of it which in retrospect might have been pushing my luck.

On the issue of photos - i did take a lot of them today, but they were all on dad's camera, and he has unfortunately neglected to bring along his USB cable, so it might be a few days before i can upload those pictures.

Anyway. After Buckingham Palace we made our way through some back alleys (and the lovely-named Birdcage Walk) to find a small sandwich bar to make us some coffee. Then we had the experience that we had been dreading - the Public Toilet you have to pay for. Given we were paying customers i expected something a bit better than your average Canberra loo, but these were nothing special. I find the idea awful, and i hope the ACT Government never gets it in their heads to introduce anything like that.

After the disappointing toilets we headed over the Westminster Abbey. I think we arrived there some time between 10:30 and 11:00, and there were already massive queues to get in. There is an entry fee of ten pounds per person which seems quite steep up until the point that you realise that the Abbey receives no government or church money for upkeep.

The Abbey was actually quite a moving experience. England is obviously a country with a long and rich history, and the Abbey feels like a concentrated version of that. There are monuments to so many of their significant figures - kings and queens are entombed within and memorialised extravagantly. However it is not only royalty there - great scientists, statesmen, philosophers and social activists are either buried or memorialised within the Abbey. After that tour I think that England values and preserves its history in a much stronger way than Australian does at this point. That's a bit of food for thought when i get back.

The Abbey tour took more than an hour, and was the highlight of the day. After that we walked over to Parliament. It's not sitting, and it wasn't open for tours today. We walked around the grounds - i had visions in my head of Ian Richardson chucking a journalist off the roof and began humming the House of Cards theme song, but i don't think my parents got the reference.

After a late lunch we went across the Thames to the National Theatre - we've booked tickets for next Tuesday for a play whose name has slipped my memory. It's got Jeremy Irons in it and is about Harold McMillan. I'm irritated i can't remember the title, but it sounds like i'll enjoy it.

We decided to walk back to our hotel from their via Soho. I checked out a couple of sex shops to try and get a gift for Mandy. If you're reading this, no luck so far - they seem to have a great stock of stuff for gay men, but lesbians don't seem to be stocked for. Ah well, five more weeks and i'm sure i'll find something.

The walk back to the hotel took a good long time - most of it was up Oxford Street, which was ridiculously packed. It might be because this is a public holiday weekend (Bank Holiday on Monday), but whatever the reason it was ridiculously busy. The most people i've seen anywhere.

All in all a very good day. We walked more than 12 kilometres by my rough guess (i'm not sure the parents were terribly impressed by my suggestion to walk back rather than catch the tube, but they were polite about their aching legs). If the rest of our stay is here i can definitely imagine myself falling in love with London.