Last days in London

WARNING - This post is large - even for my standards. Get a drink, some food and some shelter, because this baby could take a few days to read.



OK, well it looks like I survived London. It's Friday now and I am out of here in 2 days. I fly out to Canada for a few weeks and hopefully see some more of the countryside (among other things).
So anyhow, I've just finished putting comments on, and uploading another batch of photos. Mainly of when I went to Greenwich the other day to visit the Cutty Sark and see to GMT line, although I did do some other stuff but wasn't allowed to take pictures.

Lets see now - I went and saw Iron Man at the movies the other night with Matthew (my sister's husband). Quite a good boys flick. I like how they are making all these movies of comics that I used to read as a kid. I hope they make a Sgt. Rock movie - loved those comics :-) Anyhow the movie was good but the funniest part I liked was when we went into the cinema and we got our tickets. The plan is you give your ticket to the usher and he lets you into the main area. There were about 5 ushers and they weren't paying any attention to us, so I thought I would have a bit of a laugh and 'PRETEND' to sneak past them. Anyhow, of the 5 ushers, there were 4 black guys and one white guy. The white guy was in a head lock from one and another was jumping on him, and the other 2 were cheering the whole fight one... It was easy to see they weren't paying us any attention so I almost made it past them.... until the white guy yelled out (in a headlock and almost on the floor by now) "Tickets Please!" haha the other 4 guys, stopped what they were doing and looked at us all serious like we where about to escape Stalag 13 or something... haha too funny... after we handed in our tickets they went back to playfighting again haha twits.

So after Belgium I haven't gone anywhere out of London, although I have caught the tube a lot, it's quite good. In fact if someone asked me what was the best part I liked about London, I would have to say the tube. If it just wasn't so expensive! I suppose a monthly pass or something like that would be a lot better though, rather than just one way tickets or daily passes... The Tube rules. Wellington is the only other place that comes close to this level of public transport - and even that has nothing on Londons tube.

So whilst staying at Matthew and Michelle's house I have done quite a bit of the laundry, and cleaning (and little cooking) to pay the rent bill. I've done several supermarket shops for them and done the lawns three times (it's spring). So I hope I have not outstayed my welcome and that I have done enough to 'pay the rent'. :-) We are going out for one last 'local' dinner tonight - so that will be good - we can all have some drinks and a nice meal. My last meal with them will be tomorrow night and we are planning to go to the markets and prepare ourselves a nice big old fashioned Sunday roast (for Saturday night). Stay tuned on the roast report! And that leads me to another disturbing part of this story dear readers. Me and food. We don't mix. I love it but it doesn't love me... maybe it's because I love it too much haha. I can feel all my hard work at the gym slowly start to slip away... dammit... On one hand I want to keep traveling and seeing people and things (that's the big hand just so you know) and on the other, I want to get back home so I can hit the gym again and get back to being ultra fit Matt again.... "But, oh Matt" I hear you say, "Why don't you go for a run or the local gym while you are on holiday?". No, sorry, Matty don't play that game. It's only another 3 and a bit weeks so I will tough it out and relax until then haha (Exercising on holiday... puhlease...)

OK so the on Tuesday I was wandering around the London Bridge station with nothing much to do when I walked past the "London Dungeons" and for once, there was no queue. So I decided I would go in and check it out. Well, 20 pounds to get in, 10 pounds spent in the gift shop (more on that later) and 8 pounds for a photo of my in the stocks - almost 40 pounds for that ($100 NZ basically)... damn! But I must say it was fun, it was supposed to be scary, and there was some scary moments, and in all honesty, it was a good mix of both I think. The dungeons is all about going through different 'rooms' which depict different times or events (fictitious or not) in Londons history. On show where, The Plague (1665), The Great Fire of London (1666), Jack the Ripper, Sweeny Todd, The Jails and other creepy things like that. It was a good laugh, especially when we all had to get in boats (like the log ride at an amusement park) and there wasn't enough seats for me - so I had to go in one on my own. So then I got singled out as being by myself (everyone else - about 30 of them) had a partner/friend with them of some sort and boy, did they all laugh at me haha damn dirty dungeon staff haha. Also, they best thing I liked about the Dungeon show was that the tour guides (different ones for different rooms) were not politically correct in any way at all. It was brilliant. They were calling everyone 'scum' and 'maggots' and stuff like that - was very VERY funny, and I seemed to one of the few who thought it was funny haha. So yeh London Dungeons, good, but do it once and maybe get someone else to pay if you can haha. Oh yeah, now the bit about the gift shop. You see I historically never went into gift stores, leaving that job up to other most experienced shoppers. But lately, since I've been a bit single I've taken a bit of shine to going in there and having a bit of a poke around. So after the Dungeon I went through their gift shop and had a bit of a look... and looky what I found. Skull-Ice making thingys! Thats right, thingys! haha Fill them with water (or Jelly) and freeze them up to make you very own skull ice blocks! woohoo! How cool is that! (I'm making some ice now as we speak!).



So on Wednesday I got up nice and early and decided to go for a walk over to see the Cutty Sark (it's a big old ship for those of you naughty people who don't watch the History Channel). Recently it caught fire and almost burnt away completely, they managed to stop it, but a lot of damage was done to it. So now it is all under cover and being totally restored... god knows how many millions of pounds it will take to restore but it's a national icon and the money will be undoubtedly well spent. I heard from a lady who was in the know, that this time, they are actually going to raise it into the air so that you can actually walk under it as well and see a complete 360 degree view of the boat. Very Awesome. I didn't mind not seeing the actual boat when I went there, because I though that it was actually quite neat to be there at that particular time. I can always come back another time to see it when it is repaired - but to be there at that point in time, I thought was pretty neat. Yeh I know, sometimes I can be a bit weird.

So anyhow, just beside the Cutty Sark is Greenwich Park. This piece of land has been used for many hundreds of years because of the natural land formation around it. It was been used for Royalty lodgings and Naval things for hundreds of years and you can see that upon visiting. The Chapel and the Painted Hall are right beside each other, I went into the Chapel first, it was magnificant with glorious paintings and sculptures and memorials, but it was lucky I went there first as it paled in comparison to the Painted Hall. Hmmm - how do I talk about the Painted Hall... well I can do this --> http://www.oldroyalnavalcollege.org/the-painted-hall/ and then tell you to go have a look at some of my photos... but in all honesty - it's one of those things you hae to see to a) believe and b) appreciate. I'm glad I came to London to see it.

I also went to the Maritime museum and cruised around. I went and did the must-see, saw Nelsons coat he was wearing when he recieved his mortal wound. Now, I was in the museum and I took a photo of it - but I was fiddling with the settings and the flash went off and alerted the guards... and I got told off for taking photos... Well, bloody hell, no one told me when I came into the museum and there were no signs around telling me so I was a pit 'peeved' when I got told off.... but probably more peeved at the fact that I got caught by not checking the flash setting haha doh!

From the museum (after spending close to 2 hours in there) I went up to the British Royal Observatory. It has several bits of history going for it, several people who lived there (and entertained even more famous people) charted stars and gave great things to astronomy, but ofcourse the main thing that everyone comes there to see it the Greenwich Mean Time line. It's the line that the world time is measured from and is another one of those things you really should do, as everytime you look at a clock or a time zone, you can always think, "ahh the GMT line - been there, done that, got the T-Shirt!" haha. By this time it was close to 2:30pm - I had spent over 5 hours walking and standing looking at things, and I was carrying my day bag with me, so my back and legs where aching a bit.. (understatement). But I perservered on. Off I went to next highlight of my trip, the "Jack the Ripper" exhibition at the "Museum in Docklands". The exhibition was amazing. The ACTUAL letters and reports from the Ripper and the police at the times. Astounding. I spent over 2 hours in that exhibit alone. I tried to read a lot of a the Ripper's letter and reports, it was pretty incredible seeing the ACTUAL evidence that they had there, pretty much everything. TOTALLY worth 7 pounds and if you like a good mystery, the ripper, is probably the penultimate one for you. By the time I came out I was so sore and in pain from standing up all day I just left without seeing the rest of the museum... I had to go home and rest - the next day I was hobbling around trying recover... wowser what a day!

So yesterday was a bit of a rest day, caught the tube out to see Matt for lunch and generally bummed around. Went over to see Kathleen and Cameron for dinner, Kathleen and/or Cameron cooked a nice seafood meal, and then lol, we ordered pizza! haha I had bought a bottle of bourbon over, and I think I drank most of it by myself...whoops - Jim Beam Black single handedly? haha when the pizzas arrive I almost single handedly destroyed those too... dammit... see earlier points on getting fat... grr. So this morning I woke up with a hangover - not too bad, definitely had worse, and jumped on the tube to come home. On one of the tubes was a black guy who was giving a sermon on the carriage... oh my god, he didn't look too crazy but he certainly sounded like it... I was soo tempted to jump up and give him a rumble but crazy people have a funny habit of stabbing you, so I thought better of it and left him to his preaching to no one and everyone haha.

So yeh thank god, I've caught up with the blog - sorry for being so long winded, I seem to have done a lot over the past few days, but then I seem to have had a few quiet days too... lucky for you eh?! Anyhow, another friend from NZ is in town, Mike Lewis and his girlfriend arrived on Monday. We've been trying to catch up but things just haven't worked out. Might see if he wants to come out to dinner with us tonight, else I will just have to see him on facebook :-)

Cheers
Matt