Well as it turns out, I did sleep for a lot of that flight. I think I must have slept for about 10 of those 12.5 hours. Pretty good I thought. I missed 1 meal but that was ok as it was the first one and I still was digesting 276 tonnes of crabmeat in mah belly. It wasn't until about 10 hours later did I actually get hungry. The sleep wasn't that great, I was sort of asleep but not really, waking every 60-90 minutes to move around a bit and to hear noises and to check my watch. Eventually I have about 2 hours left in the flight and they woke up all up to have breakfast which was about 4am London time. I hate all my meal and sat back waiting for us to land. It wasn't as bad as a lot of people make out to be either, we had to circle the airport for an extra 10 minutes and we had to sit in between runways in the middle of the airport waiting to taxi across the runways but it was only another 5 minute delay and we were ahead of time a bit so no biggie.

I got through customs and all that perfectly ok - no big dramas there and found Michelle waiting outside for me big smiles and hugs waiting for me. Very nice indeed. So anyhow she lead me over to the underground train, ofcourse I had no idea where I was going but she lead me around, up and down the stairs and escalators and stuff, so I just followed along happily. We had to change trains a few times, once because someone had died on the tracks (fell or jumped and was electrocuted and died - Michelle said it happens quite regularly) so we had to switch around a bit. We didn't get back to her place until about lunchtime. She bought me a train ticket and showed me quickly how to use the trains and stuff, and she had to go back to work so she went wone way and I went another. I walked along the Thames a bit and looked around, very brown and yucky looking as it always is. I walked across London Bridge, over to the Tower of London and around a bit. I was pretty damn tired by this point and there were heaps of people around (which I have found to be quite normal) so I decided I couldn't be bothered doing anymore, so I turned around and came home. I didn't quite make it all the way home though and ended up in the pub that Michelle pointed out as her local. I stopped in and got a beer or two and texted her to say I was there and she replied saying her husband Matt would come past around 5pm and stop in. Sure enough he did I think I started on my 3rd or so drink by then. Michelle turned up an hour or so later and also her friend Tanya. I was having a pretty good time around my 6th beer, getting loud and rowdy and laughing a lot as usual for me. Then I friggened blinked and woke up back in their flat lying on the couch at 7am in the morning. CURSES!!! FOILED AGAIN! I blame the jetlag I think. I don't think I've ever wiped out like that before... crazy. And the hangover, well, I just had to rate it, probably the 2nd worse ever that I had had. Man I felt like I was gonna die, damn I felt bad. Michelle was laughing at me and bought me a glass of water, half of which I drank with some Aspirin. About 10 minutes later I threw up 4 times in a row, which is weird because I have ever thrown up in the morning... whoa just crazy... It must have been like 10 hours plus since I last had something to drink. But it was good though, as about 30 minutes later I was right as rain aside from a small headache, so I popped a few more aspiring (as the last lot got flushed) and off I went sightseeing again.

The next day I decided to wander around central london and just walk and see what I could find. I found a Starbucks which I procured a yummy hot coffee and then I found the Museum of London. Well you see the thing is, I quite like Museums, and also in London, they all seem to be free to get into, which is awesome. Well the museum didn't open till 10am (they all don't open til then) and I got there at around 9:15am and had to wait a little while hehe. I spent over 3 hours in that Museum wandering around and the damn place was half closed due to them working on the bottom half of the building. And after that I was pretty tired, and my legs and hips were saying the same thing. But I pushed on and walked around a bit more, which turned out to be a lot more. I walked along the Thames more and found The Eye of London, a giant Ferris wheel, and Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings. But it was a crappy day, with it raining pretty solidly for most of the day so I found a road that look mostly sheltered and walked down that, away from the river and in a semi-direction back to the London Bridge train station. Although little did I know I had already walked a considerable distance in sort of the wrong direction... well not wrong, just away from the place I was intending on ending up at :-) So I found a subway station and went for it. I was like spider man, jumping form train to train, to-ing and fro-ing and I found my way back to the station I was supposed to be at. How chuffed was I? haha I felt pretty good about myself.

The next day, which was yesterday, I got up and leisurely got ready, and then decided that today was going to be train adventure day. I was going to try and catch trains to all sort of stations and have a look around some of the more popular stations to see what I could find. I didn't get too far. I went to 2 or 3 of them, mainly remembering the names by referring to memories of an old monopoly board I used to play on hehe. Then I found Bakers St. Woohoo Sherlock Homes! So I went for a walk and also found Madam Tussaud's but the queue outside was about a kilometre long, so passed on that... (christ sakes London is busy!). After wandering around Bakers Street I went to Kings Cross, which had a lot of action going on and I had a bit of a wander around there... didn't find anything there though hehe so decided I was going to go on to Victoria station, surely there would be something there. It was about 4 stops away from my present location so I jumped on the train and waited. After about 2 stops I hit South Kensington the announcer said, home of museums! woohoo! I was looking for those the other day and couldn't find them and I had stumbled on them by accident. I went into the Museum of Natural something or rather... and DAMN it was good! I was in there 4 hours looking at stuff. I had to have a few sit-downs cos it's hard work doing all that looking! I still didn't finish the place either and had to leave around 4pm just to get home by 5ish. It was a hell of a good musuem though and maybe I'll go back and look at it agian soemtime there was some brilliant stuff there.

I also have to do the Albert and Victoria Musuem, the Science and Technology Musuem and the Imperial Was Musuem. Holy Major Musuem country batman! haha
So last night Matt (Michelle's husband) Michelle and I went out for a Turkish meal, pretty damn yummy to be honest, and poor old Michelle hit a few too many red wines and ended up calling half of NZ on the telephone when we got home. I was careful not too drink too much after the last few days efforts hehe.

Right-e-ho then We are off to Wales tomorrow and I will report back in a few days - and hopefully have uploaded a few more photos by then.

Cheerio
Matt