London - Friend and Squirrel Fun Times!

Written 26^th June 2012

We had a cup of tea and a chin wag 

and then when Gerry got home we all went out. 

First they took us to Richmond park to see the deer. They were so cool! It is this massive park – bigger than 100 acres, and full of deer. Red deer too! Me and Steve were happy. After that Gerry took us by the sports stadium where I liked the statue of some men doing that jumpy thing they do when there is a line out in rugby. Then, on to the pub! Alex was very kind and bought everyone dinner. It was yummy too! 

Steve had bangers and mash. 

We all had a great time chatting and catching up. 

Then jumped back in the car and Gerry drove us back through the maze that is London to their place. We set up our beds in the lounge, like a sleep over and had a good night's sleep.

The next morning Steve, Alex, and I got up (Sarah and Gerry having gone to work as it was a Monday) and had a shower. It was tricky as they have one of those ones where you sit in the tub and then use the shower rose. Sarah taught us about the right technique. Then (after getting dressed of course) we did some washing. The washing machine kept tricking Alex - she thought it had stopped but it kept starting again just as she was leaning down to open the door! Haha it was funny! 

Next we all headed down to the train station and Steve and I bought Oyster Cards (for using on the trains.) 

We jumped on the first train into town and tried (unsuccessfully) to contain our giggles as the speaker announced, “This is Northfields. This is a Piccadilly Line service to Cockfosters.” At every station it repeated, “This is a Piccadilly Line service to Cockfosters.” 

And we would giggle a little more. Every one else on the train was clearly used to this and kept completely straight faces the whole time. We went into Leicester Square station so Alex could ask about musicals.

 Then we randomly found our way to Trafalgar square where we watched people climbing on the Lion statues and visited the National Portrait Gallery which I thoroughly enjoyed.

 Alex went to meet her friend Tiff 

and Steve and I wandered down towards Big Ben and the parliament buildings and Westminster Abby. 

After admiring them we went and got a sandwich and contacted Aaron who was at a pub nearby with Jess, Tim, and Reece. 

We went and met up with them and had a fun afternoon. Steve got a bit drunk on Guinness and I ate some gummy bears.

Happily Sarah, Alex, and Tiff, were able to come and meet us there as well so we all hung out together for a bit which was nice. 

Then we hopped back on the tube to return home 

for a yummy meal cooked by Gerry. (Thanks again Gerry!)

The next morning (Tuesday) we caught the tube into town again and this time went to see The Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. The Guards all looked very flash in their uniforms. And the band was too. 

When we went up to try and peep through the crowed out the gate we heard them playing a tune from Greece the movie! 

Alex got to join the Blue Shoes Club.

After that we walked back along the road and to Hyde park 

where we found some berries and fed them to the squirrels. This was my favorite part about London apart from seeing all our friends. The squirrels were so SO cute! I wanted to play with them all day. 

The way they scamper across the ground and bound up the trees is so adorable. We gave one squirrel two berries and the second one it buried. It was so sweet. It even patted the ground down when it was done and put a leaf on top of it! Their tails are so fluffy and cute. I wanted to take one home as a pet. I said maybe it could be friends with Bethell and Steve said Bethell would probably eat it. But dreams are free. :) 

We headed over towards Harrods where we were meeting Sarah for a look around and lunch.

We were a little early so we had a look in Top Shop which was across the road and was filled with exciting things like fluorescent pink jeans and frilly dresses. I wanted to buy the whole shop but bought nothing. We crossed the road to the train station and discovered Steve's bag had been unzipped! It was a close call but his iPad was still inside thank God! We entered the wonderful world of Harrods. It was amazing in there! In the fruit and veggie part they had these spectacular chandeliers! I wish I took a photo of them! We bought some sandwiches and went back to the park to eat them. They were yummy.

Continued 20^th July 2012.

So long since I have written! But last time I ran out of battery on my lap top and since then it has not always been either easy to get power or the time to write. But now I will do a catch up if I can remember back that far!!! So...

After lunch by the pond Sarah headed back to work and Alex and Tiff headed off to do some sight seeing. We walked down to the Natural History Museum which was awesome! I loved looking at everything. 

And I didn't take too long and try and read every sing thing so Steve did not get fed up with my slowness and had a good time too. I really loved the towering dinosaur skeletons. 

We didn't get to see the T-Rex though because he was on holiday. After the museum we caught the underground and met up with Sarah, Gerry, Alex, Tiff and Jenna on a boat restaurant.

It was across the Thames from the London Eye.

I compared the confusing coin sizes in Great Britain.

That was fun! And we had barbecue burgers for tea. After that we said goodbye to Tiff and Jenna and went to a pub to watch the footie. 

Alex and I went for a walk for most of the second half and Alex took me to M&M World which is this massive shop with M&M anything you can imagine and they even had M&M's of heaps of pretty colours so we both got a bag. 

We went on the Discover Your Color machine.

I got light blue.

I got normal in pretty blues, pinks, greens, purples, and yellows. Alex got purple peanut MM's. We wandered back to the pub and the score was exactly as we had left it. The game ended a few minutes later which was good timing.

The next morning Alex went off to her new hotel and Steve and I mooched around for a while enjoying being in a house. Then we headed into town on the tube again and went back to Hyde park to feed the squirrels again with Aaron and Jess. 

Aaron got one to climb up his leg! 

We hung out there a bit and then Jess had to go to her new work for a trial. We went with them back to their hostel and then went with Aaron to the Camden Markets which were quite nice markets with lots of cool things for sale. 

I liked the pocket watch necklaces. There were some cute t-shirts too. We had a bit to eat and then went to meet up with Sarah, Gerry, Alex, and Andreas in a pub at a place I have forgotten the name of but which is famous for buskers. We watched one on the way out nd he was super annoying because he kept saying that in a few minutes he would get on wit things and do his trick but we wete there for what seemed like forever. He kept doing quite funny things though – just enough so you wouldn't leave. Plus once you start waiting you don't want to just leave. In the end he did juggle a chainsaw (that was going) with some other things. We ran away as soon as he was done. :) 

We went to China Town and had a yummy tea via post box with giraffe.

Aaron went to collect Jess (who got the job) and we all had a last drink together before going our separate ways on the tube.  

Driving from Berlin to London.

We decided to do a mission drive to London so we could be there when Alex was there too. We were going to go to a Doll House Museum in Berlin before we left but when we got there the Doll House Museum was not there! So on we drove, towards The Netherlands. On the way we stopped to go to the loo and I was excited to see it was a self cleaning one. (Do you remember when we we saw one like this Bec, Time, Chris, and Callan?) I videoed it so you can all see how cool it is.

The next day we were both glad to be leaving Berlin. It had been an emotional stay but we were both glad that we had been. Sarah had told us that Alex would be in London on the 17^th of June so we had decided to try and make in there then too so we could see Sarah and Alex at the same time. We had three days to get there. Before we left we tried to find a doll house museum that I wanted to visit but when we arrived at the address it was not there. Foiled again! So we set off across Germany. Steve driving fast to his hearts content along the autobahns. We decided to spend the night in a town called Hameln which is the town the story of the Pied Piper was set in. We found a campsite and went into town for tea (schnitzel, yum!) I was excited by the rat tiles which you could follow around the town to look at the sights.

The next morning after a hot drink in town we continued on our jouney and crossed over into The Netherlands. We stopped in a little town near the border to get lunch and Steve had the best sandwich of his life. We don't know any Dutch but luckily the sandwich lady spoke perfect English. Next stop was another small town, this time in Belgium. We went there so I could look at another doll house museum (having made it to none so far). When we arrived at the address, guess what? It was gone as well!!! Foiled again! So we hopped back in the car and drove on towards the cost where we found a camp site and stayed the night. It was nice to be back on the coast. The following morning we went into town to call home as we were both feeling a little home sick. After that we headed to Calais in France to catch the ferry to Dover in England. At the ticket place they were charging 100 Euro for the ferry but I had seen the tickets from the same company online for 60 Euro just that morning. So I got back online, bought a ticket on there and we headed for customs. The line inched forward so SO slowly! Then someone rolled down his window and said “You're a long way from home!” He was a kiwi who now lived in England. We had a wee chat with him (exciting as we haven't had that many people to talk to so far) and continued to wait for the line to creep forward. When we got the the booth we had to hand our passports over. She looked at every single page. Then we had to answer a whole bunch of questions like how did we know each other, did we know anyone in the U.K., where would we be staying, what was the purpose of our trip, how much money did we have, etc etc. It took ages. At this point it was 5 past 1 and our ferry was due to go at 1.30pm. We thought we were through when we realised we had to go through another booth for the tickets! There were lines there too. And this time the line was going even slower! There was a car at the front from Lithuania and it was there for 10 minutes! Finally they were let through and then the line crawled forward again and we got to go through. The ferry was running late (yay). When we eventually got on board we headed up to the deack to be buffeted and blown by the wind which snatched at our hair and clothing and tried to shove us over the side. It was exhilarating.

The ocean air was refreshing and I felt excited that very soon I would be able to read everything in sight! After we got out of the harbor we went down into the cabin and I read nearly the rest of The Help. Which is a very good book. Steve watched surfing D.V.D.s on his iPad. As we approached England I saw the famous White Cliffs of Dover through the salty windows. Nearly there! We went back up on the deck as we came in to shore. Then it was off the boat, onto the left side of the road again but in the wrong sided car and away to London.

We stopped somewhere at a rest stop to try and re-find Sarah and Gerry's address as it had disappeared from the map. We could not get on the free internet – not having a phone to get a code texted to. So we went into a bookshop (full of books in English!!!) and borrowed a map. There are quite a few Belsize Streers in London but eventually we though we had found the right one and marked in on the other map. While we were there we cooked up the night before's leftovers for a late lunch and a couple who love New Zealand (they visit it every 3 years) started chatting to Steve and invited us to come stay if we were in their area. We were liking England already. We found our way to London and then got stuck in diabolical traffic. So we jumped off the motorway and made our way through the city streets and arrived at Sarah and Gerry's place just after Sarah had arrived back from the airport with Alex! It was SO exciting to see them!