Author: Baldy

Home Sweet Home

We landed back home this morning after a good last few days away.

We spent the last few days of last week visiting some more museums and other touristy attractions, and then went for lunch at Hard Rock Cafe in London on Thursday.  DON'T DO IT!!!  R1,500 for four of us, for some of the worst food I've had in my life!

Leigh-Ann also managed to find a shop with a Wii in stock, and bought it for Josh for his birthday, I may be playing with his birthday present as much as him.

On Saturday morning I was out of the house fairly early, and in town around 10.  I walked around the Prologue route making sure that the spot I picked on the map was a good one, which it was, and at around 12 I took my position when I noticed that the railings were starting to get crowded.

At around 1:30 the race caravan started coming around the route, I knew the caravan was long, but I did not expect it to last for almost an hour with continuous vehicles coming past.  Some of these must be very scary & uncomfy to drive for the full Tour route, but they do.

Once the first rider went off it was all action with a rider coming past at least every minute and few seconds, the million and a half crowd going wild every time a british rider came past.

At 6, a few minutes before the last rider went off, I decided to beat the rush, and left my spot to walk back up to Marble Arch to catch the tube back home after standing in the same spot for just over 6 hours, it hurt almost as much as riding for that amount of time, but definitely worth it in the end.

Next time I will make sure that I follow the Tour for a few days, and not only get to watch one.

Sunday was spent travelling back to Paris, and Monday we basically had to get to the airport with all our baggage so we couldn't do any more sightseeing in Paris.

Some London site seeing

Today we spent some time in London city itself, visiting some museums and finally taking one of the open top bus tours.  If this rain would just stop for a bit, maybe we'd be able to do more.

Our first stop was the British museum, where we saw a lot of artefacts from Egyptian, Roman & Persian times.  Quite interesting, but we couldn't stay too long, this place definitely did not interest children.  Next stop was the Natural Science museum, lots more interesting stuff to see, with lots of fossils and other displays.  A day at the museums is not the most interesting place for a five year old, so we had to move quite quickly through most of it, until we got to the T-Rex display, where we spent some time.

For lunch we tried Burger King for the first time, needless to say I will not be doing that again, as bad as McDonalds, if not worse.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on an open top bus, with us sitting in the covered part of the top section because of the rain.  The plans were to stay in London for dinner and then go on the eye, but then rain started getting worse, so we decided to come home and try that another day.

My Sunday was spent doing some gadget shopping, as I was looking for an iPod replacement after mine decided to stop working a while ago.  After visiting about 40 electronics shops and comparing prices, I was very tempted to buy myself a UMPC, but they are still a bit pricy, coming in at around 750 pounds.  I settled on the Archos DVR, which is basically a personal video and music player with 80GB of storage, a 4" display, and the ability to connect to any TV/AV device and record from it, or play back to it, as well as change channels etc when necessary.  I'll be doing a bit of a review once I've had it for a while.  I've seen these second hand on Bid or Buy & eBay for around R2,500, so when I managed to bargain the guy down to 200 pounds I was quite happy, this one came with a remote & tv pod, which the second hand ones didn't have.

UK – Day 1 & 2

Our first day in the UK was spent doing as little as possible.  We took a walk to the shops to get some required supplies, after getting things confiscated on OR Tambo because of the ridiculous fluid limits on personal luggage, you are allowed to take as much fluid as you want, as long as there's no more that 100ml in a container.  What is that going to help?  They actually force you to put all the bottles in a clear re-sealable plastic bag, providing you with a nice big container, should your plans be to mix all those fluids for whatever sinister reasons you have.  IDIOTS!

We did go for dinner at one of the local pubs, where the food was not so good, but the beer was.  Then at 9, one of  the waiters walk up and say we have to leave now.  WHAT? We had just ordered a new round, and barely taken a sip.  And we behaved!

So the bartender says that they are only licensed to have kids in the establishment until 9, and he'd gladly refund our money because he forgot to tell us earlier.  Cheapest round I've ever bought, downed the pint, took my money and left.

We're now visiting some friends, and I got my first drive on a Nintendo Wii yesterday.  Now this is definitely a console I will buy, and a great pity we do not get them in SA.  For those of you who don't know what a Wii is, look at http://www.nintendo.com/channel/wii.

Brilliant concept, and even one you can let the kids play all day, since you get some serious exercise while playing.  The controls have motion sensors in them, so with the sport games we played, you actually swing the control alike a raquet/club/bat/bowling ball to play.  Great fun, I'll be looking for one before we come home.

Travelling from Paris to London

Today was spent going from Paris to London.  We took off early from the hotel and caught the train into Paris, from there changing onto the Eurostar.

A 3 hour train ride later we were in London.  I kind of expected that travelling at 250+ km/h would be more impressive.  It was fast, but didn't feel that way with the smoothness of the train.  I'll definitely have to do the same speed in a car to get the full effect.  I also expected us to be in the chunnel for about an hour, but we were out in about 30 minutes flat, the only signal that we were now in the UK was the english road signs.

Once in London, we had to do some more train riding to get to Leigh-Ann's sister's place, where we could catch up with her parents before they went back to SA.

And once again, at 9:30 at night, the sun is still shining, and my body clock is now seriously screwed up, not sure when to sleep and when to be awake.

 Later…

Paris – Day 3

Today we spent the day at Euro Disney.

To be honest, had I known what I know now, I would rather have gone to Paris again.  Not because I didn't like Disney, purely because it was too busy.

Everything, from getting into the place to taking a piss required standing in a que!  Some of the rides had estimated waiting times of 90 minutes or more.  Needless to say, I gave all the big-name rides a skip.  I cannot handle standing in so many queues.

Next time, I'll make sure we come out of season, and spend at least 3 days in the park.  The place is too big to try and see everything in one day.

Out of the things we did do, the Studio Tour was brilliant, with a set that simulated earthquakes, had some fire, and doused the lot with 265,000 litres of water in about 2.5 seconds.  An impressive sight indeed.

The pirates of the carribean boat trip was quite good.  And we attempted a trip through the haunted house, but that is clearly not for young kids, with Josh crying most of the way through.

 My legs are pretty sore from the previous two days standing and walking, and with today's added, it's getting worse.

And at 21:15, we wtill have as much daylight as at 5 in the afternoon in SA.

Anyway, tomorrow we take the Eurostar to London, I'll keep you updated.

 Lessons learnt:

Try to travel out of season, and find out what's in and out of season in your destination.  It seems to be school holidays here, with most of the people in Disney speaking some European language.

Book all the tickets you can upfront, it will make lafe a bit easier, and less shock on the wallet.