London: An Introduction

Biggest few days of my life. Left Brisbane at 1:40pm on the 14^th of January, 2010, Qantas Air flight QF51 from Brisbane to Singapore. Flight itself took seven hours, which seemed to pass incredibly quickly. Met a young lass named Annabel, a British expat, who befriended us immediately as we were discussing coffee types and my severe lack of knowledge about the subject. We had a few hours at Changi Airport, so the three of us terminal hopped and shopped. Jumped on MSN (yay for free WiFi) and had a couple of short but lovely conversations. Plane left Singapore at 12:25. Amazing plane, by the way. Qantas’ newest Airbus A380, the Nancy-Bird Walton. Simply huge. The ability to watch “Skycam”, a camera mounted on the plane’s tail wing, was met by Matt and me with great excitement – we took remote control of the plane and guided it down with the Entertainment unit handset hidden in the armrest. Successfully, I might add.

It took two hours to get from plane to the Tube at Heathrow, and one of those hours was spent sitting on the plane while it was grounded. Got fail? I caught a cold from a stupid German tourist sitting next to me who had one, so I write at the moment with headache, fever, sore throat and blocked nose. Fucking Germans. Anyway, it’s not so bad. Hopefully getting sick early in the trip (indeed before it had begun) will be a way of remaining unsick for the vast majority of the time left. Touch wood.

Customs at Heathrow was a shocker. The line was epic huge to get from plane to baggage collection, where the nice Pakistani girl asked Matt and me whether we’d end up being illegal immigrants one day soon – with more subtlety. It still wasn’t cold at this point, and we were wearing our jackets simply so we didn’t have to carry them. Went down to baggage collection, grabbed bags, and here’s what surprised me: at Brisbane, everybody goes through Customs check, except people they invite to skip the line and bugger off (assumedly if they can’t be bothered checking you, e.g. a family of six). Whereas, at Heathrow, you walk through a gauntlet of customs officers staring at you, seeing if you LOOK suss, and then only detaining suss looking people for checking. Matt and I made it through unchecked. With my Kettle chips in tow – by the way, Dave, they’ve been a bitch to transport everywhere so if you don’t enjoy them like the Pope enjoys a good Mass, I’m going to literally kill you.

Next up, we headed towards the Tube station at Heathrow. Bought our Oystercards from an arrogant Pakistani man, - he must have been upset that we’re kicking their arse at the cricket. Worked out how to get to Bayswater (where we live), and set off. The Tube is interesting. The first one we got in was the diameter of a large Strassburg from Woolworths Springfield Aisle 14. And it stopped like, once every five minutes, for seemingly no reason. I assumed this was due to signal failure, or just poor British planning. We didn’t mind. Our first taste of cold air seeped through the doors whenever they opened at different stations along the way. I was hungering for the cold. Matt was excited at the prospect of seeing his first snow ever – though it wasn’t blanketed, it was definitely there. We finally connected Tube line from Piccadilly to Circle and got off at Bayswater. The cold first hit us here, delicious cold. It was fantastic. I was in my element. We set off on foot towards the Hostel, at 45 Queensborough Terrace in Bayswater, in the City of Westminster. The streets are straight out of Harry Potter – every one of them looks like Little Whinging. Winding our way through, the Hostel was 10 minutes walk from the Tube station. We left our bags in the holding room (I say room, it was like a closet) as we couldn’t check in until 2pm and it was currently 9:30am, and set off for a walk. We walked through Hyde Park (and got kicked out – a “Police Incident” – we surmised someone dead by the lake as it was cordoned off) and kept walking towards Piccadilly Circus.

The thing you notice about London is, every second building; you want to take a photo of. The architecture is amazing. We took photos in front of statues, buildings, shops, etc. We eventually found our way to Trafalgar Square, and took photos in front of the huge fountains, Nelson’s Column, and the National Gallery. We had lunch, then kept walking towards Westminster Abbey & Big Ben. It’s incredible to stand next to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament – we’ve seen them for years and years in the media and books and games and movies, and now we’ve been there. Just incredible. We photo’d for about an hour.

The time was now 1pm, and we decided to head back to the Hostel to check in. We jumped on the Tube at Westminster. (Public toilet cost – 50p). We bought towels on the way to the hostel (as we realized we’d both forgotten to bring them), with a nice map of the London Underground Network on them – tourist towels. Then checked in, and climbed to the 5^th floor with our bags. The room is the size of Elliot Dolan-Evans’ room in St. Lucia – meaning, it’s a shoebox. Unsuccessfully trying to connect to the hostel’s WiFi, we both collapsed on our own beds and slept until 9pm (or 7am Brisbane time). Stupid jet lag has me awake now, at 10pm, or 8am Brisbane local. About to try and fall asleep again. Goodnight, diary. Or good morning, if you’re in Brisbane. *Sigh*. A good day.