The Original Sightseeing Tour

Although we tried to wake up early this morning, we still managed to meet Tiffany, Andrew and Ash half an hour later than we’d planned. There we bought our tickets for the hop on, hop off service of the Original Sightseeing Tour Bus around London, and were able to sit up the top of our second double-decker bus! With one stop in between, the bus took us through to Trafalgar Square, past the original Hard Rock Café and down Mayfair street, the most expensive property in Monopoly. Ash left us to visit the Australian embassy for a replacement passport while we hopped off at Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards.

For the first twenty minutes the changing was interesting, as the beefeaters yelled and marched across the square. Some more soldiers playing music, came in from the street until eventually there were three different groups of officers standing in the middle of the square. But by this stage, forty minutes and some cold wind on, we were feeling less interested, and they seemed to have stopped doing anything anyway. So we left the changing of the guard, hopped onto the bus again (not before spotting Lauren and Therese running across the street) and headed to the original Hard Rock Café for lunch.

We had come to the café at the start of its forty years, not that there were really any celebrations yet. Once again, the food was delicious and the décor amazing. There was a full Elton John suit in the hallway to the bathrooms. We then went down into the vault of the shop, where we could have paid ten pound to have a photo with the guitar of either Gene Simmons, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Oasis or Steve Vai. We were content to look and not touch, but Justine and I decided we needed t-shirts.

After lunch we hopped back onto the bus to head to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. From here we got a good view of the London Eye as well, but couldn’t go into Westminster Abbey as it was already closed. Justine and I figured we’d seen it in the movie last night anyway. We got on the bus again and walked through Trafalgar Square for a change over, before doing some souvenir shops. Really, how could we leave London without a telephone box and bus key chain?

Justine and I caught the tube home, arriving just before Hilary got home from work. There the three of us headed around the corner to have dinner at an Italian restaurant Hilary had never been to, but always seemed to be busy. It was quite full, and the food quite good which was probably not a coincidence. We walked the two minutes back around the corner and were able to have a relaxing night in. How we have missed those.