London Calling

We thought we were clever, negotiating with the Paris metro system to make sure that we reached the train station from which we had a fancy very fast train booked to go to London. As it turned out, the process of boarding said train is actually incredibly complicated, including customs forms and passport checks, which resulted in us cutting it so very fine to actually board the train itself (this is after I filled out two customs forms faster than I've ever filled out anything before) that was actually missed it.

Thankfully the ticket checking guy that informed us that we'd missed the train took pity on us. The fact that I was clearly about to burst into tears at that news (since we'd been told that if we missed the train there was no opportunity to get another ticket, we'd have to spend hundreds of euros buying another ticket) probably helped make our plight a little more pitiable. He arranged for us to take the next train, we boarded with as much time as possible (we're not stupid enough to cut things that fine twice in one morning), and we were thankfully safely on our way to London.

We were delighted to discover that we were given food along the way! Macarons for dessert!

In virtually no time at all, we arrived in London.

Thank goodness the station offered free wi-fi Internet, so we could figure out how to get to our accomodation. We managed this, met up with our good friends Dave and Cassie who had just arrived from Australia for their own massive Europe trip, and set out again to see what there was to be seen in London.

...Like telephone boxes!

And of course, buildings!

Our first meal in London? Mexican! Some might argue that multicultural food is potentially more London-ish than London pub food!

This is Tom imitating the 'We Will Rock You' musical advertisement behind him, in case that wasn't obvious.

We made our way to Leicester Square to see if it was possibly to get some theatre tickets for that weekend (we had arrived on a Saturday afternoon).

Nothing that was available was persuasive enough for us, so we moved on.

We caught the tube a number of times that afternoon.

Which gave us some giggles - reckon this is an ordinary cross section of London residents?

Tom and Dave were delighted to find a 'Fight Club' on our way to meet up with some of their friends who live in London...

In case it isn't clear in this photo, that's a rubbish bin painted like a cow. I thought it was funny.

We eventually arrived at a beer garden type place to meet up with Dave and Cassie's friends...

And then moved on to dinner at a... wait for it... Vietnamese restaurant! So very English.

On our way 'home', we were appropriately amazed at the size of one lady's heels. Unfortunately this photo doesn't do justice to just how high they really were. It was quite possibly the highlight of our evening, I'm telling you!

The boys were pretty excited to discover this fancy light exposition thing in a park we wandered through as we made our way to the 'tube'.

I promise we got a bit more serious the next day and started doing proper touristy things!