Arrival in London

Hi everyone!

Landed safely in London after 3 long flights but did manage to get some sleep along the way fortunately. The flight from Brisbane to Singapore was one of the best we've ever done for that sector - almost bump free and extremely 'smooth sailing' as they say. That was 7 1/2 hrs, Singapore to Abu Dhabi 5 /12 hours then Abu Dhabi to London another 7 1/2 hrs. I had a shower in Abu Dhabi and freshened up a bit which made me fee a little better but for those who have done that haul, you know how hard it is!

Anyway lobbed into London -BUSY!!!! We were on hold going round in circles for about 20 minutes until it was our turn to land - immigration queue was HUGE, am certain there would have been about 150 in that queue - thank goodness for the 'Fast Track' cards we had - 6 people in our queue! Out to bagge claim, ahh, a little section for our bags which had been cordoned off, didn't even have to lift them off the carousel so our arrival was uneventful. Until we got this twitchy, nervous, erratic driver into London - even had to stop and plug in his GPS to see where he was!!! Window up, window down, look left, look right, look in mirror, look left, window up, window down, sun in my eyes, look left, sunshade up, window down....and so it went on, oops car toot behind, move over, he's gone, indicator on, indicator off, window up, sunshade up, window down.... (good story????)!

Anyway, into hotel at 9am, room not ready (understandable) so had planned to catch the big red bus and do that tour which we did. Follwed it through it's way around London - even sat upstairs in the o pen - a bit breezy but otherwise pleasant. Timed it perfectly to get off at the Buckingham Palace stop and watch the changing of the guard parade. Tour guide suggested we 'head over there' get your good parade photos then fight the crowd for any other view we wanted - he was correct, stood right where the parade comes out of it's gates and got my happy snaps then had a quick bun fight with how ever many other thousands of people and no photos - way too hard there. 1 up for the tour guide!

Back on the bus and completed the 2 1/2 hr circuit until tomorrow (mmm... now today -qtr to 4am now) when we'll hop on and off at the bits we want to see. Bite to eat then into the hotel for 2pm check in. Shower, blob, bit of TV then we would have been asleep by 4pm. And as said, it's now 4 am and we're 'up and at em!" Ho hum!

So that's our arrival! Sun up, sun down, coffee on, coffee off, tv on, tv off.......yawwwwnnnnnnn..... Back to bed.....