I love a good travel bargain, so when it was suggested to me that flying to London via Singapore and Munich would save me $700, I was all over that! The consequences of which would dawn on me much later! 35 hours of transit is an interesting physical challenge and the likely hood of your bag making three transfers seems almost fanciful, when you consider they can lose your bag on one jump to Sydney. However I rolled off the plane in Heathrow and my bag was out so fast, it actually went by me before I realised what I was looking at! (Or that could have been the travel time getting to me!).
Being met at the airport by one of my oldest friends Kylie, I think makes travel a luxury! It’s one of those moments where you can hand all control on worrying about finding the right lift, train and station to someone else and just relax into just staying awake and being where you are. After dropping bags off a the flat and grabbing a quick shower, we hit the town by introducing ourselves to Charlie’s Place.
Today was a day of walking, so we braved the crowds and headed off through lovely tree studded parks to Charlies. It was one of those sunny mornings where the tourists (probably) were sunning themselves with picnics in the sun and slow walkers were everywhere!
It’s interesting to come across the Palace from the angle we did. To me it looked unremarkable, just like a lot of other government buildings! But then I was looking at the building out of context and from the wrong angle. Once all of those were in place, it was very surreal to be actually looking at it!
Much of London is easily accessible on foot, which is fabulous if you chance a sunny day, which we did. So off we headed to see what we could see. Big Ben was next on the list. Ben has been getting a clean since before covid and has only recently had his coverings off, revealing a very bright shiny Big Ben. The crowds in this part of London are hectic, as you can imagine, with Westminster Palace, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey all within a stones throw of each other. Being a Sunday, things like Westminster Abbey weren’t open to the public, but we’ll come back and get to it at some stage! (Also… in real life, its much smaller than I would have thought!)
Every time I looked like I was fading, or losing my ability to use my words, we’d duck into a little pub, for a pint and a sit down (and a loo) or South Bank markets to grab a quick bite for lunch.
By around 8:30pm I was losing my ability to speak, so we headed home for wine on the terrace and bed…. Much needed for the day that seemed to go for about 48 hours!
More London to come……..
Work Travel Save Repeat 