Round the World with Mick

Please see http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaellar/ for photos.

I arrived in London and went via London Bridge station to get to Schona's house. She picked me up from the Blackheath station near her in Lewisham and we headed back to her place for a drink and a catch up. Schona is Kerri's friend from Ads and I am lucky enough to have met her in Melbs and I was also lucky enough to be able to stay with her and Matt in London. We spent some time taking a million photos of her apartment to make Kerri feel like she was there with us.

Matt arrived home shortly and we established our mutual Ads connections (this is starting to weird me out a little) before heading out to Zero degrees brewery for pizza and beer. We walked home after dinner along the Heath which I have often read about but never seen. According to Schona (and she is a school teacher so she is just about as credible as a scientist...) there are many bodies buried under the heath from the Black Plague so they don't build on it. It is quite odd to have a such a large area of grassed green area in London. but very beautiful.

The next day, Schona and I set off to Brighton for the day. I contined to be impressed by Schona's driving skills- we didn't get lost once or need to look at a map driving to Brighton- Schona had only been driving in London for a week before I arrived!

Brighton was absolutely beautiful (when it stopped raining) and we had fun finding a pub for lunch (it was a bit of an effort choosing one from the hundreds) in the laneways of Brighton. After sausages and mash and a beer we headed down to the Brighton pier where we had a bash at Dolphin Derby- we were embarrassed by some young uns and sought out some fairy floss for the true carnival experience....

We headed home for the evening to be greeted by Matt and a home cooked meal of chicken stir-fry and lentils. I have a new found appreciation for vegetables and home cooking after travelling for 4 weeks!!

The next day Schona and I headed to Greenwich where Schona was getting her haircut. It was a miserable London day but I had fun exploring the old naval college- now Greenwich university. It was very very beautiful. More old buildings. Went past the Cutty Sark and found some shops for a look. Schona and I had some awesome curry for lunch and stopped in briefly at home for a nanna nap before heading out to get half price tickets at Leicester square for the theatre in the West End.

We managed to nab some bargain-ish tickets to 'The Producers' and we sheltered from the rain in a pub waiting for Matt before heading to the theatre. The show was great (though it didn't take long for the ushers to identify us as the rowdy aussies- I think it was because we were busted trying to take our bottle of wine in with us..) After the show we headed home via some burgers.

In the great tradition of goodbyes haunting my holiday I farewelled Matt and Schona on Thursday morning and I headed off in to London to meet up with Hayley at Victoria station.

Having not seen Hayley for 4 years since we worked together at WCH in ads, I was very excited to finally catch up with her!! It was like old times. We had a great time wandering around London past Buckingham palace and covent garden, parliament house and big ben. London by night is a bit of alright.

Camilla and Grant are in the final stages of preparation for their wedding on Jan 6th 2007 and two of Grant's groomsmen live in London. I haven't met either of them- Grant's brother, Warwick, or Grant's best friend, Nick. They both live in or near Clapham so I found a train to take me there and met them at The Clapham North for a drink or five and a meal. It was great swapping stories and collaborating on the Best Man's speech (although I suspect Grant and Camilla may have had some nervous moments back in Adelaide receiving updates by sms).

We finally said goodbye before the last train and I headed home to try and get a few hours sleep before I had to get up and head off to battle Heathrow security again.

After falling asleep in the airport and being woken by a kindly sole before my plane took off I boarded and began my 11hr flight to LAX.

Ta Ta from the UK.