Prague: The photo evidence

Here are the promised photos of Prague. I've tried to make them larger than the photos in previous posts, but I'm not sure how successful it's been.

This is us outside St Vitus' Cathedral at Prague castle. Note the amazingly blue sky in the background - our first really good weather since leaving Brisbane seven months go!

This will hopefully give an idea of the huge crowds of tourists at the castle. Click on the photo for a larger image (if the experiment to resize them hasn't been successful). There were thousands and thousands of tourists around.

A random building in the old town. Think it's a theatre or a restaurant, or possibly both.

Statue of King Wenceslas in his eponymous square. I didn't see this in the flesh, as I was having a nap back at the hotel due to my horrid cold.

Megan and Brett at the Prague brewery (with the stinky person at the next table).

The interior of the Estates Theatre, all ye-olde and decorated. Very cool.

The chandelier at the Estates Theatre.

View from the castle gardens of the winding streets down to the river.

On the Charles Bridge, early morning. Another day with blue skies! The castle is in the background - that might be St Vitus' Cathedral...?

The Old Town, with the Astronomical Clock on the lefthand side. Note the crowds of tourists.

Kafka's house. Pretty cool building, even without that claim to fame.

The Astronomical Clock in action. It has lots of random dials and hands and pictures. No one really knows exactly what it all means.

View of some fancy buildings from our boat cruise.

View of the Charles Bridge from the opposite bank. Note the crowds of tourists.

A statue near the Kafka museum. Yes, the figures are doing what you think they are doing. You can even text a word or name or phrase to them and they will spell it out for you; the perfect gift for someone who has everything.

Prague Spring

This is a belated post as we went to Prague (and promised a blog entry) some time ago. Anyway.

It was a long weekend and we took off an extra day to give us a good break.

On the Thursday evening we flew to Altenburg airport. Just one runway, next to a tin shed and serviced only by Ryanair. There didn't see to be any physical restriction to wandering off out of the airport once stepping off the plane, I guess they rely on people doing the right thing in a country where law enforcement officers and other security personnel carry big guns. Really big guns. After the usual scare when immigration lingered worryingly over my passport, we jumped on a bus to Leipzig where we were staying that night. (Getting to Prague via Leipzig was much cheaper and gave us more time to sightsee). I had thought I might get a chance to sample a specialty Leipzig beer known as Gose. It's made with coriander and salt. Sounds digusting but would have been worth trying for novelty value. Unfortunately, we never really got the chance as we were well ready for bed when we arrived and didn't have much time in the next morning to go beer hunting.

The train trip to Prague was lovely, as the line runs much of the way next to the Elbe River at the bottom of the valley. It was a lovely sunny day and we passed through loads of little villages strung out along the river. Our carriage was quiet, luckily as it turns out, as the next carriage along had a group of several German lads, presumably off on a stag weekend, who were very loud, drunk and stinky, and clogging up the aisle. I had to squeeze past der Chappie who was pouring another glass from their keg.

One thing about Prague: there are an awful lot of smokers and it's not against the law to smoke in a public place, as far as we could tell. The lobby of the hotel we stayed at got pretty rank at times while we were there. Eating out was a particularly hazardous exercise, and not just because the Czech love their stodgy, carbo-loaded meals. The highlight was when we had coffee in the hotel cafe, and were the only people in a room with about thirty tables. Another couple came in and sat down at the table right next to ours. And proceeded to smoke their incredibly disgusting cigarettes. We moved into the next room, receiving a semi-glare from the smokers when we explained to the bemused waiter why we were leaving.

Megan and Brett were accompanying us on this trip and we were due to arrive in the evening sometime. We didn't know when exactly so decided to have dinner (we were pretty ravenous). We went to a semi touristy place (English on the menu, but Czechy sort of food and not touristy prices) where I had, as it turned out, the best beer and the stodgiest (think potato dumplings and heavy bread) food of the trip.

The next day all four of us walked to the castle and were confronted by a sickening abundance of tourists. The castle area covers a huge area and contains many buildings, including St Vitus' Cathedral. You can walk around for free but have to pay to enter the buildings, apart from the Cathedral. Almost all of the buildings had huge queues to enter and the cathedral's would have been an least an hour, probably more. We went into one building that was not quite so crowded, which housed 'The Story of Prague Castle'. It was quite good, not least because it wasn't busy, although C. did get told off in loud, broken English by an official for touching a wooden door (apparently it was old, or some rubbish like that).

We decided to come back later that afternoon, in the wistful hope that the crowds may have died down, and trotted off to look for lunch.

Afterwards, with me grinning the grin that only a man who has just eaten 8 grilled chicken wings can grin, we went on a very touristy boat ride on the river. It was about what you'd expect. Earlier we had seen a very surprising sign in the river, warning not to swim because of the sharks! I asked the guide on the boat about that and he said that some years ago a dead shark was found in the river and the sign was put up just in case. It turned out that a restaurant near the river had had a dead shark flown in to be part of a display and had thrown it into the river afterwards. I'm not sure what was more improbable, the sign or his story, but either way, something smelled fishy and it wasn't just the shark.

As we about to de-ship, C got loudly told off for the second time that day for briefly sticking her arm out from the edge of the boat. Whatever, man!

Poor old C was not having a good time regardless, as she had been fighting a cold all week and was now exhausted. She returned to the hotel for some much needed rest while M, B and I continued on. We went back to the castle and visited a few more of the buildings/sights but unanimously decided that they really weren't worth it. The queue to the Cathedral was still diabolical so we left it for some other time.

Dinner was pizza at 'sit down on the street under a tent' type of place, notable only because the waitress spoke no English (it's amazing what you can communicate with smiles, nods and pointing). We're pretty sure she thought we were French.

Anyway, C. now takes up the story.

The next day, after breakfast in the incredibly busy hotel dining room (which probably housed about ten different bus loads of tourists), we headed out to the Old Town. The first stop was the Charles Bridge, which is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Prague. We had seen it from the other side of the river and from the tourist boat the day before, and the crowd on it was so thick that it was at a standstill. This was partly because one half of the Old Town end was blocked off by scaffolding, but it was still incredibly clogged by tourists. But because we were there pretty early, we managed to walk on it relatively speedily. It would have looked a lot more attractive without the scaffolding, but it was still lovely.

Then we headed into the proper parts of the Old Town, led by B who seems to have Google maps built into his brain. We saw the astronomical clock, which is weird and cool and large. It was about 10.30 when we arrived, so we settled in with some coffee to wait for the 11am chiming of the clock. The lonely planet guide warned that the display on the hour would be short, bizarre and somewhat of a letdown, and it was all three. The highlight was undoubtedly the strange 'raspberry' sound at the conclusion of the show. I'm not sure the huge crowd that had gathered at the base of the clock was entirely convinced, but anyway.

We then wandered to the Estates Theatre and bought tickets for that evening's performance of 'Rinaldo' by Handel. The Estates Theatre is old, and was where Mozart personally conducted the premiere of 'Don Giovanni'...pretty impressive. After wandering through the Old Town some more, we had lunch at a Sushi Station-type place, though with a much faster-moving conveyer belt. It was a bit like a competitive sport to get the plates out of the display case in time. After lunch, I headed back to the hotel for another nap before the theatre that night. G, M & B went to St Wenceslas Square to see the sights, and then to a ye olde brewery/pub for some Czech beer. Apparently I was lucky to miss the brewery, as the party at the next table included a gentleman to whom deodorant was clearly a stranger. Not fun.

We met back at the hotel then headed off to the theatre. It was such an experience, as it was such a beautiful theatre on the inside. Picture period films with scenes set at the opera. The theatre is always about six storeys high, with lots of private boxes, a decorative ceiling, and a giant chandelier. The Estates Theatre had all this, which was pretty spectacular. We weren't able to find four seats together, so M & I sat together at the end of a row while the gentlemen were halfway across the theatre. We were lucky that we were in the front row and could lean onto the railing, as otherwise we would not have been able to read the surtitles (which were in both Czech and English). 'Rinaldo' was well performed and the singers were great, but the plot itself lacks excitement. It's as though Handel had written 90% of the show, then realised it was premiering in one week so hastily finished the story off with a "they all lived happily ever after" conclusion. None of us knew anything about Rinaldo, so we were all surprised when the second act came to an end and nothing seemed to have been wrapped up. Let's just say, when we realised that there was a third act to come, we seriously considered leaving at that point and looking up the plot on Wikipedia to see how it ended. But, we put the hard yards in.

After the theatre, G and I decided to have a bite to eat at a restaurant in the main square. It was so much nicer at night, all lit up and mostly empty of tourists. However, they all came flooding out of the woodworks at 10.57pm to gather around the astronomical clock for the 11pm chiming. How disappointed they must have been to realise that it only chimes between 9am and 9pm.

The next morning the breakfast room was considerably quieter, as most of the tour buses had already left for the day. We lingered over breakfast, as it was rainy outside and we didn't fancy going out. But eventually we did, checking out and leaving our stuff in the luggage room. We popped back to the castle, and were amazed to see about 30,000 fewer people there than on Saturday. We joined the queue for St Vitus' Cathedral, which was about one fifth the length that it had been, but was still about a fifteen minute wait. It rained the whole time we were waiting there, which was unfortunate as we didn't have umbrellas. I'm not sure if it was my foreign accent or the fact that I had wrapped my scarf over my head, but the weird old man in front of us in the queue kept turning round to stare at me. It was unpleasant. He must have been German.

St Vitus' Cathedral is extremely impressive inside, huge, with giant stained glass windows. It was well worth the wait to see it (though we may not have thought that if we'd spent an hour in the queue). After the cathedral, we wandered through the streets below the castle and found a cafe for some coffee. Megan and the waiter didn't hit it off for some reason - he was very brusque with her when she asked for tea instead of coffee for the coffee-and-cake deal, and then spilt some of the tea on her leg, burning her. She did not leave him a tip.

After making our way back to the hotel, we said goodbye to Brett, who was spending another few days in the Czech Republic and was heading off to another town. Shortly afterwards, M, G & I hopped on the airport bus, which stopped outside the hotel. G and I both validated our tickets upon entering the bus, but for some reason M forgot to do so....and was busted by a Czech transport inspector for not having a valid ticket. She suggested that if she leant slightly forward in her seat she'd be able to punch the ticket in the machine, but he refused this offer and ordered her to pay a 700 koruny fine (equivalent to about $45). The most annoying part was that we could hear other people validating their tickets in the machine after they saw Megan had been busted. He didn't care about this, as he had snagged his victim for that trip. Megan didn't have the money on her, so he said that was fine, he'd follow her into the airport and wait while she got the money from an ATM. And he literally did follow us into the airport and stood by while she got the money out. The fine plus the experience with the waiter did not endear Prague to Megan. (And, to add insult to injury, Brett was fined later in the week for being in a slow, all-stations train when he only had a ticket for the fast, express service. So the moral is - make sure your public transport tickets are valid in Prague!)

We said farewell to an irritated Megan, and started the first leg of our two flight journey home. This involved flying from Prague to Bristol, then Bristol to Edinburgh. The first flight was on Ryan Air, which is not a boutique airline. We sat across the aisle from each other, as you can't book seats, and for some reason my row had about ten centimetres less leg room than G's. Fun. Our second flight was with EasyJet, which is like business class compared to Ryan Air. Nevertheless, we were pleased to get home after a long day of travel.

Photos of Prague to follow, as well as a description of last weekend's trip to York.

Yeah!

Photos as promised from previous post

Hi y'all.

Yeah, yeah, we promised photos a while ago and hadn't delivered...until now! We went to Prague last weekend, which was good (and bad), but will write a proper entry on that at some stage. Here, however, are photos from our travels around Scotland and the Highlands.

This is Traquair House, a ye olde stately home that now has its own brewery. Unfortunately, we didn't read the info about this place before going there, so we arrived about two hours before it opened. So, no beer for G and no history for those with more esoteric interests.

The entrance to Stirling Castle, which is a pretty big tourist attraction, but quite decent. Some crazy tourist had climbed on top of the wall and was walking around, oblivious to the guards yelling at her to "Come down from the wall!" They were angry with good reason, because if she'd fallen, the end result would not have been pretty.

This is a random (to us) cemetary outside the castle walls. While G & I were walking along the outer wall, we noticed a bunch of teenagers just to the left of the cemetary mooning the passing traffic. Noice.

I'm pretty sure this guy was paid to dress up in costume and talk to the tourists. Pretty sure.

Pretty gardens and tree in front of the Grand Palace, which was shut for renovations. Boo.

A windfarm in the hills overlooking Stirling. Scots are pretty environmentally conscious folk, so these are a common sight across the countryside.

Castle Urquhart (Oo-roo-ku-tay), on the banks of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness, with no sign of the Monster.

Yet another breathtaking view in the Highlands, this time near Ben Nevis. The mountain we were on was about half the height of Ben Nevis.

The sign says it all, really.

This is the view from our B&B at Fort William, overlooking Loch Linhe.

The remains of a random castle at Fort William. Can't remember its name right now, but it was old.

G. 'falling' off the outcrop, in Glen Nevis, at the foot of Ben Nevis. It was a single track road out to the foot of the mountain and it was really busy. It must be madness at peak times in summer.

Stream at the foot of Ben Nevis. The streams were running very strongly due to melting snow.

This is (I think?) Loch Linhe. The water was amazingly clear, and the road ran alongside the Loch for its length.

G investigating the local water life. He found a crab!

Beautiful scenery, near Glencoe.

Dad at a pond at the side of the road, at Glencoe.

Me and the Pares, outside of Glencoe.

Photo taken from the car. Really like this shot.

Coffee break on our road trip. Check out the size of those coffees!! There were many Shakespeare stops that day.

We went for a walk at Killiecrankie when a burly man in motorbike leathers stopped us to ask if we wanted to see a steam train, as there was one coming along the track in the next half hour. He was not the cliched train spotter, but he was really, really excited when the train came along.

Me, looking kind of unimpressed, in front of a mountain.

Melrose Abbey, with mountainside with gorse on it in the background.

Ruins of Melrose Abbey. It would have been cold there during the winter.

The Falkirk Wheel in action!

In search of Nessie

Hi, it's G. here.

Spring has well and truly sprung in Edinburgh and all the various Spring cliches are dutifully parading about. Birds are twittering energetically, trees have sprouted zillions of deliberately green leaves and the grass in our yard is now about a foot tall. I'm going to have the crack out the mower from the shed sometime soon. With some reservations, however, as it one of these 'no-wheel, floats on a cushion of air' type electric mowers that seem to be very popular over here. It's like the mower from the future. (Note: since I wrote the preceding paragraph, I have done the mowing. Also, I broke the mower.)

The days are also getting ridiculously long - it's not fully dark until about 9:30pm and I'm having trouble dealing with it. Having grown up and mostly lived in a place a lot closer to the equator, so much day seems unnatural. I just can't get my head around it.

The great thing about Spring, though, is that we are getting some cracklingly great weather. The Easter weekend and the following weekend were spectacular, and we were fortunate to have Ma and Pa Mc. stay with us over that time and so some really nice driving trips were had.

On Good Friday we went to a place called Pitlochry, re-christened by Kitty as 'Dud-lochry', which is located about 30 miles north of Perth. The weather hadn't quite turned it on for us at that point, which lessened the appeal of the countryside somewhat, although we still passed through some lovely country. Pitlochry itself, although little more than village sized, was quite busy and touristy in a sold out commercial type of way, hence the renaming. Having parked in town (and having to pay for the privilege) we walked to a hydro-electric station on the river nearby. I'm not sure why now, exactly, but it had a fish ladder for salmon, with an explanation of how it worked, so now I finally know. I'd had visions of seeing salmon hurling themselves upstream, shimmering in the sunlight, however was disappointed because a) the fish travel underwater through a series of chambers connected by pipes and b) it was overcast.

Travelling further north, we came to a place called Killiecrankie, where a famous battle had been fought between red coats and jacobite supporters in the year something or other (look, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. If you want facts, go to wikipedia. Or whatever). There was a visitor information centre near a lovely gorge, so I asked the lady behind the counter if she had a map of the walking trails nearby. She pointed to a display of folded leaflets, so I took one, only discovering after I was outside that it only covered areas south of where we were. We didn't really need it anyway and went for nice little walk that include watching a steam train come up the gorge. Very pretty. As a further note, it was only when we were about to head back about half an hour later that I noticed the sticker on the front of the map: £1.50.

I went back to info centre to return the map and apologise for my inadvertent theft. The lady was really nice about it, even offering the to give it to me for free. I said, 'No, that's ok. We won't be back.' In hindsight, this may have come across as me being rude.

The next day we went to Falkirk, more specifically the Falkirk wheel, and then on to Stirling castle. The Falkirk wheel is a most ingenious device that allows movement of boats between the Forth and Clyde canals. It replaces a series of 11 locks that used to connect the canals but now have nearly all been removed or filled in. The wheel itself is a brilliantly elegant piece of engineering. Take a look at http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk/about/history.html to see how it works. It's nifty.

Stirling castle was great, not the least because you could drive all of the way to the entrance and then only get slugged £2 for parking, which is surprisingly good considering how these touristy places normally operate. The castle had all of the usual Scottish-y castle-y things, ties to Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, inumerable King James's etc. Good views over Stirling country, including a very bendy Forth river and also the Wallace Monument, which we visited afterwards.

There is a bit of a climb up to the monument, but we didn't venture inside as the admission price was a bit optimstic. The only real attraction was that you could see William Wallace's sword, however the lure of this was not strong enough to outweigh our fiscal rectitude. (Thought projection: walk up to William Wallace's sword.....Yep, it's a sword. That was money well spent)

On Easter Monday we headed south, with the highlight being a visit to Melrose Abbey. It had a really powerful atmosphere. As C. succintly puts it, 'It was big'.

The working week passed uneventfully, apart from Ma and Pa Mc.'s ever increasing fixation with Sainsbury's and delight expressed about shopping at same.

On the weekend, we went well and truly into the highlands- Glencoe, Fort William, Glen and Ben with their respective Nevises, Loch Ness and (passed through) Inverness.

The landscape leading up to and in Glencoe is truly spectacular, and I've a feeling that our timing was perfect to get the most out of it. Cloudless sunny days, cool not cold, but still snow on the mountains, and before the peak tourist season, when it probably is impossible to get a park at viewing areas. The lochs as well were stunningly beautiful.

We stayed in a B&B at Fort William on Saturday night after eating out at a pub/restaurant. Pa Mc. and I decided to have a particular dark ale, which turned out to be not available so we were offered one 'just like it'. It was called 'Kelpie'. Kelpie was nice but had a certain je ne sais quoi in the aftertaste. It was only much later that a connection was made - Kelpie- kelp a.k.a seaweed, specifically bladderwrack seaweed. I had read about it in the pub menu located in the B&B lounge earlier that evening. I suspect the seaweed we saw/smelt rotting in the sun on the loch shore that day was the same variety as what was in the beer. Hard to imagine how the idea came about, that someone could squelch over the ponging weed and think, 'Yeah, this'd go great in beer!'

The next day we went up a gondola (fun) at the Glen Nevis ski centre. It was the last day of the season and there were a few die hards working the last patch of snow way up on the top of the range.

Further on we came to Loch Ness, but surprisingly and disappointingly, no sign of Nessie. Rats.

On the banks of Loch Ness we visited the ruins of Castle Urquhart, which was pretty good. Nice view, foreshore (i.e. for sure. Sorry, Scottish humour there). The historical display in the information centre attached to the castle had an audio demonstration where you could press a button to hear certain words spoken in Scots Gaelic. One of the words was 'Urquhart', which sounded like Klingon, something like 'Ooroo-ku-tay'. Since then, it has not been uncommon for Kitty or me to suddenly say 'Ooroo-ku-tay' completely at random. (You had to be there.)

We made it to Inverness and then straightaway headed back home, uneventfully. It was a great weekend and I can't wait to get back up there and throw a line in one of the lochs.

Can't be bothered to put photos in this post in the appropriate places. Too much fiddling around. C. will do another post shortly with photos and captions.

Bye for now.

Two days in London (with extra security)

Hi everyone, it's been a while.

We have excuses though - we spent a week away, in Germany and in London. This was the first proper trip we've done since arriving in the UK (overnight trips to London to collect and/or drop off the dog do not count, as they were definitely not holidays). I don't know about G, but now that we've finally gone away somewhere (relatively) exotic, it actually feels like we're really living overseas now.  If that makes sense.

Back in September, before we left Australia, we made plans with my parents to catch up in Nuremberg. They completed a cruise down the Rhine and Danube, ending in Budapest, and then spent a few days in Prague before training it to Nuremberg. G and I arranged to meet them in Nuremberg on 26 March, spend four days, and then jet off to London for another few nights (including my birthday). 

It was strange going back to Nuremberg, as the last time I was there (in 2004), I still had the hefty burden of my thesis weighing on me like a solid block of concrete. My three month stay there was not fun, as everytime I thought about relaxing and seeing the sights, the nagging voice in the back of my head said "You should be at the archives reading old documents on the postwar period!" (Actually, that nagging voice was there throughout my whole thesis, so I don't know why I would have expected it to leave me alone for any period of time.) 

But, four-and-a-half years later, and two years after having my PhD approved (praise the Lord!), I was back in Nuremberg and ready to actually enjoy the city. And it was great, because it really is a lovely place. It's not somewhere that people choose as a tourist destination, more somewhere that you visit if you're passing by, but it's well worth going to. Not only does it have the mediaeval town stuff, but also the Nazi stuff - an interesting combination of old and new.

Anyhow, I'm writing this at work after cleverly uploading photos to blogger last night. However, I forgot to upload photos from Nuremberg so will have to post another entry later with them.

But here are some photos from London! 

When we arranged our London trip, there was, of course, no hint that there'd be a G20 Summit taking place while we were there. We happened to be right in the thick of things on the Wednesday - not, thankfully, where the violent protests were happening, but we still saw some pretty cool stuff. The main reason for going to London (in my eyes) was so that I could celebrate my birthday with more than one other person! 

Pictorial essay on our London adventures starts here:

Pancakes for breakfast, on my birthday...this seems to be an annual tradition, and one I'm willing to continue. The fresh berries meant that it was practically health food. We went to this great cafe called The Breakfast Club, recommended by Megan and Brett (our London hosts), and they served fantastic food, and the best coffee. Despite Brett's instructions we got a bit lost and retraced our steps several times before realising we'd walked right past the cafe. Oh well, the food more than made up for it. 

Note: Aquamarine earrings (March birthstone) from G for my birthday, from Past Times, my new favourite shop.

We then went to Madame Tussaud's. It was crazy busy for a Tuesday morning, but we managed to avoid queuing. We had to walk through long roped-off queue lines (empty) to get to the counter, and after going through a number of these we reached a sign that said "Your wait is now only 60 minutes". If we were queueing for real, there's no way I'd keep waiting after reading that sign. 

Anyhow, Madame Tussaud's was an experience, but probably not one that I will feel like repeating any time soon. As you see, above, some of the wax works were quite realistic.

Others were not quite so successful. This is meant to be Madonna, which is pretty much evident only from the clothes. She looks like a David Jones mannequin.

They make the waxworks as an exact copy of the original, including height. We were both amused to see that Tom Cruise is very short, as is Daniel Radcliffe, and Christina Aguilera is tiny! She would barely crack 5 foot.

For dinner, we (me, G, my pares, Megan, Brett and our other UK-based friend Michelle) went to this really cool restaurant in Soho called Inamo. It was an Asian fusion menu, which is yum, but the best part was that you order via your table. They project a menu onto the table top, and you can move a cursor to choose what you want and order it right there. Perfect for people with a fear of social interaction. You can change the table top design, and even play Battleships with the person sitting opposite. As you can see in the photo above, you can even choose to have a video of the kitchen streamed onto your table. It was great! 

After dinner, the young 'uns went to another bar for some cocktails. It got a bit awkward as Michelle realised the male half of the couple sitting next to us was a work colleague, and the woman he was canoodling with was definitely not his girlfriend. Out of all the bars in London...

The next day, Wednesday, G and I went to the London Eye (getting briefly lost outside Waterloo station). Just as we were getting on, we spotted my parents getting out of a capsule two away from ours. They hung around outside while we took the Eye journey. It was a mite disconcerting to see two officials with mirrors on sticks check out each capsule for bombs etc, but you get that I guess.

Luckily, it was a very clear day, weather-wise, though there was a bit of a haze around (probably just pollution). The view was excellent, and the Eye moved so slowly that it didn't feel like it was moving at all. It's in a great location, looking over the the Thames, the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and various other spots.

This, for example, is the entrance to Downing Street. You can make out barricades and about 30 police officers (in high-vis). We didn't know until later that night that Obama was meeting with Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street while we were on the Eye, hence the high level of security.

At one stage, G pointed over the Thames and said "Hey, there's Buckingham Palace." I quickly identified which building it was and started taking photos furiously. The photo below shows Buckingham Palace at the left-hand side, next to the building with the green roof. 

After a couple of minutes, G said "Uh, what are you photographing?" 

I replied, "Buckingham Palace", with an implied "Duh."

G checked the camera, and then said, "You know that's not Buckingham Palace, right? It's that building further in the north." 

Oh well, they all looked kinda fancy. And I'm ignoring the fact that everyone knows what Buckingham Palace looks like from TV. And the fact that I've been there before. Twice.

So this is the real Buckingham Palace. It was so obvious as soon as G pointed it out (again).

After we exited the Eye, we grabbed some coffee (after some rude person pushed in front of me in the queue, and shrugged like she didn't care when I pointed this out to her) and sat out in the sun with Mum (Dad was off running an errand). I'm sure I saw Ian McEwan (one of my and G's favourite authors) wander past. 

At this point we realised that there had been a helicopter hovering above the river for about 15 minutes. Then we saw about a dozen police officers in high-vis jackets walking through the area. Then I spotted someone who could only be a Secret Service officer, and was convinced that one or more of the Obamas would be hopping on the London Eye any minute. Seriously, I was so certain of this, but then G pointed out that the whole area would be in lockdown if that was the case. Darn it.

We had thought about going on a river cruise with my parents, but in the end G and I just felt like wandering through London, making the most of the weather. We headed across to Westminster, and you could feel the energy change immediately. There were heaps of tourists around, but also lots of police and security. The reason for this was the anti-G20 protesters who had set up camp across the road from the Houses of Parliament.

I'm not sure if Parliament usually has guards armed with sub-machine guns, but they did last week! Though, as the policeman on the right looks like he's cleaning his finger nails maybe they needed something to pick up the slack.

This was the reason for the security - about 12 protesters with various banners and posters. The man in the middle of the photo was talking on his loudspeaker about various things, including Iraq, the environment and globalisation. At one point he yelled out "And Barack, no more barracks!" It was clear he was really pleased with this 'witty' slogan.

We then wandered through St James' Park, past Buckingham Palace and along the edge of Green Park (I think?). At the end of that road was the Wellington Memorial, which has all sorts of war memorials in it.  

While we were enjoying the peace of the Wellington Memorial, four motorbike policemen roared through the square. 

This is the Australian First and Second World War memorial. It's a great design, and has the names of all the towns where Australian soldiers came from, as well as the battle locations in which they fought. It's kind of cool to see 'Stradbroke Island', 'Gympie' and 'Humpybong' on a fancy memorial.

(I had other photos of various cool things around this time, but for some reason Blogger chose not to upload them. They may make a special guest appearance in the next post!)

Speaking of memorials, here's the Princess Diana Memorial fountain. It's essentially a low, oval-shaped water feature. The idea is that children can paddle their feet in it, but the water was absolutely freezing!

We stopped and had a drink at the Lido cafe, which for some reason I feel is famous. Hmmm, maybe not.

This is the Royal Albert Hall, but in the foreground you can see a G20 motorcade!! No idea who it is, as we couldn't identify the flag on the bonnet, but it was definitely not Obama or Kevin Rudd. Or Gordon Brown, or the Queen. So that narrows it down. 

Finally, this is the Albert Memorial. Queen Victoria must have loved him heaps to give him this huge memorial statue. It even has a marble camel in it - that's love!