Day 1 in London - what a buzz!

I'm in that "I can't believe I'm in London" state of mind! Now, I've been here before - several times in fact - but it's either been during a cold Spring or a cold Autumn. But right now is perfect. At around 20C during the day, and with a light breeze, it doesn't get much better for tourists.

Yesterday I spent the day with my old friend, Rick Steves, who writes the best travel guide I've ever come accross. With his quirky sense of humour, cute hand-drawn maps (which still remain accurate) and his knack of taking you down back alleys, and to out-of-the-way eateries, days with Rick are a real blast!

I started with breakfast near Leicester Square (boarded off and under reconstruction in preparation for the Olympic) then did his West End walk. It was supposed to take about 3 hours, but as my friends and family know, I'm easily distracted... and everywhere has sales on right now... so it was over 4 hours of great sights before I staggered back into Trafalgar Square!

After a coffee shot (I'm amazed - the coffee in London is so much better than last time I was here) I hit the National Gallery. It's a very diverse and confusing place if you try to look at everything, but Rick gives a brilliant highlights tour, so I stuck mainly to that... well apart from the Impressionists rooms where I wallowed for far longer than Rick would approve of... (sigh...)

My jetlag cure is to keep local time from day1, so I bought a cheap ticket to Billy Elliot, and had dinner first at a recommended restaurant somewhere south-east of Victoria Station. Great meal, but felt like that song "Master of the House" from Les Miserables: a charge for bread and olives, whether you wanted them of not, 12.5% service charge (you could ask for it to be removed, but who would dare?), and all veges charged seperately! Still, with the strong NZ dollar, it was still reasonable.

And the show? Well I lasted until half time. I think they were having an off night with a second-tier mid-week cast. Or was I just too tired? Anyway, I crashed out at 11pm having had a wonderful day - sleep only delayed by the full-on domestic happening in the room above me. I don't think they could have had any idea how thin the walls and floors are in this place...