We’ve been home a couple days now and the jetlag has just about worn off. Mum managed to get me out of Jury duty by ringing the sheriff’s office while I was away and politely asking that I be excused. I just don’t get it. I wrote a lovely letter that clearly explained why I thought I wouldn’t be the best candidate to determine whether or not a person should rot in jail and they simply said, “we’ll give you two days to recover, come in on wednesday.” Sheesh!

After the tour ended back in London the group decided that we would meet up for dinner and drinks at 6:30PM outside the Royal National. We stayed in the pub just outside the hotel which served surprising inexpensive and tasty meals, just too bad about the slow service. The night turned out to be a bit unusual, but a lot of fun. Unusual because we didn’t have a tour manager telling us when and where to meet. Slowly but surely people were saying their goodbyes, but for the few of us that were still going to be in London the next day, we arranged another get together – same place, same time.

During the next day, Jess and I and a few from the Contiki group took a red bus tour so that we could catch the sights we missed the first time round. It turned out to be great value but unfortunately there was a fun run (or something) going on at the time and so we had to a take a lot of time consuming detours. We hopped off at the wax museum and took what I would consider to be hilarious photos with celebrities wax sculptures. For anyone who hasn’t been, don’t go to the ridiculous planetarium bit at the end – that was just rubbish. We also stopped at buckingham palace. The three (or four) guards protecting the palace from the thousands of people gathered outside had a very funny walk. Watching them march up and down almost made up for the very unimpressive palace. Never mind. We walked through the park, chuckling privately at the people sunbaking on the lawn, in order to cut through to Picadilly so that we could hop back onto the bus that was heading to the Royal National. We met up with the others shortly after for dinner. This time we didn’t stay at the pub, we instead headed a bit down the road to a french restraunt.

It was there that most of us ate Frog’s legs for the first time… in London. Yes, bit strange. And would you believe, they taste like chicken. Admittedly it is far less awkward to actually eat chicken, but eating the meat of two boney legs was pretty hilarious… for some. Something dodgy happened when we went to pay and nobody could figure out why we all needed to pay an extra 7 or so pounds just to meet the bill, and yes, we checked the bill thoroughly.

So the next day was kinda dull and uneventful, we got up at 5 so that we could catch the tube to Heathrow by 6 but when we arrived at the station we learnt that the first train didn’t leave for Heathrow until 7. This, was bad. Fortunately two other people were in the same predicament and so we were able to split a 50 pound taxi fare. At the airport I began to feel the beginnings of a sore throat, which didn’t surprise me in the slighest. By the time we arrived in Perth (20 hours give or take) my throat felt like gravel.

Being back home felt strange. That’s the only way to describe it. Seeing familiar faces again made me laugh, in someways it felt like we’d been away for months and in other ways it only felt like a day, if that makes sense. We’ve been through the photos with people three times now and it hasn’t yet gotten boring. I’m touching up some of my favourites and slowly putting them up on flickr.

That’s about all I’ve got to say for now, so from Matt, it’s goodnight!