It’s been a wonderfully quiet week, in which I’ve enjoyed lots of down time. I’ve been to the gym every day, played lots of PS3 (I finished Darksiders in 18 hours, and have started on Assassin’s Creed II), and got lots of tasks ticked off the never-ending “To Do” list. It’s been very satisfying!

Tomorrow, we leave for a week of skiing in Meribel, France, along with Nick and Suzie, Aubain and Ingrid, Eva and Ali, Todd, Giovanni (who we met at last year’s ski trip), Russell (Suzie’s old flatmate), and Russell’s brother. We’re actually heading off tonight to stay in an airport motel near Gatwick, as our flight leaves very early tomorrow morning.

Once we get there, we’ll be staying at Chalet Laetitia – a brand new, four star, fully catered chalet. Awesome! Just hope the weather isn’t actually as cold as the forecast – I can’t imagine what -26C (after windchill) will feel like, but by Wednesday afternoon, I might know!

See you in a week!

At 294 metres above sea level, Leith Hill is the highest point in all of south-east England. And, at only an hour’s drive (or thereabouts) from Chiswick, it makes a perfect destination for a one-day adventure – so off we trolleyed with Julian and Shelley on Saturday to make the most of the beautiful weather!

At the top of Leith Hill stands the very creatively named Leith Hill Tower, which was apparently built in order to raise the top-most point of the hill to over 1000 feet above sea level. Yes, really. No, I don’t understand why either; but to be fair, it did provide a great vantage point for 360 degree views. Since the day was so clear, you could (barely) make out London City to the north-east in the middle of the top photo (the distinct shape of The Gherkin is the giveaway); and Gatwick Airport was a bit easier to see, at only nine miles directly to the east.

Unsurprisingly, the area is also littered with Geocaches; we managed to find In the Shadow of the Tower 2 which was a great adventure to find, and the very craftily hidden West Side Wandering, which I think was the hardest cache we’ve found to date.

Being a hill, and being in the forest, it’s also a very popular destination for mountain bikers. We (obviously) weren’t equipped with bikes, but that didn’t stop Julian catching some huge air over a jump on the way down.

Impressive!

Believe it or not, the last thing on Lauren’s “to-do” list for London was to visit Ripley’s. Though I’ve never had a desire to go there myself, I’d be lying if I said that I’d never been a little bit curious. And, as Kristy so rightly pointed out, this may have been my only opportunity ever to go along with someone that actually wanted to be there. As such, I seized the moment, and tagged along.

(Un)fortunately(?) for you, I didn’t have lovely camera with me, and although I did have little camera, I had it on all of the wrong settings. So, we came away with barely any photos to show for ourselves – this rather grainy shot of me sitting in a unbelievably large rocking chair is about the best that you can hope for here.

The highlight of the visit – for me at least – was the gigantic mirror maze. We should have packed a meal before entering, because we got lost so many times inside that we almost had to camp overnight. Had we have had to turn to cannibalism to survive, I reckon I could have overpowered Lauren and at least had me some tea. Then again, she’s small and nimble, and being a university student, she’s probably quite crafty too; I’ve no doubt she has some tricks up her sleeve. Not that it mattered in the end, as we eventually found the exit; though it was only after we were foiled at least five times by re-finding the entrance – including once using my “guaranteed, fail-safe way of navigating out of a maze” (i.e. keep your right hand on the wall). Maybe it’s the left hand that’s guaranteed…

There was also one of those suspension-bridge-through-a-tunnel-surrounded-by-spinning-lights jobbies for the punters’ pleasure. Oh my goodness, it was so disorienting! I couldn’t believe how off balance it made us! It was only about five metres long, but that was more than enough – I was happy to emerge from the other side (albeit feeling a little sea-sick!).

I had expected that there’d be more displays that erred on the “not” end of the “believe it or not” scale – like more optical illusions, and things of that nature. But overall, the walk through was very entertaining, and there were a number of exhibits that extracted an “oohhhh!!” type of reaction from me. But, at the rather outlandish price of £20 to go in, it’s probably not something that I’d recommend to anyone who didn’t have it on their “to-do” list to begin with.

One of the things that Weezy insisted Lauren try while she was here is the very English dish of a baked potato. Yes, we have them in Australia, and yes, you can get them pretty much anywhere in the world. But, do they look like this?

(Yeah, they probably do, don’t they?)

Oh my, that was one filling meal, and I didn’t even get through it all. At least I ate all of the side-salad, which Weezy and Lauren both just ignored! Still, you can’t blame them; look how shocked Lauren was at the prospect of eating so many carbs!

Mmm…. beans….

Oh man, how I love me some good guac. I think the secret behind any guacamole is the garlic – not too much, but not too little!

(Takes 15 minutes, Serves 2-6)

Ingredients

• 2 medium to large avocados
• 1 lime
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 a red onion, finely diced
• A handful of coriander leaves, coarsely chopped
• 1 red chili (vary type and quantity by preference), finely diced
• Freshly ground rock salt (vary by preference)

Kristy having bronchitis at the moment has given us the perfect excuse to stay in and catch up on some films. We took advantage of Blockbuster’s “4 films for £10″ deal and got out four different films… though you probably had guessed that by the title of their deal.

Year One: I saw a preview for this one somewhere along the lines, and had thought that the combination of Jack Black and Michael Cera would be a sure hit. Wrong! I’d be lying if I said that there’s no laughs at all, but they’re definitely few and far between. Background entertainment, at best – or perhaps a film to put on if you’re someone who appreciates that a movie with lots of low points provides you with frequent opportunities for a trip to the gents. gerrod.com rating: 5/10.

The Ugly Truth: Have you seen that “unforgettable” classic, How to lose a guy in 10 days? Then you’ve pretty much seen this movie. On the up side, I’d take Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler over Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson any day. gerrod.com rating: 6/10.

Revolutionary Road: Unbelievably good. Ben’s review of this movie is what piqued our interest in it, and it was very well recommended. I liked that the characters and the storyline were so relatable – like when they argued about one thing, it inevitably snowballed into something else. The only thing I didn’t like about this movie was Kate Winslet’s hair – something about the washed out blond didn’t match her uber-dark eyebrows. I found it all very distracting. gerrod.com rating: 9/10.

Inglorious Bastards: This film is an absolute masterpiece. I haven’t liked a Quentin Tarantino film this much since Pulp Fiction! Definitely not one for the feint hearted – there’s a few rather gory scenes – but it’s a film about World War II, so I guess it’s not entirely unexpected. Definitely worth your while seeing, even if you have to avert your eyes during some bits. gerrod.com rating: 9.5/10.

The Durhams have been nagging us to go to the British Museum since before we had even contemplated moving to London. In fact, it was before we had even thought of leaving Australia that they started harping on about it. Come to think of it, I think the very first thing that David said to me when we first met was, “Hi, have you been to the British Museum?”. They’re just that into it.

However, me having a general disdain for large crowds of people in enclosed spaces, I’ve always stayed away from the place, figuring the only real time I could get there would be on a weekend, when crowds would hit a peak. Well, not any longer! Julian (a long time fan) and I took advantage of a vacant Monday and trundled along there yesterday afternoon.

Holy pants, the booty they have in that place is impressive! As Julian put it so well (he’s such a good writer, you know):

The British are the greatest preservers (thieves) of world culture in history, and this is where they keep all their artefacts (loot): The British Museum.

Take this for example; possible one of the most significant finds ever, in the history of human-kind – The Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone! Sitting right there, in the middle of a hall full of other Egyptian crap items that the Poms picked up on a five finger discount sale! It’s all yours for the viewing, and it’s all for free!

It’s also massive; there was no way that we would have been able to see everything in one afternoon (not that that was ever a danger; my brain can’t absorb more than about 2 hours of museum information at at time). They currently have an exhibition called, “The History of the World in 100 objects”, so we endeavoured to see as many of those as we could. We got through about 20 of them.

This is one of the objects which impressed us the most. It’s a carving of two swimming reindeer, and it’s a mere thirteen thousand years old. How on earth they managed to carve out that level of detail with no doubt fairly primitive tools, is well beyond me. Did I mention it was thirteen thousand years old?

So now I can see why the Durhams are such big fans. It definitely warrants another visit.

Coincidentally, my first week off work overlapped with cousin Lauren’s second week of her visit to London! And so, we arranged to meet up on Wednesday and Thursday in order to tour around London together.

It wasn’t the greatest weather on Wednesday – cold, and light rain – but that’s almost every day at the moment! We met up at Harrods, and then headed out to Canary Wharf, where we had lunch with Nick, Fitim, and Andrew. Lauren was particularly impressed with Fitim’s Russain Albanian accent, even though I’m sure she had no idea what he was saying most of the time.

Next we headed over to Greenwich, and the origin of time itself – the Greenwich Conservatory. I figured that being there on a week day it would be empty, but unfortunately it was packed with school kids! We still managed to find a quiet corner to get some photos of the view, looking back over the Maritime Museum, and back towards Canary Wharf.

By this point the weather had turned truly awful, so we rounded off the day in Covent Garden, where I took Lauren to my favourite coffee shop, and then to my favourite pub. We split a bottle of Bulmers, and then one of Magners, and we both agreed that Bulmers tastes better.

We met up outside St Paul’s cathedral on Thursday morning, and walked across the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern. The current exhibit is a giant shipping container (note its size compared to the people on the left), completely closed in at one end, with a ramp leading up and inside at the other end. The further you go inside, the darker it gets, to the point where you can’t see anything. Thankfully, the wall at the end is padded, so you don’t get a headache when you inevitably run straight into it.

We also did a tour of the Globe Theatre, which Lauren was disappointed to find out wasn’t the original Globe Theatre, but instead, the third globe theatre, built in the style of the original, as a tribute to Shakespeare. One of the schemes that they came up with in order to raise funds for construction was to engrave some of the pavers outside the theaters with the names of big contributors.

Apparently, John Cleese paid for both his and Michael Palin’s pavers, on the condition that Michael Palin’s name was spelt incorrectly. However, as it turned out, Michael Palin didn’t care – he ended up with a bigger paver, and he didn’t have to pay anything for it! Joke’s on you, Cleese!

After an extremely filling lunch at Tortilla, we did a quick lap around Borough Market, where I did the Durham-like duty of introducing Lauren to coffee! She managed to down her single-shot-latte, commenting that it “wasn’t terrible”. A few more shots of espresso before she leaves and we’ll have another addict!

Being a medical student, Lauren was very keen to see the Old Operating Theatre Museum; however since we were their only customers, I suspect they were more keen to see us! I tell ya, things were brutal back in the olden days – imagine having your tonsils removed by this, without anaesthetic!

Ouch!

The final outing for the day was a trip to The London Dungeons. I honestly had no idea what to expect from this, and was quite surprised at how scary it actually is! Most of the time it’s extremely dark, and there’s lots of creepy noises and things brushing past your face, to keep you guessing what’s coming next. I wasn’t sorry to walk into the gift shop at the end of our tour!

It was great checking out London with a newbie, as it’s always so refreshing to see things from a new perspective. Lauren’s in town until Wednesday so hopefully we’ll have a chance to see a few more sites this week before she jets back to Australia!

Check out more photos from our travels in the Touring with Lauren album.

A few weeks back when it was freezing cold (and our heaters weren’t working properly), all we could think about was being warm. Finally one day, Kristy snapped, and started looking for a hotel that we could stay in for a few nights. She managed to find a deal for a soft opening at a “mystey five star hotel” in the city, and so – treating ourselves just a little bit – we booked ourselves in for a mid-week break.

Mystery hotel turned out to be The Grange Hotel at St Paul’s, part of “The Grange” chain of independent hotels around London. Admittedly, I had never heard of this chain before, but since I’ve also never stayed in a hotel in London before, I guess these two things go together like espresso and steamed milk.

Since it’s a five star hotel, we were expecting it to be both fancy and pantsy, and that’s pretty much exactly what it was. Our room simple and stylish – most importantly, it had a really comfy bed, and it was warm!

Notice also that there are not one, but two layers of blackout curtains covering the windows! When the alarm went off at 7:30 AM, we thought it was still the middle of the night! We’ll definitely be investing in some of those bad-boys when we’re living in a place of our own.

The only thing that we found a bit weird about the hotel was the giant pillar of extremely brightly coloured LED lights that greeted you as you walked into the foyer. As you watched, it changed from images of falling leaves, through to various colours, and then to various patterns, then the whole thing started again. There was nothing wrong with it; but it did feel a wee-bit out of place compared to the rest of the hotel’s décor. Just wish I’d have taken a photo of it!

Anyway, overall it was a lovely experience! Since we rarely go into the City of London, it was really cool to actually go and stay there for a few nights!

We thought Geocaching would be right up your ally, and we really wanted you guys to get into it! So, we bought a travel bug and sent it on a journey, with the goal of finding you all the way over there in Australia. Surprisingly, it made it there a lot faster than we had expected it to!

Perhaps if you have time one day, you could stop by in Bardon to try and pick it up?

Miss you both!
g&k