New years!

The last weekend in 2006! Christmas and new years fell on very convenient days this year!

Schelle and I spent Saturday at my gym in Canary Wharf... got to do a class together which was fun, with a very enthusistic instructor... and then it was off to Borough markets for one last 2006 visit to buy some earl grey tea. But the tea people weren't there.

So we bought coffee from the only place in London that I am happy to buy coffee from and a chocolate brownie (well we had just been to the gym!)

Schelle and I with our coffees standing near the leaky cauldron from Harry Potter

I spent new years in London with Pippa and Matt from church and a friend of theirs, Abbey, from Hull (which is in the north of England). It was inevitably packed. Alot of the roads were closed, so we made the most of walking on the roads. There were waves of people heading down the Strand, and we always seemed to be trying to go against the tide.

Abbey, Pippa and me in Piccadilly Circus on new years eve

Pippa and Matt at the restuarant

We managed to see part of the top of the London eye where the fireworks were, between some buildings from the Strand. There were sooooo many people, so many more than in Sydney. But I think Sydney has a lot more places on to watch the fire works from. The space in London is rather limited unsurprisingly.

Matt, me and Pippa from our vantage point!

We didn't have too many problems going home. We just walked to Bond Street station, along Oxford Street. Although when we got to Swiss Cottage station, the train jerked to a stop and the doors weren't opening. We were in the front carriage, and the carriage behind us was shaking (or as Matt put it "looked as though people were fidgeting"). Finally they make an announcement that the emergency break has been pulled in one of the carriages... so the tube workers were strolling up and down the platform trying to find the carriage.

Then people from the fidgiting carriage started banging on the door to get into our carriage, so the door was opened and all these hysterical women (about 10) ran into our carriage and started banging on the door to the train drivers compartment. Ofcourse we started to get rather worried and we had eached come up with a detailed scenario of what had happened and how we were going to perish on the tube.

It turned out it was a couple of drunk guys who were fighting on their carriage, and some of the women got really upset with their kids so started to panic and were desparate to get off the tube.

The most uncomforting part of the whole thing was that even though we were only a metre short of being in the station completely, they could not open the doors of the train. It had to be done manually!

Happy 2007 everyone!!!!