Packing was a nightmare, I thought I was OK until I weighed my luggage at home and found out that it was 30kg instead of 20kg. I had to drastically rethink what I was putting in my luggage and had to be fairly brutal in what I took out. I went to bed around 2am because packing and cleaning up my room took so long, although I expected to go to bed that late at any rate.Carissa came over in the morning to come to the airport with Mum and I.She wrote me a very heartfelt letter which was very nice.Kristen also came over in the morning because she couldn't come to their airport with us as originally planned because she had to take her Dad to a doctor's appointment. After getting ready and putting all of my luggage in the car we set off for the airport.When we got to the airport Carissa and I took my luggage in while Mum parked the car.I met Kathy and her family at the airport, as well as Keira, her son Jayden and Joy.We lined up to check in our luggage, and during the time we lined up Mum and Paula arrived.My luggage was slightly over the limit of 25kg, but luckily Kathy's was slightly under, so I wasn't charged. We had some lunch and then we went to go into the terminal.Everyone was in tears at the airport expect me, which I was surprised about.It was really hard to leave everyone, especially Mum. We hugged everyone goodbye countless times and went in and through to customs.I couldn't take the Vegemite tubes I packed with me because they were over 100mls each and I had stupidly put them in my hand luggage instead of my other bag.Luckily Kathy had packed her vegemite in her other bag.We got to the boarding area, and after a frantic couple of seconds when we thought Kathy had lost our Sydney-Abu Dhabi tickets we sat down to wait to board.After a short amount of time we were allowed to go on.The plane trip was murder, it took so long, it seemed like it was never going to end.Kathy says when we go back to Sydney we're going to take a boat because she never wants to see the inside of a plane again.The plain landed at Abu Dhabi where our connecting flight was to leave in 3 hours.I went to find some kind of souvenir, but it was all crap, with a lot of stuff made in China or Thailand.So instead, I found a pharmacy and bought Kathy and I both some eye drops and Clarinase, as the flight was affecting our sinuses.The food wasn't too bad, but I had to have a vegetarian option for the first meal on the first flight, as they had run out of the meat option and only had the vegetarian or fish ones left.The vegetarian meal was edible, but not very appetising - Cauliflower, beans and carrot in tomato.

After what seemed like a forever we eventually arrived at Heathrow.The walk to migration took ages and then we had to line up to be checked. After going through migration we picked up our bags and walked to the station.I called Mum while we were on the train to let her know we had arrived safely.We got the tube to our youth hostel pick up point, but we had to wait an hour for our room, as the people beforehand hadn't checked out yet.Neither of us had realised how cold it was going to be! So we dragged our luggage to a cafe to have a cup of coffee and wait. That was frustrating, but we didn't have to wait too long and it was nice to get out of the cold.We were picked up from nearby the café and taken to the hostel, where we were given information about our stay, signed the lease and payed for our stay. Once we dumped our stuff in the room, we took the tube to Westminster and had a look around. Big Ben was much shorter than I thought it would be and I was disappointed you couldn't go in. We were going to go into Westminster Abbey, but the line was too long and it was too cold to line up for ages, so we decided to do it another day. We walked over to the London Eye and got on for our 'flight' (as they call it) that Kathy had booked online. It was so boring! It took ages and we were ready to get off by halfway. By then we were b*****ed, so we went back to the hostel, and even though we had aimed to stay up until 8pm, we fell asleep by 5pm.We didn't even eat dinner we were so tired.

The next morning, I managed to fill the room with smoke when we decided to have bacon and eggs for breakfast - one of the pans I used started to burn. We were really lucky the smoke alarm didn't go off. After we had opened the windows and the smoke had cleared, we decided to go to the Tower of London. It was really interesting to see. We started on a tour with a Yeoman (tower guard), who was very funny and full of information about the tower, and then we looked at the different parts of the complex and at the Crown Jewels. The tower was much bigger than I thought and I didn't realise it was a whole set of buildings, rather than just one. However, a bit of a damper was put on the day because unfortunately Kathy got pick pocketed - they managed to take her wallet out of her bag, take out all of the cash and then put the wallet back without either of us noticing. We realised this when she went to buy some souvenirs at one of the gift shops.We think they did it during the tour. However, we decided to press on. We had lunch at a Wagamama nearby and then went to TowerBridge. The tour wasn't so boring - two films about the construction of the bridge, a walk across the above ground walkway and then a look at the bridge machinery which isn't even used anymore. We were glad to get out - luckily admission had been fairly cheap. After we had finished we went to have a quick look at BuckinghamPalace.It was nice there, the palace looked small from far away, but when you got up close you realised how big it is.We took a couple photos, but we couldn't stay long because we had to go meet John Bernhardt and Luca for dinner. We met them at GreenPark and ate at an Italian restaurant which was very nice.It was great to see them again, to be able to see some familiar faces and to catch up.

We didn't really do much on Monday because I had my job interview.Mum called in the morning and I had a chat with her and then got ready for my interview.I took the tube to Swiss Cottage, which is only 3 stations away from Kilburn, the closest station to our hostel.I walked to the hotel, which wasn;t very far away.Originally I was told that Ajith the Front Office Manager wasn't in that day, but luckily he was.The interview went well; he pretty much indicated that if HR was happy with me that I had the job.I was fairly pleased with the interview.I took the tube back to the hostel, got changed and then Kathy and I took the tube to Tottenham court to go to our First Contact meeting. We went in and was given a presentation by a Melbourne-born girl by the name of Tanya, who was very nice and helpful with all of the information she gave us about London-living.She gave us an introduction to London and gave us our SIM cards.Then a representative from Barclays came in and helped us set up our bank accounts. It was getting pretty late by then and the weather was miserable (the UK has been experiencing really bad storms and winds lately), so we just decided to go back to the hostel.However, we went to Starbucks to have some coffee and a late lunch first.We ended up spending half an hour longer in there than we intended to because the weather was so bad outside we decided to stay inside until it got better.We got back to Kilburn and remembered we had to go shopping to buy some things to cook for dinner.We got lost looking for a Supermarket (the directions we were given at the hostel when we checked in were not very good).On the way the LondonMarriottRegentsPark called to offer me the job, which was very exciting.We got directions from a lady on the street to get to the nearest Sainsbury, but we couldn't find it, so in the end we found a Tesco's.We bought what we needed and walked home.Our first home cooked dinner in London was spaghetti carbonara.

Yesterday we spent the whole day in Harrods. We took the tube to Knightsbridge and went in.It's HUGE! Like a combination of David Jones in Pitt Street and the QVB but much bigger, more expensive and lavish, although there were some areas, such as the Egyptian escalator, were kind of tacky and over the top.They somewhat decreased the classiness of the store.As well as brand such as Hermes, De Beers diamonds, Cartier, Dolce & Gabanna, there was also toys, fossils, antiques, original maps and paintings, food halls, gift stores, as well as countless restaurants. There were also two really tacky memorials to Dodi and Diana.They were awful.I felt really sad that Diana was being remembered by these things that I'm sure she would not have approved of.We looked around and managed to get lost a couple times.We had lunch at a tapas bar and then we went to Morelli's for ice cream.It was so good, probably some of the best ice cream I've ever had.We each ordered a Sunday each but they were too big for us to finish.We went to the arcade and I bought some things for Mum for her birthday, as well as a Harrods bag for Carissa. In the afternoon we went to have another look at BuckinghamPalace (where I bought a couple more things for Mum in the gift shop) and walked through Green and St James Park which are close by.There were daffodils everywhere you looked, it was so British!We were waiting around to have coffee with Luca after he finished work, but he finished late, so we decided to go home.

Finally, today we went to the BritishMuseum.We went to Starbucks on the way, where I got a coffee and Kathy stashed a whole lot of sugar sachets in her bag, as we had run out of them in the room. First we went on a guided tour of some of the highlights of the Museum.Our tour guide was really interesting and very nice.Afterwards we went to have a look around. The museum is so big we really only managed to see some of the Assyrian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian exhibits. There's so much more to see, it's going to take us at least two more visits before we see everything. However, what we did see was amazing - including the Rosetta stone, mummies, friezes and sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens and two huge carved Persian horsemen that weighed 7 tons each!We had lunch at the café in the Museum (where we 'borrowed' a countless number of salt and pepper sachets, as there was none in our room), had a look around the gift shops and then walked back towards the station.We bought some groceries at the local Sainsbury and then went in search of a colander and a chopping board, as we didn't have one in the room.After a getting poor instructions from a couple of shops and walking up and down the street a couple of times we managed to find the Marks and Spencer we were looking for.We bought what we needed and went back to the tube.I got off at Swiss Cottage because I had to pick up some papers from the hotel.However, when I got to the hotel Ajith told me that the General Manager had been in meetings all day with property's owners and that he had not had a chance to sign the papers.He told me I could collect them at my induction on Monday.I took the tube back to Kilburn and met Kathy at the station, as she had walked back to the service station nearby to top up our power key for our electricity.