Kevin celebrated his return to the developed world with a burger at Burger King. Abu Dhabi airport is pretty cool, and impressive to see that the area is mainly a desert. We went 'a bit luxury' and hired sleeping pods for the 9 hr stop over. Possibly one of the smartest things we have ever done. Only problem is waking up in the morning and sliding back the hatch, forgetting that there is a boarding lounge in front and behind you, then looking around and seeing massive planes beside you. A little mind boggling while you work out what on earth is going on.

We loved arriving to Dublin as we heard the Irish accent, everyone sounded so cheery! We just kept giggling and saying 'top of the morning to you', 'Brilliant' and 'thanks a million!'

From there we took a short flight to London and checked in to our hostel. We are possibly the luckiest Aussies as the sun shone for our whole time in England. Many people say that you have to experience London in the summer, and though it's still technically spring, it's having summery weather. Everyone was out in the parks sunning themselves and lining the streets outside of the pubs. We were unsure what they were all doing standing out the front, and then realised that the majority of pubs don't have an outside area (the weather isn't overly conducive to this) so the street essentially becomes the beer garden. It's pretty cool actually.

We did our usual walking tours but this time managed to do three tours in 26hrs! We did the traditional London sites tour, followed by a traditional pub lunch, we then did a tour of London City and the old city, followed by the Grimm Reaper tour, focussing on stories of the plague and Jack the Ripper.

All three tours were great and we saw A LOT of London. Some of the quirky things we saw and learnt include:
* strange royal rituals that take place when the Queen wants to visit London city
* saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace. NZ armed forces had several days as honorary guards. Though they couldn't really speak whilst they were guarding Charles' palace, we said our congratulations and told them we were proud of them.
*learnt that Spitle fields was a mass grave for those that died from the black death and is now a thriving market place.
* that Liverpool street station used to be a psych hospital and patients were antagonised. The hospital allowed tours of people to walk through and stare at and tease the patients. Needless to say, the whole station is a little creepy.
* saw London tower which has its origins almost 1000years ago, and is now home to all of the beefeaters. They live their with their families and you can see the kids playing in the grounds.
* much of the tube in the centre of London goes straight through mass graves, and many people have reported seeing ghosts while traveling these parts
*the term 'laughing your head off' comes from the beheading of Simon Fraser. Many people had turned out to watch his execution. So many that a stand was erected so that everyone could see. Just before the execution began, the stand collapsed killing about 30 people. Simon found the irony in this situation funny and began laughing. His head continued to laugh as it rolled away
*that the original Shakespeare's playhouse was burnt down when they fired a real canon during a play and set fire to the place
* saw St Catherine dock where the convicts were kept in junkets and sailed out from
* heard stories of homeless men effectively breaking into Buckingham palace and scaring the living daylights out of the Queen
*the genealogy of the pelicans present in the gardens in front of Buckingham palace, can be traced back to the pelicans that Henry the 8th was given as a present
* saw tower bridge open
* and that Jack the Ripper may actually be a woman! (Jill the Ripper)

Strangely enough, London is full of red double decker buses, red phone booths (many now heritage listed and absent of the actual phone inside so are just glass boxes in the streets!), black cabs, the tube, pubs, beer, English breakfasts, royalty, smart suits, a million union flags and a ridiculous amount of pomp and ceremony. The queen probably can't fart without a few canons being fired in celebration.

But the highlight was seeing my Cuz Jared, and staying with him and his wife Jo. The four of us had a great few days exploring London, exchanging stories, eating, drinking, watching sport and having a laugh. We were very spoilt, they even cooked us a lamb roast! We almost died with happiness.

We left London to head north to Scotland via Manchester. We spent three nights in Manchester while we organised a few things. I got to go through some of the surrounding suburbs that my grandparents are from, which was really special. We did accidentally book a hostel that is on the curry mile which was very annoying as we can't stand the site of curry at the moment (too much in Nepal) and we avoided all Man U and Man City paraphernalia like the plague.