A Wicked UK Tour, Part 1 - London

For Bel's Xmas and B'day present I decided to get her tickets to Wicked in London. Luckily she was nice enough to take me along with the second ticket, so we decided to make a weekend of it and visit Chis and Bec while we were there. As it turns out, one of my colleagues was getting married on the following weekend in St. Andrews in Scotland, so we decided to extend said weekend to a 2 week tour of England and Scotland. Because we had originally planned to only go for the weekend, we had booked flights with Ryanair (sigh) and hadn't paid for any checked baggage (they sting you for EVERYTHING), so we took the challenge of packing for 2 weeks, including wedding clothes, in one piece of carry-on luggage with a max weight of 10kg each.

The Millenium Eye.

And from the anchor point.

A 1.5hr drive to the Frankfurt Hahn airport (which is in a different state to Frankfurt), 2 failed and 1 successful check-in attempts, a long wait, an uncomfortable 1.5hr flight including 2 for 1 offers on spirits and endless offers to buy scratchies, a long wait, and a 70min bus ride later, we had arrived at Victoria Station in London. At this point in time the heavens decided to open up, so Bel and I hid in a Café on the banks of the Thames for a while before slowly hoofing our way to Waterloo Station via multiple "sights" and catching the train to Chis and Bec's place. We took in dinner that evening at the local and signed ourselves up for the trivia comp. For a team of 4 Aussies in a British Pub Quiz we did pretty darn well, pulling some answers out of the deepest, darkest reaches of our backsides. The Tools missed out on a 3-way tie for second by 0.5 points, and headed home for the night with a well earned 4th behind "My beaver has bucked teeth", "We put the sex in dyslexia", and another team who's name obviously wasn't funny enough to stay in my memory.

Look kids! Big Ben...

...Parliament!

On Friday I bit the bullet and went with Bel to the Tate Modern art gallery. I came to the conclusion that I just don't get modern art whatsoever, though it was pretty impressive to see and original Salvidor Dali painting up close and see just how much detail he was able to capture in his paintings. Some phsychologist's detailed analysis of a Jackson Pollock painting saying that he had discovered fractals in Pollock's painting, 25 years ahead of them being discovered in nature, and therefore Pollock was like so ahead of his time, gave me enough "how much of a tool is this guy!" fodder to take to Chis' birthday dinner and really enjoy myself. :)

Midget Bindy!

Brolly and wellies are a must.

With a good cooked breakfast in our bellies (why did everyone else's omlettes work, and mine basically became scrambled eggs?!?!) we took Chis and Bec out on a 7-8 stage Sherlock Holmes inspired geocache. The cache lead us all over London, including to parts that Chis and Bec had never been to before, like the spot where William Wallace (see Mel Gibson in Braveheart for a bad portrayal) was executed. Unfortunately it turned out that the Temple area was closed off on Saturday due to the G20 protests, meaning that we couldn't find one of the answers to the clues, and the cache remained unfound. :(
After dinner at a great French restaurant with C&B just near the Theatre, Bel and I headed off to see Wicked - and it truly was. The story, the sets, the music, the acting and singing - all of it was just bloody excellent, and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking of going, regardless of whether you are a fan of The Wizard of Oz or not. Whatever you do though, don't try and take and video with your camera, video camera, or iPhone - they will be confiscated from you, and I will probably be the one sitting behind you laughing my arse off! :)

Shop front on Portabello Road.	What you lookin' at, punk?
Check this for hang-time!	Maybe should have heeded this warning before getting on the bike.

At Chis' b'day dinner on Friday night the seeds were sown, and on Sunday the plan came to fruition - it was off the Bletchley Park for a nerd outing for Brush and Chis! For those who haven't seen the movie Enigma, this was the home of British Code Cracking and the cracking of the German Enigma in the second world war.
Before going into Bletchley we tried to take in another cache. I am pretty sure that we had all of the details correct, but we couldn't find the hidden treasure at the end location, even with Chis and I doing a bit of tree climbing...
The it was off to Bletchley. After 1hr we bailed on the guided tour (a guy reading from prompt cards really ain't my idea of entertaining) and took in a 90min presentation on the theory of the Enigma instead. The presentation was held by a guy who really knew his stuff, but who kept it at a level that even those who hadn't studied Algebraeic Coding and Cryptography could understand and enjoy. It took a fair bit of time and effort to get Bel to stop asking follow-up questions after the presentation was over.

Chis doing his best Rizatta ad.	And helping me climb a tree.
It's da bombe!	Who is that stunning man?!?!?

On Monday morning it was time to say goodbye to Chis and Bec (thanks for letting us stay guys!!!!), London, and The Tube, and jump in our rental car - our travel companion for the next 9 days - and head west to Bristol and the Cheddar Gorge. We got to Cheddar Gorge too late to tour the caves where the Cheddar cheese is matured, but we still got to have a little look around and buy some cheese brfore heading back to Bristol to stay with some friends for the night. Here I learned that my company is planning on cutting around 1/3 of the workforce - why does this always happen when I am on holidays?!?!?

Some cool windows I found.	Boats in Hyde Park.
Not sure what the building is called, but we are in the reflection.	A little river in Cheddar. Kinda cheesy, huh?

Here ends Part 1 of our Wicked Tour of the UK. In Part 2 we head off in the red rocket to The Lakes District for a couple of days of R&R.

Tschüß,
Brushy.