Tuesday 29 December

A sleep in was achieved this morning, although we still had to set an alarm and wake everyone – at 9am. When I had booked Madame Tussauds at home, I had to nominate a timeslot to arrive, so randomly picked 10.30am which meant we had to get up and get going! We walked around the corner to Green Park station, bought an Oyster card, and travelled the two tube stops to Baker St. We couldn’t get over how many policemen with many weapons were standing around in the stations, but they were very nice. Two even posed for a photo with Zac (although I was concerned about us distracting them from their job of protecting us!).

  
We had coffee across the road as we were early, and then waltzed through past the long queue straight in. It was slightly bedlam with all the people, but we soon got into the swing of it and enjoyed the tour, which took us almost three hours. I was really impressed with the whole place, as there were not only the wax models to see, but a ride that went through a brief history of London, a 4D experience/mini movie full of Marvel Superheroes, and a Star Wars section. This was Zac and Sam’s Christmas present, and they were stoked! 

   
    
    
    
   
We then caught the tube to Westminster station, and looked at the Abbey (but only from the outside as the crowds to enter were organised into a long queue that stretched past the length of the Abbey!). Nearby was a Methodist Church (which is being set up for Bryan Adams to perform there NYE), and we went into their cafe for a late lunch. They had an upright piano in the corner, so Jarrod was able to spend some time serenading those in the cafe. He has been saying he is missing the piano at home while we have been travelling, so it was great for him to get a short practice session in. 

From our sandwiches and paninis there, we walked across Westminster Bridge to get onto the London Eye. I had picked up our tickets at Madame Tussauds, except they turned out to be vouchers I had to exCHANGE for tickets at the Ticket Office. The ticket collection line stretched so far – I was told the wait would be an HOUR. I then saw someone else tell the supervisor that they had been told they could use their voucher as a ticket instead of lining up, so I suggested to her the same deal should be made available to me, and she authorised it. One hour saved!! 

We then queued up to get on the Eye, and the man checking our tickets told us we had mistakenly joined the Fast Track line and needed to join the back of the “normal” queue, which snaked around and around and stretched across the road. Ross estimated we would wait about 2-3 hours in that line. The crowd propelled us forward towards another girl checking tickets. I looked forlornly at her and asked her to please not send a group our size to the back of the slow line. So…she didn’t. Three hours saved! Fifteen minutes later we were enjoying our ride on the London Eye, just as the sun was setting. 

   
   
We wandered back across the River Thames and down to Westminster Station via 10 Downing Street. I remember as a child having my photo taken outside the front door, but of course in this day and age, the whole street is fenced off and guarded by policemen. We stopped to chat with them about a protest going on across the street, and they were very friendly. The protest was asking the government to support Ethiopian people and not the Ethiopian government, but David Cameron is away on holidays so the protestors’ only audience was the policemen and people like us walking past! 

  
We walked down Piccadilly on our return home, and enjoyed the logs and bustle of West End. It was only 5pm but we were all so tired after a big day, and the kids had been asking for Five Guys since they saw it last week as we rode by. So we stopped in there for dinner and were home with our feet up (and a load of washing on) by 7pm.