Home again, home again, chinny chin, chin

It was a long haul, but we are back. Jeez that flight back was boring. Yawn. Best thing to do is join the Qantas Club so you can have a shower when you are stopping over. We did this, not together, in Singapore, and we both felt 100% better for it. Boring flight, and especially when it is packed, and I am rubbing forearms with some Pom all the way from Singapore. It was nice of my mum and dad to pick us up. Very unexpected that. But welcome. As our flight did get in at 4:45 AM. Now that's old school early.

Here are some photos, I am trying to work out how to get an online photo album up, where I will be able to put all my photos on it. Just like a slide show, won't that be great!

Here's one of the Effle Tower at night. There were a lot of peopel there, many speaking strange languages that I am unaware of. That's the joy of travel. Christ it was cold up there at the top. There was this American bloke who was getting hsi photo taken and wasn't smiling, so I pulled out the old gem: "Jeez mate you woudln't want to smile as your face might crack". He didn't fin d it funny. Humourless yank. Go and be world's police man, you fuck.

Here is a photo of Jim Morrison's grave. I thought there was going to be some hippies singing songs and incense burning. But no. And you guessed it, more American tourists. We did have a nice feed from a Turkish kebab place jsut around the corner from the cemetary. That was nice. We both had to use the toilets outside the cemetary too, now that was strange. But they do things differently in other countries.

We also had a day or so in London. We went on a bus tour and went to the Tower. The Tower was cool. Lots of talking abotu death etc. Some Yank, how surprising, arked up at the Yeoman warder and questioned him on his facts about an execution. The Yeoman told him that they have records of every execution and that what he was saying was correct. Take that America. Pity you don't have the same sort of records with that camp outside of Cuba. Anyway, London was nice. I had three things I wanted to do, have a curry, drink a pint in the pub, and have a fry up. And I did all three. Although it must be said that a curry before a long haul flight is probably not the best thing. But the a/c was on in the plane, so that was good. We didn't get to see too much of London, but the bus tour took us most places. I wanted to see Westminster Abbey, but didn't, but that's cool, there will be another time. I did find a statue of Wellington, one of my favourtie Generals. There aren't many, so he is in esteemed company. Here it is.

He is on his horse, Copenhagen. Hope I spelt that right. On the day of the battle at Waterloo, he was on that horse for something like 14 hours. He must have a strong bum. There was a bit of bird doo on him, and I thought the poms would have given him a clean. But that's how it goes. It must shit the French when the EuroStar stops at Waterloo station in England. Heh, heh, heh.

We also went to Villers-Brettenuox. I think that's the correct spelling. This is the battle in WWI, when the Australians held the line against the German attack. They were the only ones there, and if it had of broken, it could have been very bad. Also, the town was stuffed by shell fire and it was Victoria which helped to rebuild it. It was lovely, and well worth the 5 AM start to get there. That was a long day, but the trip through the rural French countryside was nice. Here is the road to the memorial. It is only a 45 minute walk from the centre of Villers, and the map in the train station has been written on by previous Australians, so the hints are worth reading. It was a beautiful, but sad place, and a pity so many died up there, but at least they are in a peaceful place.