Day 29 : Stranger in a Strange Land (23/7/09)

A farewell to Ireland and onto London, but first we had to travel from Mellow to Cork and drop of the hire car, the Skoda had proved to be a reliable car thought it had 85,000 k's on the clock and 4 hubcaps that had no doubt been distrubted over the sometimes rough rural streets of Ireland by the people who hired the car prior to us. The trip to Cork airport held no fears for us with written instructions and the trusty Tom Tom, however we got waylaid slightly at one stage by the Irish having the quaint habit of not trimming the hedges or trees where motorway signs are. Needless to say we got to the airport on time and subsequently arrived at Gatwick 25 minutes early and waited for the occupants of the plane to start chanting England,England and clapping with the enthusiasm of the Irish arriving in Ireland some 5 days previously. Sadly Chris' and Dave's England chanting just drew a laugh from themselves. A quick trip on the tube from Gatwick to Victoria Square railway station soon enlivened the travelling party as the crush of people and the pace of life made us look for places to hole up and plan buying Oyster Cards for the Tube and then to travel to our accommodation, after an hour we had checked in to our hotel and were walking around the Hyde Park Gardens in Kensington. These Gardens were great, however at some points in time on this walk we wondered which country we were in and if we hadn't fast forwarded to our Dubia part of the holiday. Our faces seemed to be the only lighter ones we saw (and we walked past hundreds of people), it was also quite laughable that other tourists from other countries were asking us for directions in the Park when we were only fresh off the plane from Ireland. An evening meal and some English warm pints and ciders at the Swan Hotel had us needing to go for another walk where we found street traders selling tickets to the plays on in London, some quck decisions were made and we parted with some hard earned cash and we were told we had tickets to Wicked. Chris and Dave then started doubting the wisdom of such a quick decision by saying he looked like Borat , spoke like Borat and probaly wrestled nude mem like Borat. Will we get to see wicked????????????