A bus just for us

Making the most of our 24 hr bus ticket we headed up to Marylebone (not the station the road – bother!) and jumped aboard. Heading back down to Piccadilly Circus (complete with Eros in the middle), we did a loop-de-loop of the local streets trying to figure out which bus to get on. Once we did this we found ourselves in the complete luxury of having an entire double Decker Bus to ourselves (woo hoo), So we put out feet up on the front window ledge (just because we could) and enjoyed being chauffeured around London 12 feet above the pavement.
After a couple of confusing bus changes later we ended up disembarking at the front of Harrods. Being the popular place it is, Dad originally thought the crowds out the front and the doorman meant there was a queue to get in. Sadly mistaken, we walked straight in (being kindly reminded to carry our backpacks in the correct manner by the said doorman). We got our queue fix later in the day – so all worked out in the end.
Harrods is really cool, the food markets and associated areas downstairs are full of old English character and charm and the rest of the store is filled with expensive goods delivered with toffy English snobbishness. The amount of habbibs and similar garb worn by Muslim women was prominent. No idea what this means but this was without doubt the highest concentration we have seen so far on our journey.
Weaving our way through the packed crowds (and habbibs) we escaped out a back door where the limos were waiting. Assuming they weren’t for us we walked, bought a take away lunch at Starbucks (of all places) and made our way through the expensive suburbs of Knightsbridge to Hyde park to eat it (Mayfair must exist in this area but we did not see it).
We then trekked off to through the heart of the empire (passing many monuments and, (as it turns out following the Princess Dianna memorial walk) past the Palace, Parliament and onto to the Eye. Thus happily reaffirming our tourist (aka “Pleb”) status; by finding crowds to plough through, lines to purchase tickets, and as such giving us the right to stand in more lines for the “flight”.
The Eye was good, we were thinking that perhaps they shut down Melbourne’s simply because it does not compare in size, historical significance of the scenes or, quite simply, that it can’t be as good because the queues will never be as long as they are at this one - for as we have discovered, the longer the queue, the better the attraction must be.
Feeling quite proud of our achievement (when we left the queue was bigger than when we arrived) we plunged back into the milling throng, back over Westminster bridge and down into the misty, dank depths of the underground. Down countless steps and strange angles we twisted and turned until we reached the Bakerloo line. Suspecting the humidity and smell was due to the fact that we were significantly closer to the core of the earth we got on the train to Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty) and after a while, gasping for clean air, popped up just near Madame Tussaud’s.
Here we finally caught up with HRH. This is obviously where she was heading yesterday (not to Windsor as previuosly suggested).We all agreed that this would have been great if there had've been less people in there. It was however, uncontrolled chaos. We did get some laughs though, mostly by accidently looking at someone who was looking at a wax statue and thinking “who is that, should I know them?” and then when they move, you jump realising your error. I guess they set that up on purpose. For future reference – any practical jokers could have a lot of fun here – just stand still and look pensive for a minute or two.....
And so ends the backpacking part of our journey, tomorrow we start a new form of transport and a new style of accommodation. Blog updates may not be so reliable (due to social commitments) – do stay tuned though – we’ll do what we can.