• Saturday 29 January 2000 and Sunday 30 January 2000
    Highlights: Leicester Square, Tower of London, The Globe Theatre

    Firstly jet-lag hit hard with both Jon and myself waking up at 3 am and unable to get back until about 7.30 am.  At least we could watch the Australian Tennis Open, the first time I had missed the Tennis Open in 10 years.  The hotel room includes a television and full breakfast which we made full use off.

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  • Friday 28 January 2000
    Highlights: Westminster, St Paul’s Church Evensong performance

    Well we got into London a little early at 9.30 am.  The flight took over 10 hours.  I think next time we will check in separately as everyone else had a bonus spare seat.  After 80 days travelling together I think a spare seat apart would be fine 🙂

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  • Thursday 27 January 2000
    Highlights:
    Leaving USA

    Straight to the airport for an uneventful flight from Los Angels to London (Heathrow) followed by a train trip to gets us to Notting Hill our location for the next few days in a small hotel.  It is good to say goodbye to the backpacker hostel for a little while.

    Today we finally finished the extensive 64 day USA leg of this world trip.  I’m very glad I did such an extensive tour of the United States.  I probably won’t get the chance again to do such a long stay in just one country, at least not until I’m retired.

    Highlights included visiting JFK’s shooting in Dallas, listening to jazz late into the night in New Orleans, comedy and everything in New York, the people in Deadwood, the magnificent Niagara Falls and the impossible to gasp Grand Canyon which is easily the best natural sight I have ever seen.

    I was also glad to see America sport; gridiron match, a basketball match and WCW wrestling (I know this isn’t a sport).  The Titans are still alive in the NFL and playing in the Super Bowl this weekend so I might have seen the Champions live during the season which would be great.

    Onwards to Europe or more accurately the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

  • Wednesday 26 January 2000
    Highlights:
    Venice Beach.

    We arrived at 4 am and luckily the hostel let us check straight in and crash. The bus trip was mostly fine and I even got some sleep but thank god that is the last overnight bus trip.  They save time and money but really knock down your energy levels.

    After getting some sleep we headed down to Venice Beach.  While their was a lot of construction going on there was still the usual weird / unusual LA people and tourists (like me!). The rest of the day was spent preparing for tomorrow’s flight to England.  I wrote the last of my USA postcards and visited the local library to send emails to everyone.

    Tomorrow we commence the Europe leg of the trip; England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Republic of Ireland.

  • Tuesday 25 January 2000
    Highlights:
    Golden Gate Bridge, Girhardelli House Ice cream.

    For our last day in San Francisco we decided to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge, so called because of the entrance to the bay.   We totally misjudged the distance and ended up walking for over 2 hours.  I know I felt the strain of walking this major hills.  The weather was fine for this hike so we got so great photos (I hope).

    As a reward for our hiking we once again visited Girhardelli House for ice cream.  We really noticed the beggars and homeless today.  You’d think with all this wealth they could assist the unfortunate.

    Finally we caught our last ever Greyhound bus back to Los Angeles.  After 18 bus trips around USA, many of them overnight, I’m looking forward to never using this company again.