For the Easter weekend, Renee and I had a lazy one, pretty much having our flat all to ourselves. Went into the city on the Sunday to do some tourist stuff - Renee has a bucket list she wants to get through before we eventually depart. Got to the London dungeons, and saw the line was down the street, around the corner, through the Thames and up Spook Hill, so we decided to forego that idea. Everyone was here for some big wedding apparently.
Instead, we checked out a few lesser known places. Buckingham Palace. You heard of it? I certainly hadn't been there before, but I ticked that box. Got off at monument tube stop and discovered there was actually a monument outside it. It wasn't just a clever name. We hauled ourselves up the 311 stepped spiral staircase and took in the views of greater London. A recommended tourist attraction to do if you happen to be into climbing stairs.
Went to Thorpe Park on the Monday. It is a theme park overrun with Chavs. Has some great rides though, like the Saw rollercoaster (yes - based on the movies) and the Stealth. We dominated them all. It was funny seeing Renee as she got into the stealth. Here is a ride that flings for 210 ft in the air as you accelerate from 0 -85 mph (around 140kph) in 2.3 seconds. She was before me in the line and it was all smiles until that initial burst of speed has her eyes widen instantly and her head pinned to the back of the chair. Fantastic. They had a basketball shooting comp there and all these gumbi's were paying 4 quid to get in and shoot as many 3 pointers as they could in 45 seconds. These guys were all show; bouncing balls through the legs, practicing fadeaways, but when it actually came to shooting - God help them. I expressed my interest and paid 2 pound after talking the guy down in price and hit four 3 pointers, bagging a large NY Knicks teddy bear for Renee. He is called 'Mello.
I strutted out of the bball area and said 'and what?' to the stunned chavs. Ha ha
Check out the website for the themepark. The Saw coaster was prbably the best based on its 100 inverted degree drop. Oh yeah
Last weekend was another long weekend, thanks to the Royal wedding. We had already decided to head to Cornwall for that weekend, so I had to let the Royals know that I wasn't going to attend. Will took it like a man, but Kate was fairly cut up. Poor girl. I mean the world to her apparently.
So Cornwall was good. Hired a car and drove down with Pom and Bridget. Due to the wedding we were pretty much forced to stay in the rather touristy town of Newquay, which wasn't bad at all. They had sandy beaches, and lucky for us, I brought my frisbee. We had fish and chips on the beach and flung that plastic disc around for a few hours upon arrival. It was a 7 hour journey down there so pretty much took up our whole Friday.
On the Saturday, we drove out to the Eden Project - a huge series of biomes which house rainforest's and Mediterranean vegetation. Crazy scale and really well presented. The rainforest biome was incredibly humid and I last a gallon of sweat getting to the very top of the thing.
We drove around a few small villages after that. Alot of the villages are these quaint fishing types, so it was a great change.
The Sunday was crap weather but we still managed to get down to St Ives, and check that small village out. Afterwards we drove to the Southernmost tip of the UK - fittingly called Lands End. It was a tourist trap to say the least. The only way there is by car, and when you got there they had set up a one way route so you almost had no other choice but to pay 4 pound and drive on through to the carpark. Sneaky.
We stopped for lunch in Penzance before deciding the weather was too horrid and we headed back to Newquay for snakebites at the local Walkabout. A great weekend away and hard to get back to the office.