"Please mind the gap between the train and the platform"

Wow. Sightseeing has to be up there with the marathon and boot camp as one of the most gruelling things you can put your body through. London should come with a warning label - "Caution: Do not attempt to cover the entire city in five days. Doing so could be harmful or fatal." Despite the blisters and aching back, I have seen some amazing things over the past days. Highlights have been: the Houses of Parliament, the Science museum, the Cabinet War Chambers (underground rooms from which Churchill and his cabinet planned and fought the war. Totally not to be missed), and the Tower of London, which was beyond words in how totally awesome it is. I have been pleasantly surprised by the museums and galleries here. I thought the Tate Modern Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert museum would be totally boring, but they were awesome.

Other cool things in London I have seen/heard: A 41 gun salute (very British and pompous);the antiques and silver departments at Harrods; looking down at the floor in Harrods and realising I was standing on a £21,000 rug (about $63,000); pidgeons everywhere; French schoolchildren at the Tate; red double decker buses and black cabs; one girl saying "innit" (only took 10 hours after touching down at Heathrow to hear my first "innit"); and magic mushrooms being sold quite openly and legally at Camden market. Weird. If I was to relate in any sort of detail everything I've done over the past few days, I'd be here all night, so you'll have to make do with this small taste.

For the zillion people that have asked, the flight was similarly gruelling but fun. Dad warned me not to, under any circumstances, get talking to the person sitting next to me, because if they were boring, I'd have to talk to them for 23 hours. I got on the plane quite intent on following that advice, but my neighbour struck up a conversation and that was the end of it. Luckily he was a doctor from Amsterdam, so we chatted quite happily all the way to London, covering politics, religion, family values, medicine, geography, and probably anything else you can think of. It was one of the types of conversations I came to Europe to have. The weather when I got to London was lovely and sunny - that didn't last long. All in all I'm exhausted but contented. Tomorrow is Greenwich, Tate Britain and 10 Downing Street...