First Days: 28 - 30/12/2014

After close to 40 hours of travel we collapsed in a warm, clean bed in London. Our trip was long and exhausting, with some pretty scenery and a lot of Asians.

We left Hobart's 24 degree day a little sunburned and arrived in Melbourne some 5 hours before our flight. We took our place in the line for check-in and felt as though we were tourists in our own country! After some dubious giggles and games of "spot the Aussie" we waited by the boarding gate and heard our flight called in Chinese - had we made a terrible mistake..?

Nine hours later we arrived in China and Matt decided he'd like a coffee - the Chinese currency is renminbi for anyone (like us) that doesn't know. We were relieved to see that most signs were written in both Chinese and English, and Matt ordered a latte for 75 RMB and thought nothing of it. Looking at souvenirs later we noticed a nice coin purse for 30 RMB - weird that you can buy a purse for less than half the price of a coffee. This sparked our curiosity (panic?) and we hunted for a currency exchange counter to find out the exchange rate. Turns out 75 RMB was 8 pounds, equivalent to $15 AUD.

$15 for a coffee... Looks like coffee isn't so common in China.

London welcomed us with a whopping 3 degrees, which was not a big deal in peak hour on the tube. After re-navigating with some tube lines partially closed for engineering works we finally arrived in our welcoming hotel. Dinner given up for a shower and a warm bed we slept through the night and awoke in the early hours of the morning rested and ready for the day.
Complimentary English breakfast set us up for a positive day and we set out straight for Oxford.











Our trains swapped over near the Tower of London and we had to cross over the road. Ally got excited to show Matt the Tower and London Bridge to find him photographing..... a giant drill. Engineer.

On our way to Oxford we visited Paddington for Blair and Kai.

Oxford! Beautiful old buildings oozing with intelligent history. Ally was a little too excited to find a tiny over-packed 'rare and secondhand' bookstore & Matt squeezed through the shelves looking for any title he recognized because that was bound to be famous (oops no filter).

 Wandering, we chanced upon the Oxford University Plant Science Department :D (Next door to Medical Sciences - Callie, we can work next door to each other!!). We explored the rest of the science precinct until we found Engineering as well. Ally could definitely get settled in here. As usual the Engineering building was nothing exciting to look at (maybe that's why girls stay away? ;) ).

The Science History Museum was fascinating: microscopes, chemistry glassware, clocks and medical equipment from pre-1800s. Logarithmic books, a blackboard from one of Einstein's lectures and the first batteries made were very exciting for us newly qualified scientists.

Day 2 was wrapped up with showing off Matt's pool skills to some friendly Spaniards (3-0 you beauty). Tomato soup beats rice any day.