Oxford

After leaving good ole London we hopped the train (we and our four delicious cookies who joined us for the ride) from King's Cross to Oxford. It was a fairly crowded train and we kept hoping no one would decide to ask us to move our backpacks so they could have a seat. I mean, we wouldn't want to be stuck talking with some stange British person. We enjoy being anti-social at times.

We made it to Oxford with no major problems - the only hitch was that we had to change trains in Reading due to some malfunction with the one we were on. We walked nearly two miles to our rather run down hotel, our backpacks feeling much heavier than they ever had before. The dingy hotel was nothing we hadn't seen before - old carpets, worn paint, thin walls, a faint strange smell. All in all, not bad! Their breakfast was one of the best we've had on our trip so far. They even had chocolate muffins and...some pate-like stuff. I ate the chocolate muffins. As well as my full English breakfast. And here I thought we might actually be able to lose weight on our trip. Silly me.

On our first day of sight-seeing we went to the All Souls College and got pictures of the beautiful Radcliffe Camera. We stopped for some shots at the Botanic Garden, but didn't actually go in - the rose garden out front was good enough for me. And we spotted a game shop that had a bunch of really nice chess sets in the window: Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Poo vs Peter Rabbit, Lord of the Rings, etc. There were quite a few game shops like this around Oxford actually. We went to the covered market for lunch and chocolates. It's quite a good market! Dare I say it's almost as good as Borough Market in London. There's a number of fruit and veg vendors, a couple of meat stalls (one of which is organic), a few fishmongers (I love that word), a cake shop, a chocolate store, and various other random shops. We had some savory pies with mash (aka mashed potatos) for lunch at stall called The Pieminster. After that we walked down High Street to New Road. This area is filled with shops of all sorts. It seems that this is probably where most of your clothes shopping can be done in Oxford. We saw the Oxford Castle from the outside and got some pictures. Didn't look too impressive to be honest, but I'm sure it's nice. And after that I got myself a piercing. Eeeps! Yes, a piercing. I got my lip pierced. Now, don't look at me like that. I decided that I may as well do it now, since I've always wanted to have one. While I'm on this trip I don't have to worry about people who have some amount of control over my life judging me (ie: being fired due to facial piercings). So I got my lip pierced! And yes, it hurt, but not as much as I was expecting. I got it done at a place called Tiger Lily, which turned out to be a bit better than I was expecting. So hopefully all goes well and I don't die from some random piercing malfunction. In fact, it was just in the papers over here that some kid died of blood poisoning after getting his lip pierced. I did my best research on the place, asked the piercer a few questions, and crossed my fingers from there. Anyways, lets move on!



Our next big day out was to the Oxford Natural History Museum. I loved that they had dinosaur footprints in the field out front of the museum! Nice touch. The architecture of the building once you get inside is astounding. It's just beautiful! The ceiling is all glass, held up by a sort of honey-comb frame which is supported by these clusters of delicate-looking columns. And the room is bordered by columns of different types of stone, the names of which are engraved at the base. So it's as though they built geologic displays into the architecture of the building. And on display were quite a few different skeletons from dinosaurs, to prehistoric bears and cows, to fish and frogs. There was a stand alone "box" with a heavy velvet curtain that you could go inside to look at various rocks that fluoresced under UV light. Upstairs was a big display of bugs and creepy-crawlies. They even had a glass case housing a giant millipede, another with some sort of beetles, and another with a ton of different cockaroaches. And I'm talking huges roaches - bigger than the Palmetto bugs back in Florida (woot, represent). These were about three inches long and icky looking. They gave me the shivers at the same time that I was fascinated.

At the back of the museum is another huge room called the Pitt Rivers Museum. It's packed full of display cases which, in turn, are packed full of human artifacts of all sorts. To be honest, there were so many things on display that I was completely overwhelmed. They had varieties of musical instruments from all over the world, and all throughout time. And model ships. Woven tapestries, Hawaiian feather capes, sleds, items of worship, a giant totem pole, shrunken heads, enemy skulls, etc. The shrunken heads had a very interesting description of how they're made. Basically you take the head and remove the skin from the skull, throwing away the skull and brain. Then you heat the... head skin (for lack of a better word) with hot pebbles that are stuffed inside. The heat shrinks the skin, you sew up the eyes and mouth, have a ritualistic ceremony to placate the spirits and voila! Your very own shrunken head!

Oh, the really fun part about the Pitt Rivers Museum is that it's quite dark inside (I assume to help preserve the artifacts, as light tends to damage things). Due to not being able to see so well they hand out wind-up flashlights at the enterance. The room is filled with the soft 'whir-whir-whir' hum of everyone winding these flashlights to see the displays better. It's rather amusing actually. And it makes you feel good about generating your own electricity and being green!

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London II.iv

NOTE: If you're interested in seeing the whole post, make sure you continue past the pictures of the zoo.

Well, it's been a while since I last posted! We've been having a nice time just relaxing to be honest. Although we're currently in Oxford (just arrived yesterday), we spent the last month in London. As you might already know we stayed with a wonderful family who we met through our great bed & breakfast host in Kelvedon. We were very lucky that we found such a great place to stay, and paid what seems like close to nothing to stay there! I loooooved having a kitchen again - we cooked a meal practically every night. And our hosts treated us to home-cooked meals frequently. They made us a great Sunday roast one Sunday (complete with Yorkshire Pudding and all), Shepherd's Pie, Bangers and Mash, etc.

And they're two daughters are just amazingly adorable. The youngest is not yet a year old and when she's in a good mood is sooo cute! She has the greatest little smile that would melt the coldest of hearts. And the other, who just turned 3 while we were there, has the prettiest curly hair. She was so cute with Chuck too, as she seemed to take a particular liking to him. He would play with her sometimes, and she would ask him very politely over and over if she could have some of the tomato or onion that he would be chopping for dinner. And when we left she even gave us hugs! So sweet!

And their parents - our hosts - were so hospitable. They didn't seem to mind that we drank a lot of their tea, which we did. And they invited us to their neighbourhood annual fete without being embarrassed of us clumsy Americans! Some nights we would sit up talking at the kitchen table - things such as American vs British pronounciation (in other words, the wrong vs the right pronounciation), offal, duck mating habits, sights to see, etymology of various words, etc. And it was nice that there weren't any problems getting in each others way when we each wanted our own space. Well, Chuck and I at least didn't feel like we were being impressed upon at any point. I hope we managed to stay out of their hair when they wanted their space!

Now, what have we been up to? On the 3rd of June we went to the London Zoo. It was alright. Their indoor rainforest exhibit was the best display there. And I was excited to get a picture in front of the Reptile House - yes, the very same Reptile House that Harry Potter visited.



On the 4th we saw a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a Classical Gala and very good! The Royal Albert Hall itself is pretty amazing. It's huge! And there are quite a few stories and balconies. The violinist for Tchaikovsky's violin concerto was outstanding. And there was a beautifully haunting vibraphone concerto as well. And the final piece was Ravel's Bolero and made for a great finale with it's 14 snare drums. Very cool.



And on the 5th we had an authentic pork pie. I liked the pork filling and the flaky crust, but I have to admit that the jelly was a bit too...jelly-ish for me. And I got some flavoured Turkish Delights (which were more like marshmallows than Turkish Delights) that were so pretty I had to take pictures.



The 9th was another Harry Potter moment (I'm a dork, I know). We visited platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station. It's not the actual filming location, but just a fun photo spot they made. I mean, the platform in the movie was filmed in Kings Cross, but not at the spot that's set up with the "Platform 9 3/4" sign. Yeah.



Okay, the 10th was a visit to the British Library. We couldn't take pictures inside, but that's okay. It wasn't as good at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, but it was still good. They did have a great exhibit of music notebooks belonging to various famous composers. They had Handel's Messiah notebook, Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Ravel's Bolero. To be honest, I was quite moved by them. The library also houses the original Magna Carta, which is very historic, but fairly boring to look at. There were some notebooks and journals and original copies by Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austin, Lewis Carroll, etc. Good stuff.



And lastly, the 15th was a trip to Greenwich. We took a river cruise down the Thames with a tour guide who proclaimed frequently that he's "not a professional tour guide," despite doing a great job. His accent was very...Bert from Mary Poppins. It was icing on the cake of a very good river tour. We went tot he Royal Observatory one we got to Greenwich. This is where the Prime Meridian is located! We got to stand on both halves of the world at the same time, which is sort of silly if you think about it. I can stand on both halves of the world anywhere I go... I can make up my own meridian if I want! It's only special because it's the meridian that the scientific world recognizes. It was still cool.



If you're wondering what happened on days not mentioned, the answer is not much. Those are days we didn't do anything exciting at all! Those were nice days too though. We're very good at relaxing, hehe.

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London II.iii

Between being lazy and cooking dinners we've found time to visit another museum: the British Museum. Like the Natural History Museum, we ended up seeing half of it the first day, and came back two days later for the rest. The museum is pretty good, although it doesn't beat the Natural History Museum in my opinion.

They have a pretty big collection of Egyptian stuff - I've heard it's the largest outside of Egypt. We walked through the collection Egyptian statues, some of which are pretty large (I know they're much larger in Egypt though). This is where the actual, authentic Rosetta Stone is located. And if you don't remember what the Rosetta Stone is (it's not just "language learning software" that Michael Phelps was in a commercial for), it was the key to deciphering the Egyptian written language. The stone has the same passage written on it in three different languages, one of which is Greek. Since archaeologists could read the Greek, they were able to unravel what the other two Egyptian versions said! Voila! The Rosetta Stone exhibit seems to always be surrounded by crowds of people, so it was hard to get a picture. I got a picture with the imitation Rosetta Stone in the library of the museum though, hehe.

They also had a lot of Roman and Greek artifacts and statues. There were a few Assyrian pieces. The Middle Eastern area had a few nice things. The Aztec room was pretty cool. The turquoise mosaic, double-headed serpent was very cool. I wasn't able to get a good picture of it, sadly. And the other turquoise mosaic masks were pretty creepy. I would have freaked out if I saw some priest coming at me, knife in hand with a mask like that on.

The Chinese and Oriental collection was very exotic and interesting. There were fat, laughing Buddhas as well as somber, calm Buddhas. A lot of the females figures had very pronounced and perky breasts and hips, which is different from most of the statues we'd seen from other parts of the world. And a lot of pieces were inlaid with lots of sparkling little gems or made of shiny gold. Pretty stuff.



Our second trip to the museum brought us through a collection of even more Roman pieces. We also saw a pretty large display of money from all over the world throughout the ages. They had a watch and clock collection that had everything from grandfather clocks to pocket-watches to elaborate astronomical clocks. The Japanese exhibit was decent, containing a few beautiful scrolls as well as a suit of samurai armor. I enjoyed their collection of old jewelry, vases, tableware, etc from 17th-18th century England. Some pieces were really very pretty.

We saw the rest of their Egyptian collection. They had coffins, canopic jars, and all sorts of other burial-related items. They have a pretty good specimen of a 5000 year old man with tufts of hair on his head and everything. I do think that the preserved bodies at the National Museum of Ireland: Archaeology were more impressive though. These rooms were very crowded, like at the Rosetta Stone. I think a lot of people must go to the museum to just see the Egyptian stuff.

And I tell you what, as we finished the last room and headed back downstairs to leave, the funniest thing happened. See, it was like this. I was merrily walking down the stairs and suddenly found myself practically sitting on them, my foot twisted oddly under me, trying as best I could to find my balance so I didn't just topple headlong the rest of the way. After what seemed like quite a while (but I'm told was actually no time at all) I gathered myself and prepared to diffuse the embarrassing situation as best I could. I popped up with a smile and turned to the horrified faces of the random strangers behind me and proclaimed "I'm okay!" Inside I shuddered... Here I am, 26 years old, still falling down stairs.

After making my way safely to the bottom I realized my toe kind of hurt. I looked down and fighting panic told Chuck that I was not okay. About 8mm of the toenail on my big toe was flipped backward, the pink skin underneath shining through. Eeeps! The sight of it was worse than the reality though. It bled a bit, but really didn't hurt so much. Looking on the bright side, I had an excuse to limp around for the rest of the day which is always fun!

That night's dinner was a juicy, fatty roast duck with roast potatoes and a roast parsnip. That parsnip was honestly the most delicious part of the whole meal. Soooo good all soft and roasty.



The next day we headed out to the butchers to get some venison steaks. We've been on a roll trying new meats here, and venison was our next pick. They turned out to be absolutely delicious. I thought they were better than beef steaks. They were tender and almost buttery. I don't know if we just got lucky with our venison, or if it's always so good. I would gladly replace my beef with venison. On the way back form the butchers we got a few pictures. We finally got the obligatory "phone booth" pictures. Good times.

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London II.ii

NOTE: When looking through the pictures on Panoramio you can click on the picture to see a larger version if you'd like! Jut thought I'd let you know.

I believe I left off at our first visit to the Natural History Museum on the 22nd. Well, on the 23rd we went back for more. Partly because we didn't have enough time to see the whole museum, but mainly because the camera battery was dead and I didn't get all the pictures I wanted. I wound up with a ton of pictures in the end, but I won't make you sift through all 250 or so... Just the highlights.

We went back through the primate exhibit to the rock room first. I got all the pictures of the pretty rocks that my heart desired. I separated the photos for you as well: I made a separate link to the pictures of just rocks below the ones from the rest of the museum. I did put some pictures of things like diamonds and emeralds in with the main pictures though. The have the Star of South Africa which is a 47 carat diamond. They also have the Devonshire Emerald (1384 carats, but with a lot of imperfections), the Latrobe Nugget (717 gram nugget of crystallized gold), a cubic zirconia replica of the Koh-i-Noor (a 105 carat diamond that has been around for hundreds of years at least, changing hands via violence and trade), a rock from Mars, etc. One of the most interesting displays is their Aurora Collection. It's a collection of 296 different colored diamonds, each no bigger than a pinky fingernail or so. Every few minutes a blacklight illuminates the display making all the diamonds glow their fluorescent colors. I didn't manage to get a picture, but here a link to what it looks like under the blacklight: Aurora Collection under blacklight.

We walked through the museum getting a few missed photo opportunities from the day before then went around the corner to the science museum. Unfortunately the science museum wasn't as cool as I was hoping it would be. It was huge though - 5 or 6 floors I think. They did have some neat displays of various old steam engines that would come to life, gears spinning and rotating when you pressed a button. They also had an impressive display of miniature boats that was cool. So there were a few cool things, but it just didn't grab my interest like some of the other museums have.

We didn't spend long there and soon were back at the place we're staying. We made chicken divan for everyone for dinner. Our British hosts seemed to like it! I hope it was American enough to be considered an "America dish."





The morning of the 23rd the family we're staying with was up and out the door for their 10 day vacation by 5:00 AM. So we got to wake up to an empty house for the first time, which was nice. Not that we don't like the people we're staying with, just it's fun to pretend we actually live here in London on our own. We drank loads of tea (we've been drinking an obnoxious amount of tea - maybe 6 cups a day! I hope we don't get some sort of liver disease or something...) and had our cereal, then decided to go to Borough Market.

Borough Market is a big and crowded outdoor market filled with fruits, vegetables, cheese, bread, chocolate, turkish delight (yum!), olives, olive oil, wines, juices, cakes and pastries, a few meat and fish stands, and a bunch of different places to get already prepared food. One stand had a huge pot of fish stew cooking away and it smelled sooooo delicious! The line for that one was probably about 100 people long. Walking around the market was crazy! It was so crowded that in many places you were squished tight against everyone else, pushing your way through, trying to find a stream of people headed in the same direction as you. It was nuts!

I went to the market with the intent to get shrimp to put in a shrimp pasta for dinner. There were only two fish stalls and the price of shrimp was a bit ridiculous. One of the meat stalls however had wild rabbit for 5.00 GBP a piece. I've never had rabbit so thought this would be the perfect time to try! We got some snap peas, onions, and mushrooms from the market as well.

After the market we walked along the river down the the Globe Theatre. We just had a look inside the place and got a picture to say we'd been there. On the walk back to the tube station we passed an ice cream man in a cardboard ice cream van. He must have a bicycle or something hidden inside, or maybe he just walks it around! An interesting sight.

After we got back to the house I looked up a recipe using rabbit. I found a rabbit pasta that looked good so we set out to get the remaining ingredients and I started in. I had to cut up the rabbit and I managed to get the legs off but was lost after that. I was supposed to... cut the belly meat or something and wrap it around... I dunno! So I ended up just throwing all the rabbit bits in a pot of water and boiling it all the same. Worked out well enough. And the final product when the pasta was thrown together was amazing! That recipe is a definite keeper. It was one of the best pastas I've ever had. I was afraid of trying the rabbit at first, but it was really tasty. The best description I could give is that it's a mix of pork and turkey I guess. It was good! So now i can add rabbit to the list of meats I've tried. And for anyone interested, here's the recipe by Gordon Ramsay: Rabbit fricassée and tagliatelle.

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London II.i

We are now in London again! We're planning on staying until June 15th or so, and hoepfully by that time we'll have made plans for our next stop. I'm looking into planning our trip to South Africa, but we'll see how that goes. Either way, we'll figure something out.

You may be asking "Where are you staying for a WHOLE MONTH in London??" Yes, I know, a month is a fairly decent chunk of time. We are just so thrifty. Actually, lucky is a better way to describe it. So the lady who runs the B&B that we stayed at in Kelvedon has a son who lives in London. We got in touch with him and his wife and set ourselves up to stay with them. They have both been very nice and enjoyable so far. They have two daughters: an adorable three year old with curly brown hair and six month old with big doe-eyes. I'm sure we'll be woken in the morning sometimes, but I think that will be good for us. We're actually getting the place to ourselves for 10 days as well because they're going on holiday (aka vacation...). So we get to par-tay! Not really. We'll be good.

Ok, before we moved into "the house" (which is about 130 years old! crazy) we were staying in a hotel in Kensington, London. Since Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens were nearby we checked them out. Since the two parks are right next to each other separated only by a river, it makes for a huge expanse of green land in the middle of the city. It's a nice place, although not filled with flowers and decorative hedges like I've seen in other parks. But it's a nice place to go and relax I'd imagine. We saw an older man in a business suit eating lunch here with a snazzy bike at his side. The kind of bike you would think belonged to a teenage punk with it's bright colors, raised seat, and small wheels. But it was his!

And there were all sorts of birds near the water: pigeons, swans, various kinds of ducks, geese. And they would wander up to you quacking (or honking in the case of the geese) for food. I even managed to touch one slow-moving duck because he had a hurt foot. Poor thing...

The fountains in the park were nice, although they kinda stank. And since it was windy (I didn't know the UK was so windy) we kept getting hit with sprays of water from the fountains. We didn't stay there too long...

We saw the Albert Memorial too - man is it huge! Massive. Like right out of Egypt. Or Texas (everything's bigger in Texas right?). It's a very cool monument so I was sure to get lots of pictures. They still don't do the thing the justice it deserves though. And right across from it is Royal Albert Hall. Chuck and I just bought tickets to a Classical Gala for June 4 at Royal Albert Hall! I'm excited.

That was about it for the day seeing as we had walked much further than we intended. Our feet were killing us and we still had to make it back to the hotel. We picked up sandwiches or something from Sainsbury (one of the big grocery store chains) and stayed int he rest of the evening.



The 19th was the day we met our new London family. We met just to see if we'd like each other and discuss some finer details of the possible arrangement. Beyond price there wasn't much to discuss... So we chatted and drank tea for a bit. By the end they said they'd be happy to have us move in the next day if we'd like! And we did like, seeing as that was our last night at our hotel.

After meeting them we ate at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place just around the corner. Nothing like deliciously greasy Chinese food... Needless to say we felt a bit gross after that so walked it off down Kennington Road. Along the way we saw a house with a plaque claiming that Charlie Chaplin had lived there! We found out the next day that there are about three houses that all claim the same thing... Who knows, it's still cool. All the roses are coming into bloom now too so I kept taking pictures of them. Me and my flower pictures... What can I say?

We walked all the way to Westminster Bridge and saw Big Ben and the London Eye again. The London Eye is so expensive! It's 11.50 GBP per person to take a ride. Ridiculous! I can't believe people actually pay that. After passing that by we went into a yummy smelling gelato and waffle shop expecting the best. The guy behind the counter ended up being a complete butt-head though. He didn't do anything in particular - he just seemed so annoyed with us for some reason and didn't even look at us as he gave us our gelato and took our money. I think his bad attitude made it easier for us to eat only half though, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Oh, I have a gripe with London. Actually, the UK in general. Garbage cans. Where are they?? You'd think that somewhere along Westminster Bridge and somewhere in the entire Underground at Westminster you'd encounter a garbage can, but no! So I walked around for 10 minutes with a half eaten cup of melted gelato before I finally got fed up and set it down by and escalator. I felt bad too - I hate to litter. But it's like you have no choice here. And this wasn't the first time I've noticed the problem. I've seen other people do the same thing I did: get up to try and throw something away to find there's no bin, so they leave it on the ground or on a bench. I was told by the people we're staying with now that it's all because the Irish used to drop bombs in the garbage cans... Friggin Irish. I suppose now they would worry about terrorists instead of the Irish. As long as they're fine with picking up all the litter, then whatever!

That was about it for the 19th!



The 20th was moving day - we packed up our backpacks, checked out of the hotel and hightailed it to our new flat. Oh, did I mention we now have Oyster cards?? It's basically a cheaper, fast-access way to use the Underground and buses. You load it up with however much money you'd like and then just swipe it at the gate or on the bus instead of having to whip out your wallet. So we're like real Londoners now! As you might have guessed, we used our cards to ride the Underground to Kennington, which is where we're staying now.

Our hosts were nice enough to make dinner for us: risotto with chicken and various veggies. We just chatted over wine the rest of the night, getting to know each other.

The 21st was a big day. We went to the Natural History Museum, which was absolutely amazing. The building alone is gorgeous and huge. Inside we saw dinosaurs skeletons and fossils, a bunch of stuffed animals from mammals to birds, prehistoric animal skeletons such as the giant sloth, giant armadillo, giant ostrich-like bird, giant two-horned rhino, a huge room of minerals, a ton of different gems, displays on conservation and energy, a giant Sequoia tree, a primate exhibit, etc. As you can see, it was vast. And so interesting! I loved the giant sloth! We actually had to force ourselves to leave. In fact, we came back the next day to get more pictures (I will be posting them in a future blog - it was mainly pictures of the minerals and gems).

After the museum we walked and walked and walked and walked... I felt like I was stumbling through a desert with no food and water, trying not to fall over and be unable to get up. In other words I was starving! But we kept walking. We did pop into Harrod's which was fancy-shmancy. They're "luxury bathrooms" weren't all that exciting though. I admit I was disappointed in that. But the large number of guards that stood all around the place was impressive.

In stumbled on in my starved stupor (okay, so I'm exaggerating slightly) down Park Lane and down Oxford Street. We finally stopped for lunch in an Italian place where I got a greasy pasta and Chuck got a sensible salad. I have no self-control...haha. We walked down Charing Cross through parts of SOHO and Chinatown to Leicester Square, then continued to Trafalgar Square. That's a nice square. We were beat though, so tubed back to our flat.

That night night was spent out with our "landlord" and his friend at a local pub followed by some delicious Indian food. The butter chicken was gooood. That was a long day... And I got a bunch of pictures even though my camera died.

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Kelvedon

We stayed a total of 6 nights in Kelvedon in an amazing B&B! It was a really beautiful old house, with big windows, a great yard, three cautious chickens, and a dog. A really lovely place. We had a few days of just sitting around being lazy, but we did get out to see a few sights. We explored the famous footpaths of Kelvedon on the 13th. It was a bit of an overcast day, but lucky the rain held off until we were just getting back to the B&B. It's a bit strange walking the footpaths becuase you feel as though you're just traipsing around peoples crops and gardens and backyards. But that's where the paths go, so it must be alright!



The next adventure was a day in Colchester. We took the 10 minute train ride there and then walked down to the center of town. After walking past a ton of different little shops and restaurants (I got a second hand shirt for 1.50 GBP!) we found Colchester Castle. We didn't bother with going into the museum that is inside the castle now and decided to wander around the gardens outside. It's a very nice garden too. There were a bunch of rose bushes all over, but sadly they weren't quite in bloom yet. They were covered with little buds that were just about to pop, but only a small few had actually gotten there. I bet it's amazing with all the bushes in bloom though.

We also saw a few spiders (one of which was eating his lunch) and a freshly dead pigeon... No clue about the pigeon, although I was really quite curious. After the gardens we had a sit-down lunch which was nice - we often get take-away food so we don't get the chance to rest our feet. But we relaxed for a bit with our drinks before heading to our next stop: the Natural History Museum. It's kind of cool because they turned an old church into the museum. The museum itself isn't particularly spectacular, but it's free so it was worth the visit.



Our next adventure was on the 15th when we walked to Tiptree to go to the jam factory. We got some good exercise that day - four miles there and back. That's eight miles!! But we needed it after the jam factory because I discovered cream tea while I was there. At first I thought cream tea was some sort of thick, creamy tea but it turns out it's a plain ole cup of tea with scones, jam, and clotted cream. I'd never heard of clotted cream before, so maybe you haven't either. It has the consistency of butter (not cold, hard butter, but kind of softened), but the flavor of heavy whipping cream. So you take your scone, split it in half, smear a big glob of clotted cream on it, and top it with the jam of your choice. It was soooo delicious! I am now in love with cream tea. But it's got to be terribly unhealthy... Why is life so unfair?? So you see why it was good that we walked eight miles. We also got some peach jam which is quite good, and came at a good price. There was also a small museum with various old jam-making machinery, jars, labels, etc.



Amongst all the site-seeing we also spent time with Chuck's Aunt Karre, her husband Simon, and her three boys Luke, Rick, and Jake. They're such a nice family! It was really nice to be around the boys especially because they're not what you would expect. You expect three boys between the ages of 14 and 18 to be at each others throats and arguing all the time, but they're not like that. They seem to genuinely like each other and just have a good time being kids. It's fun to see. And Karre and Simon were too good to us - home-cooked meals, restaurant meals, picking us up and dropping us off. It was really great to see them all again.

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Nottingham

We went to Nottingham on... the 7th I think it was. Despite spending three full days there we only actually did anything exciting on one of them: Nottingham Castle. And some people, I'm sure, would say that's not very exciting at all. Some of you may have already seen the video of us flailing around in the wind from our Nottingham Castle day! If not, here it is: Flailing Around In the Wind At Nottingham Castle.

The castle (which isn't actually a castle - the castle part is long gone) houses a decent little museum that's really nicely presented. I liked the room with the clothing from different time periods. They also had a ton of Jasper cameos - some as pendants, some jugs, some inlaid into wooden boxes. There was also a large display on the history of Nottingham. The floor was so squeaky down there! Makes one self-conscious about walking. Over all, nothing too exciting, but still worth the 3.00 GBP or so it was to get in.

The rest of our time in Nottingham was technically boring, but we enjoyed it. We liked walking around the city just to see the different shops. There are quite a few shops too - clothing shops mainly. And on Saturday the main square was packed! Mainly with a bunch of teenagers, but they were kind of fun to watch. We never got to Sherwood Forest. When we got to the bus there were about 50 people all waiting to get on and I wasn't about to deal with that mess. Oh well. And I was so looking forward to finding Robin Hood and his Merry Men in their hideout...

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Edinburgh

I've been slacking on my blogging for the past few days. In fact, I've been slacking on my journaling and price-recording and everything! I'm sort of liking the idea of curling up inside with a bunch of snacks and a good book for a few days. And I miss having a stove. But let me fill you in on a few days I've missed.

We left Glasgow on May 3, but before we did we got a few more pictures. We walked down to a big park called Glasgow Green. It's nice enough as far as parks go. The park is home to a large arch, a tall obelisk, and the People's Palace Museum (which we didn't go into for whatever reason). In front of the museum was a large terra cotta fountain that was really cool. It is "crowded with figurative groups representing Australia, Canada, India and South Africa" (from Living In Glasgow). Lovely fountain.



We also went and saw Wolverine at the gigantic Cineworld before we left Glasgow. It was about 10 stories high with a wide range of candy and snacks on each level. It was an experience! But after that we headed to Edinburgh via train. After leading us the wrong direction for about 10 minutes we found our place. It was a self-catering apartment, which I was very excited about because I would get to use a stove! Yay! But the drawback ended up being the incessant, never ending whistling of the wind through the windows in every room of the place... Gah!!

First day we went out to Edinburgh Castle which was interesting, but also crowded, cold and crazy windy. We got to see the crown jewels of Scotland, which were, of course, lovely. They had a really nice display leading up the room where the crown, sword, and scepter that make up the crown jewels were held. And they also had a great display through the prison area of the castle. And there were a few museums dedicated to the military and various wars that Scotland has been involved with. So great castle if you can ignore the wind and cold! I had a hard time ignoring it. We also saw Holyrood Palace where the queen stays when she's in town. We didn't go in though - we'd just spent 25.00 GBP on the castle, sooo... We also stopped into St. Giles Cathedral which was yet another nice cathedral. We've seen a few at this point - they're starting to blend!



Next day we stayed inside ALL DAY. Never set foot out of the apartment once. It was so nice!!! We read and watched TV shows online, only getting up off the couch to eat and pee. Was so nice to have a break. But the next day (May 6) we went out to Calton Park. There are a few monuments up there, but the best part is the view. It's basically a big hill in the middle of the city so the views from here are amazing. I insisted we wander around an old looking cemetery, too. Earliest death I remember seeing was 1792 I think.

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Glasgow I.ii

Well, I went to bed on the 27th feeling under the weather and woke up the next day feeling really, really bad. Chuck was a big sweetie though, and after breakfast took us to the pharmacy for Sudafed and suggested we stay in for the rest of the day so I could recover. So we didn't do much except for listen to my snorting and nose-blowing. Well, we did go out for an hour just to see the Scottish Exhibition Centre (it looks like a mini Sydney Opera House). But that was it!

The next day however, we went to see Doune Castle. Now, you may think you don't know anything about Doune Castle. You may think you've never seen it. you may say to yourself "Another castle?? How boring." But you probably have seen Doune Castle, unexpectedly hidden in a famous and popular movie called "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Most of the castle scenes were filmed right in Doune Castle! It's the castle that the arrogant frenchman was taunting King Arthur from. The castle's kitchen was used as the home of the women who tried to seduce Gallahad. The singing prince who was being forced to marry by his father was locked away in one of the halls of the castle. And the audiotour that comes with castle's admission fee tells you about the various scenes that were filmed there as well as giving information on the much older history of the place. I'll admit that it's certainly not the grandest castle's around, but it has a good audiotour and a fun history. I'd recommend giving it a visit if you're in the neighborhood.



Since we're in Scotland we would be silly to neglect visiting a whiskey (or whisky as they spell it here) distillery. So on the 30th we took an expensive bus ride to the Glengoyne distillery. Because we had one of their brochures with a coupon in it, we got an extra dram of whiskey on our tour. So we got to try their 10 year and 17 year single malt whiskeys, both of which had very nice flavors. In the end we splurged on a very nice bottle of 12 year cask strength whiskey. I'm actually drinking it as we speak! Or, as I type... It has a very nice sweet, slightly syrupy texture and I can distinctly taste chocolate in the aftertaste. I like to pretend I'm a conoisseur now that I've been on a whiskey tour. Oh, the tour itself was good too. The guide was very friendly, had a good sense of humor, and was extremely knowledgeable about the whiskey making process. We saw the malt grinding machine, the tub where they heat the malt with water to extract the sugars, the $40,000 wooden tub where the yeast is added - the smell in here was very strong and malty, and the tub was full of bubbles slowly popping as the yeast did their work. They also have these huge copper chambers that are round at the bottom and taper as they rise to the ceiling. I don't quite understand what happens here, but somehow it's where the alcohol is separated from all the other stuff and purified for it's cask. Then it's just a matter of waiting 10 years to see the final product.

It was a fun day, despite waiting in the rain for the bus back to Glasgow. We finally got the chance to use our dinky little ponchos, and although they were dinky they got the job done for the most part. An English couple who had been on the tour with us was even kind enough to stop on their way down the road and offer us a ride to Glasgow. Being the cautious travelers that we are, we declined. But I thought it was really nice of them!

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Glasgow I.i

First things first - there are some advertisements here in the UK that make Chuck and me laugh. I would like to share one with you. It's an ad for some Glades product and it cracks me up: Glades Advert. I recommend taking a quick moment to watch it! Now, onto our travels.

We're now in Glasgow. We got here by taking a ferry from Belfast to Stranraer, Scotland, then we took a train up to Glasgow. The train trip was lovely! The countryside is so scenic here in the British Isles, and Scotland has not let us down. We got to see a ton of tiny little lambs frolicking around the fields, keeping near their mothers' sides. I also saw three bunnies, a deer, and a bunch of cattle. Oh, and of course green, rolling hills, bubbling creeks, and quaint stone bridges as well.

Of course, since our train ride into Glasgow was beautiful, sunny, and a bit warm, our first full day in the city was gloomy and overcast. We ended up going to the Kelvingrove Museum on a tip from a fellow traveler we met at our hotel. It turned out to be a pretty good choice as half the museum is dedicated to biology - mainly animals. They had various rooms highlighting different aspects such as prehistoric animals, extinct animals, evolution, etc. The funnest (most fun?) room was filled with taxidermied animals (including a giraffe and an elephant) that are "the biggest such-and-such," "the smallest such-and-such," "can smell the furthest," "swims the slowest," etc. One moth could smell a mate from seven miles away. The most venomous mammal is a platypus. The fastest growing plant is bamboo, growing as much as a meter a day. The slowest is a Lady's Slipper Orchid, taking up to 11 years to blossom. The seahorse is the slowest swimmer at .001 MPH. So there ya go! Some fun facts for ya.

The other half of the museum is art: paintings, busts, vases, dresses, furniture. Unfortunately I'm not so cultured as to be able to find a great interest in "art," but we did wander through and check everything out. I was drawn to one particular painting though: Anna Pavlova by John Lavery. I just liked its vibrance.

The last interesting event of the day was our choice of lunch. We stopped into a chip shop to get our fat-fix of the day and noticed a traditionally Scottish item on the menu called haggis. We couldn't quite remember what was in it, just that we wouldn't want to eat it if we did. So we got the haggis meal which consisted of chips (aka french fries) and a deep fried haggis sausage all traditionally wrapped up in brown paper. We got back to the hotel and unwrapped our strange little package and I gingerly took a bit, bracing for the worst. But it was good! It had a nice...meaty, nutty sort of flavor. Just a well flavored sausage really. After we ate it we looked up the ingredients: ground pig liver, heart, and lungs mixed with oatmeal and various spices. Ewww! Sounds so gross, but it was surprisingly tasty.



The next day, April 27, we had yet another lovely day... complete will dark skies and drizzling rain. But we ventured out despite the weather and ended up at the Glasgow Cathedral. There's nothing particularly special about it in comparison to other cathedrals we've seen - it was just another nice church. It did have one unique feature that we've yet to see: a basement, for lack of a better word. And I think there is a better word, I just don't know it... So it was kind of fun to go down the steps into the dimly lit darkness under the choir of the church to see a circle of chairs all facing towards the center of the stone room where an embroidered blue shroud was lain across an altar of some sort. I could just see some sort of sacrifice taking place down here...hehe. I guess I'm trying to say it had a ritualistic feel. We sat and had a chocolate here. Having chocolates is like a ritual for some people, so I felt it would be appropriate.

After visiting the church we went across the street to the Provand's Lordship. It's an old house from the 1400's or so that has been decorated to look as though it were still being lived in. The furniture throughout is from various time-periods, so it's not strictly 15th century. But it's neat to see even just the architecture. I still find the very low doorways interesting - were they really that short?? Or did they not mind ducking a lot? And I like when I come across an old set of stairs that has been walked on and used so often that it's worn a depression into the stone. Due to the weather we just headed back to the hotel for the rest of the day. So it was a short and sweet one.

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Belfast

We spent three nights in Belfast at a hostel. The hostel had a lively feel - a bit too lively actually. All I can say is thank god we brought earplugs because I don't think people actually went to sleep at this place. And our bed was pretty much a wooden platform with a comforter thrown on top. But we're troopers! We survived. And on April 23 we took a tour to the Giant's Causeway!

As opposed to our last daytrip in Dublin, this was a big bus and there were about 25 other people with us. But it was still a good tour. We stopped at a few places for only 10 minutes just to take pictures. One was Carrickfergus Castle, which looked like a typical castle. Another quick stop was in a coastal town called Carnlough. It was just a lovely, rustic photo opportunity. And my favorite quick-stop was at Dunluce Castle because it was an influential in C.S. Lewis' Narnia series. It's apparently his inspiration for Cair Paravel! I thought that was very cool.

We stopped at the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge for a longer length of time. This is not only another beautiful place along the coast, but is home to a sturdy rope bridge that hangs 90 feet above the churning water. Despite the extra cost to cross the bridge, Chuck convinced me it would be worth it. As you walk across the bridge is sort of bounces like a trampoline which is exciting! It really feels very sturdy though, so it's not scary at all (unless you have some fear of heights maybe). So in the end I'm glad we crossed the bridge.

The Giant's Causeway itself was awesome (as in it inspired awe). The landscape is just huge, making you feel so small. When you look across the way at the hexagonal rock formations, sure they look big. But then you realize that those small specks at the bottom are people and that it's not just big, it's absolutely enormous. And it's strange how regular the rock formations are - all lined up like steps, all about the same size, all about the same shape. It's really very cool. And a nice long walk to see the main highlights of the Causeway, so we got some exercise.

Oh, almost forgot to mention that we stopped quickly at Bushmill's Distillery for a drop of whiskey. It had a nice, rich, hoppy smell that I liked. Chuck had a dram of whiskey that was just okay in our opinion.



The 24th was much more relaxed as we just stayed in Belfast. It was a deeply overcast day and I just felt like the apocalypse was creeping up on us. But luckily it didn't actually rain outright because we walked around a fair bit. First stop was St. George's Market which is a market (duh) that is open only on Fridays and Saturdays. It was lively! People all over trying to buy incredibly fresh fish of all kinds, various meats, baked goods, olives, clothes, "American Cookies," etc. We managed to get some pepper-marinated steaks and soda bread for dinner that night. One nice thing about the hostel is that you can cook there, so we had a very good meal.

The other main stop was at Belfast's Botanic Gardens (poor Chuck, he's been flowered out for a while now). It wasn't as nice as Dublin's gardens, but it wasn't bad or anything. The only reason I dragged Chuck all the way down there was for the water lilies in there, but they weren't in bloom! So I was disappointed about that... But they did have a nice tropical plants house with green bananas hanging off the the banana tree. That was pretty much it for Belfast! Not a bad place.

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Dublin I.ii

Hello again! I have more Dublin for you. And some countryside, which is beautiful. The countryside always seems to beautiful, no matter the country you're in. On April 20 we took a day tour to the Wicklow Mountains and an old monastery called Glendalough (or Gleann da Loch, if you want to be proper). The mountains are basically all covered in peat under the surface and throughout history they have been farmed for the peat to keep people warm through the winters. Apparently people are to this day still free to farm the peat at no charge - you do the work, you can carry it off. So if anyone was interested in not paying their heating bill, they could get dirty in the fields of peat!

I noticed that the country landscape in Ireland (or the parts we saw at least) is more scrub-like than England and Wales. They have a lovely yellow-flowered plant called Gorse that is all over the place. It makes lovely splashes of bright yellow on the tan and green landscape. And in just a few months our tour guide said the Heather will be blooming and everything will be purple. That sounds lovely! Wish I could see it.

We saw a few glacial lakes up in the mountains. They're so still and serene, so peaceful. And Chuck said they were very cold! He went ahead and dipped his fingers in the water, like a real adventurer. And to make the still water even more impressive, the lakes are surrounded by mountain landscape. So it's as if the mountains are gently rolling down into this calm expanse of water.

Glendalough was neat. It's an old monastery which looks like it was basically a mini-city. It saw it's final days when King Henry VIII (I've learned since arriving in London three weeks ago that he's one of the biggest deals in royal history) switched over to Protestantism so that he could divorce his wife for another woman. So I guess he basically had the whole place sacked to help uphold his new anti-Catholic beliefs. There are a ton of grave sites there. They seem to be placed fairly chaotically around the place, so it gives it a disordered peaceful feel. And further along past the main site there are two more glacial lakes. We got ice cream and sat on the pebbled shore of one. It was a very nice day. For some reason I feel drawn to ice cream overseas... Chuck said that maybe ice cream is like a bit of home. But we enjoyed our ice cream!



April 21 was spent in Dublin, having a look around the older part of the city. So first we hit up Dublin Castle, which is only a castle in name these days. The original castle blew up when a fire broke loose and made it's way to the gun-powder room. It was rebuilt as more of a palace. We decided to pay for the tour after much deliberation and I'm glad we did! It was a good tour for 4.50 Euros each. And I got to take pictures, my favorite! It wasn't the most impressive castle/palace we've been in, but it was neat to see where the president is inaugurated when they take office. Did you know that Ireland has had a female president for the past 21 years? Go Ireland! And on top of seeing the decorated rooms of the palace we went under underground and saw some of the remains from the original building. There was a river that ran around the castle back in the day, and although it's now re-routed there is still a bit of river that seeps into this area. It stinks...literally. And someone dropped their jacket in it! Hah! I'm sorry, I have to laugh. It was funny... They got it back, safe and sound though. No harm done, except for maybe some sludge.

There is a library right next to the castle called the Chester Beatty Library and the only reason we stopped in was because it was right there. I am so glad we did because it was amazing! Remember how we saw the Book of Kells? How it was cool and all? Well this was... I mean it was about 1000 times more impressive! They have numerous old books from various times and cultures on display. And they are all displayed really beautifully behind glass that is so clean I thought I could reach out and touch the book on several occasions. They had quite a few different Qur'ans on display which were incredible. I found they were some of the most elaborate and beautiful of all the books. There were various Christian texts as well, including some of the original gospels. We're talking pieces of papyrus written on in 150, 250, and 350 AD. And there was even a fragment of scripture written in 300AD in Greek (the original language of the bible, apparantly). Those are old documents! And not just old, but incredibly influential over the course of our history. I was basically looking at one of the beginnings of Christianity as we know it. Crazy. And there were a few Japanese scrolls and books with elaborate depictions of various legends. And it wasn't just what was on the pages of the books that were impressive, many of the book covers were to die for. Gold-leaf, embossing, gems, woodwork, painting, etc. Some books were 2 feet tall, others were 3 inches. I could go on, but I won't! As you can tell, I really enjoyed the library.

Lastly, we visited St. Patrick's Cathedral. We decided on St. Patrick's instead of the nearby Christ Church Cathedral because: 1. It's the church where Jonathan Swift was dean for 32 years and he is buried there; 2. The churches choir was one of the two choirs used to perform Handel's Messiah for it's world premiere. The church itself isn't exquisite in terms of its appearance, but that's not to say it's ugly. It's definitely a very nice church. I was just happy to see Swift's burial place. There's a nice park attached to the church too. Lots of parents bring their kids there to play it seems. All-in-all, a good last day in Dublin. Next stop is Belfast in Northern Ireland.

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Dublin I.i

Well, I'm finally able to get some of our pictures from Dublin posted. This first set is from April 18 which was our first full day there. Since it was a nice and sunny day I insisted that we visit the National Botanic Gardens. I went crazy with the camera, as you might notice. I love tulips, so I loved the long rainbow-colored lane of just tulips. They had a great variety of them! And the few carniverous plants were neat, although they didn't o any bug-catching while we were there. There were squirrels there that come right up to you for food. A random guy gave us some sunflower seeds so we could feed them. They would all but eat the seeds out of our hands (which I know from persoanl experience is a bad idea anyways).

The other main highlight of the day was a tour of Kilmainham Gaol. By the way, "gaol" is pronounced "jail." I kept trying to figure out if it was pronounced "gowl" or "goal" or "gal." Imagine my surprise when he said "jail." Sheesh. But it was a good enough tour! That jail has a bit of a gruesome history with it's massive number of hangings, political executions, and imprisonment of children. The guide told a bittersweet story of a man destinied for execution who was allowed to marry his finace before the event. They marched her into the jail chapel, they were married and she was marched right out. The next day she got to see him one last time and he was taken out and executed. Note: More after the pictures!



The next day, the 19th, we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. It's definitely an impressive book - made around 800 AD I think. It's a religious text with beautiful and elaborate illuminations throughout. So much time, energy, and devotion has gone into it. We also got to see what's known as the Long Room. It's a... well, a long room. Filled with two stories worth of books. Old books. I loved the smell when we stepped in! The smell of old books. We weren't allowed to touch any of the book though, boo.

We sort of wandered around and ended up down Grafton Street, which was jam-packed with people and performers. There was a really good string quartet actually. We also spent a bit of time in St. Stephens Green (another of the many beautiful parks all over the UK and Ireland). We ended up at the National Museum of Ireland: Archaeology purely by chance, which was great because it was free! The best exhibits here were four very well preserved bodies. Two of them still had full heads of red hair attached to their squished heads. One even had a tuft of red hair attached to his chin. Another had nearly untouched hands - they might have belonged to a living body except for their unnaturally dark color. You could still see the pores in their tightly stretched, leathery-looking skin. Sorry if I'm grossing anyone out! They were by far the most exciting thing there though, in my opinion.

And I have to mention that we passed by a lamp post known as "The Five Lamps" because it has five lamps at the top of the post. I had to stop by and take a picture of that.



I have more that I should be able to post tomorrow or the next day. So if you want more, it's coming!

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Cardiff I.ii

I haven't been able to post recently due to verrrry slow internet at our current place of residence. I did manage to get some pictures up, although they're not recent. And when I say "not recent" I mean they're almost a week old. Time is flying by! Yet going so slowly at the same time.

We are in Ireland right now. We took a train from Cardiff to a town called Holyhead, and from there hopped a ferry to Dublin. We've been doing a lot of walking around the city each day, and even took a pricey day-tour into the Wicklow Mountains to see an old monastery called Glendalough. I can't get any more pictures up right now though, so I'll have to tell you more about all that in a couple of days hopefully.

I'll leave you with the last photos we took in Cardiff. The first few are in Cardiff Bay, right on the water. It was cold an windy! And the last few are through the lovely Bute Park and back by the governmental buildings again. I found out there was a garden that I had completely missed the first time through, so I insisted upon going back to see it. It also gave us something to do... So there you go.

Oh, and just a warning: the next post will have a lot of pictures... Mainly from the National Botanic Gardens here in Dublin. That means lots of flower pictures. I hope you all like flowers! Who doesn't like flowers? Everyone likes flowers.

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Cardiff I.i

So we've made it to Cardiff which is the capital of Wales and a pretty cool city. I'm liking Cardiff so far. We've visited Cardiff Castle and walked around the various government buildings. I actually took about 160 pictures that day...so although I posted a ton of them online, I had a lot more! I tired to prune as much as I could, but I thought all 48 of the pictures were worth posting. Phew!

Cardiff Castle was cool. I especially enjoyed the interior tour of the castle. I'm sure it was all completely reconstructed, but it was just awesome. The ceilings were great - I love all the intricate details. And every fireplace had incredible carvings all around it. The library was lovely with all the old looking books and the big wooden bookcases. Very lovely. The keep of the castle was on a hill surrounded by a moat. Very fortress-esque. I nearly fell down the stairs twice while we were making our way to the top of the keep... The views are quite nice from the top. It's a pretty cool castle/fortress - I'm glad we decided to pay and go in (although I think admission was just a bit steep, although perhaps I'm actually just a bit cheap!).

Later on we saw the capital buildings (I think they were the capital buildings at least) which was cool. They have a nice, old look to them. And one building has a nice clock tower with a gold face. I managed to get a few flower shots around here. I love tulips. The highlight of the day was out dinner though. Chuck made a very good trade in the market so he decided to treat us to a pricier dinner than we would normally do. We ended up at a microbrewery called ZeroDegrees. A bit into our meal Chuck got us a couple of beers from the bar and caught the attention of a very friendly gentleman on 66 years. I know he was 66 because he made note of it several times throughout the night. He was interesting for several reasons, number one being that he actually lived in Ft. Lauderdale and Pompano Beach for a while back in the 70's. Small world huh?? Number two reason is that he was incredibly drunk. This led to overfriendliness. He pulled a chair up to our table not ten minutes after Chuck broke off conversation with him at the bar. Number three reason he was interesting is that he was a firecracker just itching to explode. When he sat down at our table our waiter basically asked him to leave us alone, but in a very polite way. The 66 year old became very indignant and ready to throw punches over the "audacity" of the waiter. We didn't want any trouble so we made eyes at the waiter letting him know it was fine if the man sat with us for just a bit. Throughout our conversation he would jump back to the topic of our waiter and how he'll "knock him out, that mother fucker," etc. Man, what a character. He even invited us to to stay at his place north of Cardiff if we wanted. Hah. Yeah right. Alone in Wales with a crazy old man. No thanks! So yes, he was an interesting fellow. Note: See below the massive number of pictures for our trip to Tintern Abbey.



Today we went to Tintern Abbey. To get there we had to take a 40 minute train ride to Chepstow and wait an hour for the bus to Tintern. The bus was an experience. It had to work incredibly hard to get through those hills, but we made it intact. It was freezing up there! And there was a light fog over the country side. Really beautiful. In fact, it was the perfect backdrop for the ruined abbey. That abbey is just incredible. It's not so impressive as you're working your way through the fallen remains of the kitchen and sleeping quarters, but once you step through the little stone door into the main chapel area it takes your breath away. The scale of the place is amazing and looks more like it was built for people twice our size. It just towers over you! I was really amazed by the whole thing. It was very cold though, so we didn't stay out too long before catching the bus and train back. It was nice to be able to visit such a grand sight in such a secluded, beautiful place.

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Salisbury

I know I just posted yesterday, but I have the opportunity to make another post today. You all must be soooo thrilled!!! I have pictures of the town we're staying in right now: Salisbury. The main "attraction" here is the 1000 year old Salisbury Cathedral. It's an impressive sight! It's currently under construction (from 1986 until 2015 apparently) so the best views of the place are marred by three stories of scaffolding. I think I still managed to get a few good shots though.

I was happy that I managed to take pictures inside too. So many places say "No Photography" inside. Well, actually this place did say "no photography" and I was perfectly content to abide by that, but I walked in and see three people taking pictures. So I said what the hell and whipped my camera out. It's not as impressive as St. George's Chapel or St. Paul's Cathedral, but it's still beautiful. The stained glass on every possible wall was amazing.

The Cathedral also houses one of the four remaining original copies (that sounds like an oxymoron to me...) of the Magna Carta. It's also the copy that in the best shape of the four. Apparently it was mislabelled for a hundred years or so, thereby escaping being manhandled by tons of people. I tried to read it, but it's totally illegible to me. I couldn't even make out half of the letters. It's still very cool though - so ancient looking. Note: continue reading after the photos if you're interested in how we're getting by out here.



So I thuoght I'd share with everyone our... strategies if you will. Such as food - we can't afford to go to restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So we go to the grocery store and will get a bag of apples, or oranges, or strawberries, etc. Most of the supermarkets here also sell premade sandwiches that are of a good quality and usually cost less than 2.00 GBP. We tend to get 2 liter bottles of water to drink, which are between 0.35 and 0.65 GBP. When we get bored of sandwiches we'll go find a pasty shop and have one of those for around 2.50 GBP. We find we like pasties... Yum! So we try to keep food as cheap as we can.

Places to stay for the night are hard to find for less than 50.00 GBP. We've managed to find a few specials, but mostly it's about 50.00. This is the most costly part for us. In the evening we'll search around for hours trying to find a deal on a hotel or bed and breakfast at our next stop. I hate that part!

Trains are another expensive part. Not much we can do to lessen the expenses there. We just learned that we can uy our tickets a day ahead of time for a possible savings, so maybe that will help a bit. We're managing to average around 90.00, or $135.00 USD. Some days (like the past three) we stay nicely velow average, and others (like Windsor Castle) are painful. But we're managing to do all right! Tracking all our spending and cutting back on food if we need to, or not visiting a certain site because it costs too much. Sad, I know! But necessary sometimes. So just thought I'd share a bit about how we're doing this travelling thing.

PS: Oh, last night some guy got arrested at a restaurant or bar that's below our hotel room. How crazy is that?? We started hearing a lot of shouting and cursing at about 11:30. Then some girl started screaming at the top of her lungs. I couldn't sleep through that so I went to the window. There was a police car out there already. After a while they finally loaded some guy into the back of the car and took him away. Must have been some drunken fighting going on. Oh this English craziness.

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Stonehenge

Since I last wrote we've left Slough, stayed a night in Reading, and moved on to Salisbury. Slough was an all right sort of town - certainly nothing exciting. Had a bit of a run-down feel, but we did only see a very small section of the place. However, in Reading we had to walk nearly a mile through residential areas to get to our hotel, so we got a bit better sense of the place.

I liked Reading! It had a nice and active downtown that felt clean and cozy with just a bit of trendiness. I don't think there's much to do in there, but we did manage to find a lovely park called Forbury Gardens. It was one of the most beautiful parks I've ever seen! Lovely clusters of flowers along the paths (I love how they put flowers on everything over here), nicely kept, green, scenic with a pretty little church in the background. There was a tree absolutely covered in large white blossoms. The ground under it was just covered in petals as though it had been snowing. There was a really beautiful rose garden that wasn't even in bloom. It was lovely even without the flowers though! And various war memorials were standing throughout the park.

There's also an old ruined abbey (strangely enough called Reading Abbey) by the park. It's about 1000 years old and mostly fallen apart by now. Unfortunately we only got to see the outer parts of it because they were doing construction ont he rest. Construction. On a fallen apart, 1000 year old building. I just found it a bit amusing. Note: Keep reading below the pictures for our Stonehenge trip!!! Or just scroll all the way down for the pics.



Today (April 11) we went to Stonehenge! Woooo, so exciting! We didn't want to be swindled out of 17.50 GBP per person (about 25$) by going on the tour bus, so we decided to take a city bus to Amesbury and walk the rest of the way. We read online it would be about 20-30 minutes. So after a bit of being-in-the-wrong-place we caught our bus and found ourselves in good ole Amesbury.

Oh, I have to mention that our bus was a double-decker. They always looked kinda cool, but nothing exciting. Man, it's awesome up there on the top deck, right in the front seat! It's like... an IMAX movie or something. I just wanted to ride the bus all day. Anyways, back to Stonehenge.

So we guessed which way Stonehenge must be and started walking. Luckily we did run into signs pointing the way, but our expected 30 minute walk turned into 50 minutes, a lot of which was uphill. You can see the stones across the highway as you come over the crest of a small hill. The juxtaposition of all the cars lining the road past Stonehenge was interesting.

The whole thing is surrounded by a fence and you have to pay 6.60 GBP per person (about 10$) to get through the fence to take a closer look. To be perfectly honest, Chuck and I did not pay the 6.60. We'd actually had this discussion before about how we feel these old sites shouldn't charge for entry. It just seems as though a 2500 year old site should be available without lining someone's pocket. Yes, I know that the price goes towards conserving it as well, but at 6.60 a person it's definitely lining someones pocket as well. Besides, according to a Druid (as he claimed to be) who has set up a display right at the entrance gate, the National Heritage Foundation had promised to keep it free of charge when they took over, but have since gone back on that promise. So that made me a feel a bit more justified in my decision not to actually pay and cross that fence. We did contribute by buying an ice cream cone though...

We managed to get plenty of pictures through the fence with our awesome camera. We also got some pictures with the sheep in the field across from Stonehenge. That field is just covered in sheep poop! It was like walking through a mine field! I just had to take a picture of one of them... So gross.

I got lots of lovely pictures of flowers on the long walk back. We are sore today! Hopefully we'll be recovered enough to see Salisbury tomorrow.

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Windsor

We've been staying in Slough which is just 2 miles from Windsor. Today we hopped a train to Windsor Castle. It was great! A little steep on the price (15 GBP), but I think it might have been worth it. I really enjoyed it at least. Oh - and I would just like to note that the queen was in residence while we were there. We knew this because the royal standard was flying above the "round tower" instead of the British flag. How cool is that?? But we didn't see her. Oh well.

In the price was included a free audioguide which consisted of a little keypad with a speaker attached that you held up to your ear. It was nice to hear the various facts and histories of the castle and learn what was significant about various paintings or pieces of furniture.

The castle felt and looked very much how one would expect a castle to feel and look. Large grey rocks cemented together to make big, thick walls; archer's narrow window slits; humongous gates; small wooden doors with big key holes; etc. The round tower sits on a little hill from which flows a lovely garden. It has a little waterfall, and a little pond, and a number of flowers. And the view from the castle across the town and countryside is pretty wide. I can see why they decided to stick a castle in that particular location - I'm sure it made for a good lookout and defense position.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside unfortunately, so I have none to show you. I can only tell you that inside the State Apartments there were some pretty impressive sights. I'll start with Queen Mary's Dolls' House. It is incredibly intricate and detailed. It actually has fully functioning plumbing and lighting, the text in the books is supposedly an exact copy of the full-sized originals, and the wine bottle actually have wine in them. Here's a few links to pictures if anyone is interested: link 1, link 2.

The State Aparetments were incredible too. Just to think of how many people throughout time have walked through those rooms, and the different people who have shaped history that have slept in those walls and eaten in those rooms is amazing. And here I am, wandering through, hoping to get a sense of all that. There was a room where Napoleon and his wife had slept when they visited England. It was the actual bed they slept in I believe - it had their initials embroidered into the footboard and it looked quite old.

Rooms were hung with paintings all over every wall. One room had an intricately fashioned silver desk and mirror. The ceilings were exquisite. Some of the treasures on display were amazing - golden chalices and tankards encrusted with jewels. Did people ever actually drink out of those?? And weapons from all over the world - half nonfunctional I think. Swords, guns, daggers, some glittering with gems and crystals, but some looking very serious. There were numerous busts, one of the composer Handel and one of Winston Churchill. St. George's Hall was covered in hundreds of Coats of Arms of the Knights. And right now they have a display of art work that includes pages from a sketchbook of Leonardo DaVinci. There was a lot too see!

St. George's Chapel was beautiful too. It's constructed with tall stone pillars that spread into intricate fan-like designs on the stone ceilings. And the woodwork in the back of the church was just breathtaking. It hardly seems possible that someone could carve that much wood so delicately. King Henry VIII is buried here under a marble slab in the floor. Would be neat to see a service here.

It was a good visit. They have a nice tour system there and I appreciated that I didn't have to pay even more for the audioguide. It definitely satisfies ones desire to see an old castle. Would be nice to experience it without the roped-off rooms and crowds of people, but we can't have it all! It was still a very satisfying experience.

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London I.ii

Well, we made it to London as I previously stated. And now we're leaving London already. Not that I'm too sad about that - this place is incredibly busy and that's just not really my cup of tea. We have packed a ton of stuff into these three days though. I am just beat today. We only stayed out until about 2:00PM today, which is only a half day for us. We haven't had enough rest time and just had to take a break. Let me give you our impressions of London though.

I do like London. We've been lucky enough that there has been no rain and in fact has been sunny about 60% of the time. It's much nicer when sunny in my opinion... The history that surrounds you as you walk around the city is really nice. I love looking at lamp posts or statues that have plaques reading "1902" or "1884." Very cool! People have been walking thorugh these streets for hunders of years! In some places they've been around for 1000 years. The buildings are old and you can feel that.

I also really like the London Underground system. I had to get used to it though as it was very intimidating at first! But once you jump in you find that there are signs everywhere directing you to exactly where you want to go. We got the 3-day pass which ended up being a great investment. We've used the Underground so many times in just three days.

Things that don't impress me about London is all the trendiness. It's cool at first but then it just starts to get old. Everyone is always dressed so spiffy and looks so good! Personally, I need some relax time after a while. And everyone is go-go-go. Chuck says London isn't actually all that fast paced - that New York is worse. I've never been to New York though. But I think these are just things that come along with big cities. Wouldn't want to live here permanently, but very cool to visit.

I'll skip the first day as it was not really a good day. I, personally, was freaking out. But we managed to find a place to stay for the night and got a bit of sleep on and off. So nothing very exciting. But I do apologize in advance for all the photos from the next 3 days...

First day (April 3, 2009) we went to see the Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. We saw Big Ben! He was big. He's attached to the Houses of Parliament building. We didn't go in the Abbey as it was 16 GBP which is a bit steep. I bet it would have been pretty cool though. Instead we walked over by the giant London Eye and the Aquarium and that area. There were a bunch of interesting street performers painted gold and silver and blue. We walked through Green Park to get to Buckingham Palace where we took a break and sat for a bit. Buckingham Palace isn't all that impressive in my opinion, although the gates are nice. We stopped for a Beef and Stilton Pasty on our way home - very good!



Second day (April 4, 2009) we headed back to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards. We were there an hour before the ceremony started and it was already a bit crowded. We found our spot and waited. By the time it started the whole square was so packed you could hardly move! I was glad we got there when we did, but we left after 30 minutes of the ceremony. Too many people and too much standing! We then headed out to see Mom's old house: 248 Finchley Rd. I imagined her running in and out to and from the tube. We did a lot of walking after that. We went through Covent Garden and stumbled upon Somerset House which was neat. We didn't even know it was there! We passed a few other impressive buildings before ending up at St. Paul's Cathedral. I really wish I could have taken photos inside, although they would not have done it justice. It was just amazing and beautiful and breathtaking inside. The ceilings were so detailed and golden and high! And we were lucky enough to arrive when the boys choir was beginning to sing. It was really lovely.




Third day (April 5, 2009) we visited the financial district. The Bank of London, Royal Exchange, London Stock Exchange, Swiss RE, and Mansion House. They were all pretty much right next to each other, thank goodness. We walked down to the London Tower, which we were very disappointed to find required 17 GBP to get into. I was upset but did not think 17 GBP was a reasonable price! So we just went on to teh London Tower Bridge. An impressive bridge, although the blue color of it threw me off a bit. We passed by city hall as we started getting really worn out and made our way to Waterloo station. We hoped to find food there but that didn't pan out. We ended up having fish and chips and an italian beef pie. Yum! But we were done after that. So tired. We went back to our hotel and relaxed most of the rest of the day. Which is where I am now...



So there you go. That has been our time in London. Lots of things to see here, but I think we did it a bit of justice!

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