London III

On the 4th of July we headed back to London yet again. We got one more day of sight-seeing in and went to the Tower of London. But first we ran into some drama down at King's Cross station. The intersection out front was completely caution-taped off and there were a bunch of police and ambulances and a bright red amulance-helicopter in the middle of the road. Traffic was stopped in every direction and there were massive crowds of people pushed up as cose as they could get to the caution tape. It was a little bit funny to look around and see practically everyone with their hands in the air over the crowd, taking pictures with cell phones. I admit, I did take some pictures myself. Turned out that someone basically got run over by a train and he was airlifted to the hospital. I have no idea what ended up happening to him as I can't find any news articles about it. Poor guy!

The Tower of London was pretty good. The only reason we went is because we got a 2-for-1 deal when we bought our train tickets back to London. So instead of paying £34 we both got in on £17. I thought the best part was the section with the crown jewels. Wow! Not to knock Scotlands, but they were gimpy compared to these. They had quite a few crowns, each one absolutely covered on every inch with jewels - mostly diamonds from what I could tell. And we got to see the actual Koh-i-Noor - not just the replica that's on display in the Natural History Museum in London. This was the real thing, set into the Imperial State Crown. Yeah, so there were some really eye-popping crowns and swords and robes in there. And a very thick set of steel doors.

The other interesting thing was the monument where they think Anne Boleyn was executed. Most executions were held on the "front lawn," but scandalous executions were held inside the walls to avoid riotous behavior. So they built new scaffolding each time since there weren't that many "indoor" executions. They can't be exactly sure that this s the spot, but it's their best guess. there's now a glass pillow on a glass pedastal in her honor as well as others who were killed. A bit solemn.

We also saw a bunch of armor that belonged to King Henry VIII and other people. That's about the extent of the place. Lots of people, a lot of Americans. I'm glad we managed to go before we left, and glad we got a 2-for-1 offer. I really don't think it's worth £17 a person...

Share|

Torquay I.ii

Hello there! I'm back again - here to finish up telling you about Torquay. I think I left off at the 26th, so we'll start there. I don't think it was a very exciting day. We were due to leave our hotel the next day, but since everywhere else in the country was ridiculously expensive we decided we'd stay in Torquay. And honestly, we really liked it there and wanted to stay anyways. So we traipsed over to another B&B we had looked up online only to find they were all booked up. But, as luck would have it, we saw a place on the way that looked nice and adevertised having internet so we staopped in. They had a full week open so we booked it all! And by booking a full week we got one night free, so it was a good deal in our opinion. After getting that taken care of we went to Chuck's favorite fish n chips shop, then crossed the street to the beach to dip our toes in the water. As usual, it was freezing, but oh so lovely! We played for a bit in the surf before heading back to our current hotel for our last night.



We moved over to our new B&B on the 27th, all the while keeping the fact that we were continuing our stay in Torquay a secret from the previous B&B. I felt so bad about changing hotels on them simply due to the internet problems... They were so nice to us. So I had some guilt issues for a bit (actually, I still feel a twinge of guilt thinking about it now!). But we ended up in for the rest of the day and the next day because I had developed a cold. The rubbish bin (I'm so British!) was full of snotty tissues by the 29th. Ick. But on the 29th we actually got out and did somehting again! We took a walk.

We went on a walk along a coastal hiking trail that was just gorgeous. After stopping into Primark and getting me a new £2.00 tank top and stopping into Tesco for a brown-bag lunch we made our way to a lovely, secluded, tiny alcove to eat. The ocean was crystal clear here with a rocky, pebbly beach. It really reminded me of my summers in lake Erie with the smooth stones and freezing water. It was so beautiful! And after lunch we continued our walk and found a tree for me to climb, then found a rocky hill to climb down on our butts because it got too steep. And then we carefully balanced our way across a pool of filthy, monster0riden water with jagged rocks poking out of it to find ourselves once again at Meadfoot Beach (the beach we visited after Kent's Cavern). Then we had to walk allll the way back to the B&B in the blazing Torquay summer heat. I'm not joking either, it was hot. But it made for a lovely day.



The 1st of July was our next big outing - we went to a place called the Eden Project. It's west of where we were staying by about 2-3 hours, in Cornwall. We took the train and what should have been a 2.5 hour trip turned into, oh 4 hours due to all the delays that day. I don't know what was going on but it seemed that just about every train was delayed by at least 20 minutes, if not more. But we eventually did make it there and foudn it to be a very cool place.

It has two bio-domes. Each one had a big central "bubble" with two smalled bubbles merging into it. They were very futuristic looking. The walk to the domes is lined with tons of different plants and flowers, including a large patch of marijuana plants surrounded by an electric fence. How crazy is that?? Besides pot they were also growing various vegetables, some fruits, hops, tons of flowers, some herbs, and other things I can't even remember or didn't even get a chance to see. It's a huge place.

One of the bio-domes is a tropical rainforest set-up. It was worse than Florida in there... I had noticible back-sweat by the time we were done. Eww. They even had a "cool room" halfway along the path that was blowing nice freezing air. Good idea. They had lots of plants I wasn't familiar with, and some I was. Bananas, cacao, coffee, rubber, hibiscus, palms, and papaya are some that I can remember. And they do a really nice job of making the place more interesting with nice-looking displays showing how some plants are used, or products that the plants are used in. Someone there is doing some really creative work.

The other dome is filled with Mediteranean plants and has a much nicer temperature. The neatest display was of tobacco plants. I'd never before thought about the fact that they would have a flower, but they do and it's kind of pretty. They had one of those nice displays for the tobacco as well, with it all set up to dry the leaves out like they do to make cigarettes or whatever. And they had a bunch of peach trees that were hanging with fruit and smelling oh-so-delicious. There was a huge agave plant, which is what Tequila is made from. Soem others were grapes, tomatos, sun flowers, pomegranate, bouganvillia and more. A really cool place! I recommend a visit if you're ever in the area...



Here's a collection of just flower and plant pictures - there's about 60 of them, so be warned! Some turned out quite pretty though.

Share|

Torquay I.i

On the 22nd we headed off to a little tourist town on the south-westish coast called Torquay. We had to change trains three times and at the last station we changed at were a ton of kids. Probably mostly 13 to 15 years old with a few younger. Chuck had his computer out and a group of 10 year olds (they looked like they were 10 or so at least) looked over his shoulder and got all interested in what he was doing. They started asking us questions about where we were from and why we're in England and if we like it, etc. Then they whipped out one of those high-tech phones with video capabilities and watched a series of clips of people getting hurt, one of which was a woman getting her brains blown out. Good. Lord. It was a bit shocking to see these young boys watching such a icky video. I hope it's just for show and not something they really think is okay! Ah well.

Our B&B in Torquay has been great, with only one minor flaw - the internet is POO! We have to go into the dining area to get internet, and even then it craps out on us every once in a while. I have to admit, it has gotten better than it was when we first arrived, but it's still not ideal.

But we're not here for internet. We're here to see the sites, such as the town. We went out of first night and had some delicious fish 'n chips at a shop on the water called Fish n Chips (how original). Chuck swears they're the best he's had so far and refuses to try anywhere else while we're here.



The next morning we headed out to Torre Abbey after our hearty full English breakfast. It's a nice little place with a very good written guided tour. It's nice being able to walk around reading the guide on a paper rather than having to follow signs or listen to a guide talk. Inside there were a lot of crafts and art made by local artists. At least I assume they're probably local. The gardens behind the abbey were nice too so we got a few pictures.



On the 24th we walked a mile or so to the nearby town of Cockington (you can laugh, it's ok). It's very olde worlde (pronounced oldy worldy apparently) with thatched roofs and small buildings. It was really pretty! And the vegetation and plants have taken over an old 10 foot across water-wheel next to one house. And next to one path is an old spinning wheel device that is rusted beyond use, but looks so rustic just sitting there. One of the houses we came across by the park looks just like the cottage that Sleeping Beauty would have lived in before marrying the silly prince, or perhaps where the three bears lived before Goldilocks rocked their world. Just a sort of fairy tale village.

It was recommended to me that if I wanted a good cream tea I ought to do it in Cockington, so we stopped by one of the numerous tea houses. The scones were huge! And it was delicious. I couldn't eat them both though and I felt slightly sick for the rest of the day, but it was worth it. I like that cream tea stuff. Have I explained cream tea before? Ah yes, when we went to Tiptree from Kelvedon I mentioned it. So yes, it was good a good cream tea. Or Devonshire Tea. Or whatever you'd like to call it.



Next day we went to what's known as Kent's Caverns. It's a cave system that has some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in the UK, dating back to at least 700,000 years ago. So we walked all the way over to the caves and did a nice tour. The tour guide was great! Very enthusiastic with a sense of humor and very knowledgeable about the caves. We learned that the humans would have been living side-by-side with humongous cave bears and hyenas, so it would have been a difficult, dangerous life (obviously - they didn't even have internet). Besides the human history, there was some impressive geologic history as well. Not as grand as Carlsbad Caverns or somewhere like that, but it's still an ancient place with some nice formations. And apparently Agatha Christie spent much of her youth around the caves and used them as the basis for some caverns in one of her books.

After the Kents Cavern tour we walked back to the hotel along the ocean. It was low tide, so all the rocks and seaweed were baking in the sunshine. I kept trying to find critters in the pools of water that were left behind, but the only slightly interesting things were a few anemones. And a word of warning: don't step on the seaweed. It's incredibly slippery!

Share|

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!

Share|

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.

Share|

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.

Share|

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.

Share|

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.

Share|

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.

Share|

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...

Share|

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.

Share|

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.

Share|

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.

Share|

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!

Share|

London I.i

So we actually DID make it to London. We even got stopped at customs and were questioned, searched, and told to wait. It took an hour to get through and we were given stern warnings: "You'd better not get any jobs here in England!" I was just glad we made it through and weren't turned back to America...

And then we had to find a place to stay that night because our previous plans would no longer be working out. There was a medical emergency that unfortunately makes it impossible to stay with Chuck's Aunt for a few weeks. So we (probably mostly myself) panicked a bit, but managed to set up a Bed and Breakfast for that night via one of those "Hotels 50% Off!" stands. It was called Romano's Hotel and it was pretty dingy and tiny with thin walls, but it got the job done.

We've had a nicer day today. We went and saw Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and Buckingham Palace. We're trying to get pictures uploaded right now so hopefully we'll be able to have them posted here on the blog in a couple of days - it all depends on whether we can get to the internet or not! I'll write again as soon as I can!

Share|