Kridxen

Okay it's been a few weeks now so... let's get this wrapped up. 

The last day that we did traveling was a Thursday.  Friday was going to be all travel, long plane ride and stuff, nothing to write home about there. 

It turned out that there was an unexpected time crunch for getting into London, It was mostly my fault for being ill-prepared and having to cram a bunch of site seeing into the last day that we were there.  I kinda always knew that the trip over to London was going to be the most expensive part of the trip and I was right, roughly 150 pounds for the both of us round trip in a day.  bout 200 bucks.  In retrospect, I think I should've researched getting a multi-use train pass if there was such a thing.  On the other hand, the time before I set aside a sizable amount of money to go on vacation and didn't get close to budget which was a kind of disappointment.  Means I have the capabilities of getting funds but not the ideas to spend the funds on.  So... mixed feelings on that. 
We ended up at Paddington Station which is a huge nexus of people traveling.  We got some sub-way passes for the day and made our way to the tower of London.  We got tickets for a tour and a guidebook which my friend got in the end.  I suppose that's fair since I got the guidebook for stone-henge ^_^  We ended up getting a tour from a delightful Beefeater who had several stories to tell.  The main thing that I took away from the stories was that the English are very sorry for all the nobles that had to die for revolutions to happen in their kingdom.  I don't remember the number exactly but many people ended up being killed publicly and privately there.  After the tour we headed to see the crown jewels.  I think there might have been a tour there as well but I think they also wanted extra money for that.  How the public gets to see the crown jewels was kinda neat.  They have a slow conveyor belt that you can ride as much as we liked.  We went through twice to get both angles.  The speed is just perfect for getting that glittering effect.  There was lots of other stuff that goes with the jewels.  cape, slippers, rod, orb... all the D&D slots get filled ha-ha. 

There is also a banquet set that was just massive.  There was a huge cauldron-like piece that could hold something ridiculous like 50+ bottles of wine.  I think one of the more amusing things though was there was a spot for upkeep donations and there was a few US dollars inside. 

After that we walked around the outside.  This is definitely one of the best places to look at London from.  There were many lava-lamp-like sky scrapers intermixed with this ancient architecture.  We saw Tower bridge while we were looking around for sites to see inside the tower.  Finally we ended up getting into the White tower which was a kind of Medieval warfare museum and warfare throughout the ages.  It was really awesome to see so many knight armors in one spot.  I know I'm going to be borrowing what I saw there in my drawings in the future... especially for Maxine XD.  There was just so much history and facts coming at me I couldn't possibly absorb it all, I'm glad my friend was taking so many pictures that day.  At one point we were standing in front of a dragon made completely out of knight armor.   

Finally it was time to move on.  We wandered out of the tower and about a block away there was a fancy Italian restaurant where my friend had a real calzone and I had some kind of stuffed chicken.  Very yummy, she thought that it was the best thing that we had eaten so far.  After our much needed meal we got back on the sub-way and stopped at Big Ben.  I took one of the few 'selfies' that I will ever take because... come on, Ben at Big Ben?  I'd kick myself forever if I didn't get that. 

Nearby, not even a block away was the London Eye, (which is that giant ferris wheel that lights up) we sat there for a while recovering from the many steps we took that day.  There was this wailing minstral that only knew the first few words to a song that he just played over and over again.  We stayed there listening to him for over a half hour at least until 7:00 when the bell tower rang its' time, I got a video of that on my phone. 

We walked down the riverside for a while to get a better view of the eye where we found a world war 2 memorial.  We didn't end up going across the river to the carnival type place because that was just too many people for the day. 

only a little bit later did the sun completely go down and we took the sub-way back to the train station where we ended up getting back to Bristol late.  We were both exhausted by the end of the day and we both slept. 

The last day was nothing but travel to get back home. 

Overall it was a fantastic trip.  I'm so happy I went!  It did kinda give me an appreciation for the space that I have here at home and the politeness for Minnesota traffic. 

Until next time!

Okay... I have 15mins to cram this post in

Stonehenge's day went very well, it was an early start in the day to take our first train down to Salisbury where the tour bus would take us over to Stonehenge.  The trains there have some kind of strange reservation system set up.  Lots of the seats had different bits of paper sticking out of them.  Best that I could tell was they were reserved for people who either bought tickets or have month long passes for the train or something.  We didn't end up investing in such a pass so tickets started to chip away at the money reserves I had.  The train ride itself was pretty typical of a train ride, however in England more people use the trains so it was pretty full.  The scenery was gorgeous!  Rolling farmland outlined by mature trees to keep erosion from happening, again kinda a reminder that every bit of land is spoken for.  Finally we got to Salisbury and got on a tour bus.  found out that there was three major things to do in Salisbury, see Stonehenge, see some place called old Saren and St. Mary's cathedral which has one of the best copies of the original magna carta. 

Did I say that stonehenge was amazing yet?  It is.  Tickets to the place could be bought in advance or at the place.  tickets were arranged by time that you were going to be there, but that's apparently only for very busy days and the day we were there was not a major holiday... even though it was the solstace, strange.  Anyhow, there wasn't a time limit for how long we got to be there.  If you ever get the chance to go there, and you can help it, do not take the bus directly there.  I can imagine it's an entirely different experience.  Walking to stone henge was very spiritual, the journey felt like I was following some long forgotten ancestors.  Depsite the fact that we were walking through farmer's fields you could tell that this was an ancient path.  Even though there were a few people ahead of us and people all around in general, it still managed to fell sacred.  not sure how else to describe it.  We wandered into a fenced off forested area finally coming up to three burial mounds that we got to walk over.  Oddly there was the sound of From the distance you could already see how the tourists were infringing on the site... SO many people were there snapping pictures and stuff.  We took a few wrong turns to get close until finally we got to the line of people.  There was a very friendly crow / rook that let us get very close to him.  I bobbed my head a bit at him and made some clicking noises, he made some back, it was neat XD.  You can't get to the center of it or anything like that anymore, the grounds are delicate.  We took the bus back to Salisbury and skipped seeing Old Saren and St. Mary's cathedral, then deicded that it was worth the look to get to st. mary's cathedral.  It was a bit of doing to find the magna carta but it was really worth it.  There were these strange pop-culture type crucader models leading up to the church...

Out of time, write more later

Okay so I kinda dropped off the journal writing towards the end because everything just kinda smashed together the rest of this is going to be as best I can remember.  After patching things up on day 3... tuesday, we ended up having a plan to get to Bath and trying to get to another castle.  I find one that is just south of Bath called Midford Castle, plus we have the Jane Austin Centre to go to in the city.

Getting to where the castle was was nerve wracking, all the roads over there are very narrow and the curbside of it is just barely wide enough to walk along.  Finally we got to where the castle was by the grace of my friend's phone and there were all these no trespassing signs.  We stopped and talked to some local farmers and found out that it very much indeed was not open to the public.  Major bummer.  We made the best of it and found a bike path to walk along to get a good view of the castle from a distance... and took a wrong turn.  After back tracking a few kilometers we finally get a good view of the structure.  After snapping a few pictures we walked along the path for a long while until we get to a kilometer long tunnel that was once part of a rail line.  It was renovated to be a walking path and it was a real neat walk.  There were these speakers that had individual parts of a string instrumental.   I figured that they put that down there to help break up the monotony of just the very long straight line.  Finally we come out of the tunnel and hear signs of civilization.  It's another long walk before we get to a place with a bus that we take back to the railway station.  on the bus we actually discover that we're riding with an old english professor that tells us quite a bit about bath and the surrounding area.  He gives us some instructions on how to get to the center from there and it's very easy to find from that.  We bought tickets for the lecture on the life of Jane Austin and got to interact with the expert.  We then went downstairs to the rest of the display.  It was fun to hear about such a great and significant author.  I could draw some parallels between Jane and my friend.  there was a short video downstairs to listen to and we dressed up in some period clothing for a picture.  I did some quill writing and bought a funny booklet that Jane did when she was in high school.  Finally we wandered back to the train and rode it home.  That night we swam in the pool.  Will write more later, regular life is calling @_@ the next day we went to stone henge and I have lots of things to say about that

So we get up at noon local time, I spend a long time figuring out where the busses are going to be going and how to get there... we get on a double decker bus and things really start to get fun there, being up just another story makes everything so much more viewable and senic.  I start snapping off pictures to show people at home.  We finally get to the castle grounds and go through a museum where there are lots of old toys and functional items of the day.  The highlight is that there was this picture of the dadest dad that ever dadded, got a pipe, wearing a suit, has his son on his knee who is playing with a toy train.  Classic.  We finally wrap up with the museum and start walking down the paths when I realize that my memory card is being all stupid, lost all the pictures prior.  I'm really bummed at that point.  We wander along the paths for a while until we get completely lost.  Finally we ask for directions and that gets us to the actual castle itself.  Now, to set the mood, we're dog tired from walking up a 45 degree hill maybe even 50 degrees at points.  Finally the first parapets rise up from behind the hill.  Just a few more feet!  You rise up the crest and see that its' simply three parapets, look around and wonder where the rest of the castle is... then it starts to dawn on you as you draw closer to the tower... this is it... this little tiny tower cluster is the 'castle'... yep... that's it.  It's a really good thing that the castle itself is situated on some of the best scenery and views of bristol because that was pretty troll-like Bristol... I think from here on out the blaise castle should have quotes around the outside.  Anyhow...
We get on a few busses to get back to the hotel, by the time we roll up my friend realized that she lost her bus pass somewhere along the line, total bummer...

We rounded out the day with eating some fish and chips.  I ask for a large since everything on this trip has been a little... small.  But nope, not this, the thing was huge at least a foot in length, I got some halibut I think.  the chips were good.  Never had them before but I can very much see myself putting some vinegar on the fries at home now, adds just a little bit of sweet to the salt.  Still fighting jet lag a bit but I think that's finally wearing off.  Despite the loss of the bus pass and the disapointing castle, I think today was one of the bigger successes, shows that we can get around the city, finally feeling confident traveling around over here.  My friend said something today that I think is very true.  'I think the one thing that traveling abroad means is geting completely lost whereever you go almost all the time'.  yep!

So we finally made it to Bristol today.  We woke up prety early, got to the airport on time and flew briefly over to Bristol.  We found the A3 train and took it in to bristol.  Few things that I have learned already, 1, the food here is fantastic, we ate at the mcdonalds right outside the hotel and everything was great about it, even the ketchup.  2, driving in europe is insane.  everyone here must really trust their car and where it is on the road.  We walked around to the closest mall where my friend exchanged their currency over, was disapointed at the exchange rate.  We also picked up all the stuff that I purposely left behind.  We just got done eating at a tasty chipotle type place.  It took a bit of doing to get the right room for us at the hotel.  Thinking that we're going to be a bit lazy today to finish up with the jet lag.  Yay! so clean now.  Oh... yet again re-enforced the fact that I should pack a set of clothes