We’re on to Day 4, and our first major day of train travel. We took a train up to York, and toured around the city for a while, then hit another train to Edinburgh, Scotland, where we’d be staying for 2 nights. I had a decent amount of time on the train to catch up on the last few days, then just sorta ramble on about things going on on the train. Reading through it now I was reminded of some fun things I had forgotten.. like the singing lady on the train, Robb‘s suggestion to switch seats at the Newcastle stop, the fear of death by nuclear explosion, and Joel talking in his sleep. A very good day. As always, my pictures are up on the pictures page.

6/6 Train to York

So Joel was trying to write postcards , but the train was bumping around so much he just decided to give up. Robb is going at it now, and while the penmanship seems okay, the subject matter seems to be the problem… he can’t think of what to write. “This place has big buildings. I like food. Bye.” We’re on the train to Edinburgh via York… We intend to get off at York and hang out there for a little while… prolly not as long as we had hoped, as it took us longer than expected to get to the train station.. Wrote a story ’bout it. Want to hear it? here it go:

Woke up this morning, got dressed and ready and all that. Said goodbye to the girls, and they took off, then we were set to take off, and left. I said goodbye to some other girl in our room that had a really cute accent (sounded Irish). First we had to deal with that whole “No trains running through Greenwich” thing again… meaning we couldn’t get from Greenwich to wherever it was we wanted to go.. “Charing X” I believe.. So we asked some dude what to do. Kudos to Robb and Joel for being willing to ask people who (ought to ) know fairly quickly, rather than insisting on trying to figure it out themselves.. and either getting us killed or just standing around logically debating issues that can’t really be figured out logically (like “if our train isn’t running at all, how are we going to make it back”)

Anyway, we went from Greenwich to Lewisham via the DLR (something Light Rail).. then those tickets wouldn’t work for the Train to Charing X, so we got tickets to Charing X… and when we got there, there were no trains to Edinburgh.. we wanted to be at “King’s Cross”… so we then needed Underground tickets..

Hopped on the Underground, then made it to Euston, to switch to the Victoria Line to get to King’s Cross… only there were BritRail signs at Euston… so we made it to the end, and asked some dude (worker dude) before exiting, and he told us we wanted King’s Cross, so we headed back, got on the Victoria Line, made it to King’s Cross, and found a train to Edinburgh leaving relatively soon (and stopped at York), so we got on that… and that leads us up to right now.. we’re stopped at Peterburgh station, on our way to York. i would very much like something to drink, and have contemplated killing the nice man with a coke sitting just in front of me. No I’m kidding.. I’d just render him unconscious from behind, drink his coke..and if he came to before our stop, I’d blame it all on Joel.

Now I’ve got to quick catch up on the last few days.
Caught up… kinda

Joel is writing postcards as well now. the view outside is nice, but it’s pretty much just farm fields, and it looks no different than any other kind of farm field anywhere… I just pointed out excitedly the presence of… cows.. I thought there were something a bit more exciting, like Giraffes or Dinosaurs… Nope. pretty much things look the same.. though the architecture is slightly different, and you’ve got the giant church w/ steeple in the center of most every town. Also, cars are driving on the opposite side of the road, which seems to have lost its appeal fairly quickly.

we do seem to be approaching some highlands, so that’s kinda exciting.

We also go through tunnels every few minutes that make my head want to explode. .. All in all though, it’s very comfortable so far, and I’m pleased to be sitting for a little while. We’ve been trying to make the most of our time so far, and I’d say we’ve been doing fairly well.

Robb has activities for the day pretty well planned out, and alternatives set up if and when certain things work out. Thus far I’m having a really good time. things aren’t quite as exciting and new as they were on the last trip, but it’s still a thrill to see something I recognize show up around the corner.

I could really go for some water.
or that ice cream.. damn that ice cream was good.
Mental note: purchase Chocolate Ice Cream when I return home. I recall mentioning that last trip.. Also, the museum pub was offering Vanilla with Strawberries. :)

6/6 Train to York II

So.. some random observations

A LOT of people here wear Yankees hats… I’ve seen one cubs hat, from an obvious American.. He was on the Jack the Ripper tour with us… and it was an Old Style Cubs hat (the Beer, not the Era) Everyone else that has been wearing a American sports team has been wearing a Yankees hat, and there has been quite a few (we’re in the teens at least, and that’s from casual [albeit biased and judgmental] observations) We’re assuming it’s like how outside of this area, everyone seems to like Manchester United, but inside the area everyone hates them.

yes… everyone hates the Yankees.. Everyone

I HAVE A COKE! I HAVE A COKE!
JOY!’

If you can’t tell, I’m very excited Joel has just given me some crunchy graham cracker bar stuff too. this rules.

also, Robb nearly killed himself trying to drink from the camelbak while his pack was still on the overhead rack.

Coke gone, joy leaving me…

We have now past at least 5 Nuclear Power plants… and they were all quite huge.. seriously, for as much far land and cows, why the need for so many Mutant superheroes? I stopped taking pictures of them after 4, but for some reason they fascinate me.. perhaps it’s the realization that at any time, i could just cease to be thanks to those damn things. There’s my limited understanding of how Nuclear Power works.
Let’s hear it for a lack of education !

Joel is writing a postcard to Leslie now. He is concentrating pretty hard.
I wish i had another coke.

6/6 Train to Edinburgh

Okay, we just got back on the train after an afternoon in York. York turned out to be pretty good. Off the train we were given instructions on how to get into the heart of the city (Head out of the station, turn left, you’ll see the city.. walk to it) Turns out it really was that easy) so we walked to York Minster, saw the giant cathedral, went on in and looked around… It reminded me of the many Cathedrals in Italy that I saw.. Very tall, very impressive, lots of statues and ornate ceilings… I didn’t notice any depictions of heaven and hell though. Oh well.

After the church (there was a band outside as well, we listened to them for a short time when we were trying to figure out if we were allowed inside the church or not.. it is a Sunday after all… Anyway, after that we went walking to look for some food, and I spotted a sign for a castle… so I said we should head towards that. We walked a ways, then found a nice looking little cafe, and ate there… Robb and I had roast Beef with Yorkshire pudding. Only in Yorkshire!

It was quite good… Joel had something with chicken… i didn’t catch its name, but it certainly didn’t contain “Yorkshire”.

After lunch, we continued towards the castle.. and had trouble finding it… finally we walked through some open air shop market type things, and came upon a tower on a hill… this was Clifford’s Tower.. it was pretty kewl.. so we went on inside, and had a look around. It was originally the site where William the Conquerer built a wooden castle.. but that was burned down.. Then another wooden tower fell over during a freak wind storm. ["The third one burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp."] then Henry the 3rd built this stone tower, and that’s what is there now. Pretty slick.

After that we managed to find out way back, and walked to the train station just in time to run onto a train leaving that very minute…that’s where we are now. Joel is setting up his archos, and Robb appears to be enjoying the scenery. I’m wavering between writing about the last 2 days (I’ve just written outlines at this point, as I’ve had no free time until today.) or sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying the scenery as well.

Anyone know if “My Country Tis of Thee” is the same tune as some British song? cause the band at York was playing that… that seems weird… You don’t typically here marching type bands playing “Rule Brittania” in the states… Unless Britain is also “sweet land of liberty” and “Home of the pilgrims’ pride.”

Robb suggested that we change seats when we got to Newcastle, as the group of girls that were sitting there had left. We realized, of course, the instant our old seats had been taken that these seats were reserved for some other people from Newcastle on. So now we’ve got new seats. Joel is just across the aisle from me, and Robb is one row in front of him. I wrote this entire paragraph just using the stylus, and I’ve decided that I suck at it. So yeah.. not so good, Robb.

6/6 Train to Edinburgh II

Okay, back to the keyboard, I’m not exactly sure where we are, but it’s somewhere between Newcastle and Edinburgh.. I’m hoping Edinburgh is still a bit of a ways away, as I am enjoying the scenery, and very much enjoying the sitting. I’m sitting at a table for 4, with an elderly woman across (kitty corner) from me. She’s reading the paper, and every few minutes will break out into humming/silently singing a song… the song seems to be the same each time, but I can’t say I recognize it, as it rarely lasts for more than a few seconds. Anyway, the weather has been perfect so far the entire trip, and for that I am truly grateful.. and for jinxing it right now, I am truly sorry. I think the plan is once we get to Edinburgh, we’ll get a meal, then find a place to stay, perhaps in reverse order.. I think we may be leaning towards hotel (read: very cheap hotel) at this point, as the hostel we stayed at in London had one in Edinburgh, and it was 14 people per room, and 15 pounds per person per night, which seemed a bit pricey to us. We’ll see what prices are like when we get up there.

the drink dude just walked by, and I resisted… I am proud of myself, and very thirsty again.

We’ve been passing a lot of sheep lately… and by a lot, I mean a LOT.. they seem to be everywhere.There goes the singing lady again.. and she stopped.. but man is she smiling as she opens up her candy… and the singing has started again…. Maybe that was her “I have candy” song. Seemed to work.

Thus far: Injury count is very low. I still have the scrapes on my left arm from the airport (I’m guessing from the pack) and some small scrapes on the inside of my elbow (left arm again) that is for sure from putting on my pack… perhaps I should be more careful when putting on the pack… or I should just eat more vegetables.

Robb has moved behind me, and I thought he was missing. I started to freak a bit until he smiled and waved at me.

we can see some water now, and along a narrow peninsula there appears to be a small castle or something… we’re too far away to know for sure what it is.. it could just be a big house or something.. bu whatever it is, from a distance it looks very kewl.

In case you are wondering, I’m wearing my sexy jeans, and my sexy grey shirt, so I look quite good, and women everywhere are wild over me. I’m guessing my hair could use some work, though.

We now see water. Woo! here’s my geography failure.. I have no idea what body of water this is. it is to our right, and it is huge… so let’s see.. we are traveling north, making that water to the east of us, making it the water in between the UK and Mainland Europe.. That’s make it the North Sea… Yeah I totally cheated… All i could think of was the Arctic Ocean, and that didn’t seem quite right, so I had to look it up. So there we are..

Here’s something kinda funny. we came in to the station, and Joel wanted to get a shot of the bridge, and a river, and yada yada… so he’s shooting a shot out my window, and the singing lady starts moving her luggage that’s sitting on the table.. and i smile at her, and she smiles, and says in a thick Scottish accent “In case he misses” and I laugh, and she laughs… and laughs, and laughs.. She really found herself funny I guess. Anyway, her laughing made me laugh… and the North Sea is huge.

I think ours is the next station, so that’s all for now.

6/6 Hostel in Edinburgh

Joel and Robb just returned from an unsuccessful trip to use the Internet machines in the “Chill Out” room. I pray that that room’s name was chosen some time in the late 80′s / early 90′s.. Anyway, the computer didn’t work.. so now their back… We’re hanging out in our hostel.. it’s another St. Christopher’s Hostel, same as the one we stayed at in london… only in London the basement was this “hip” bar with music and trashy women etc.. here it seems to be more of a small corner bar with a few tables… better.

After we got off the train, we found a place in the station to assist with finding us a place to stay… they suggested this place, and some seedy place farther away, and a few hotels… we ended up here, and checked it out, and then Robb suggested that we see if we could get it cheaper… Now i don’t know how to haggle, and Joel seemed fairly reluctant as well, but we told Robb that if he wanted to he could go for it.. and sure enough, he saved us a opund or two, and we got in at the student rate… and to top it off, we’re in a room for 6, but we’re the only ones here, so we’ve got it to ourselves.. also this hostel has the bathrooms in the room.. no community stuff like the other one… Since the odds of us getting roomed up with some pretty, friendly girls from Tennessee again were somewhat low, I was very pleased with this arrangement.

After we settled in and dropped off our packs, we went out for a walk/look for a place to eat. I very soon decided that this place rules.. There, on top of a very large hill with steep carved out walls is Edinburgh castle.. it’s a sight to behold, and no pictures I’ve taken will do it justice.. we’re going to see it tomorrow, and i am very excited…

We kept walking along, and occasionally stopped to take pictures… Eventually we headed down a smaller street that looked like it’d have some good places to eat… The first lace we passed was a karaoke bar, and there was a group of Asian tourists singing at the front, but the whole bar had joined in with them to sing .. and now for the life of me I can’t remember what they were singing.. Suffice it to say it was very funny.

We eventually headed in to Dirty Dicks, and Robb had Whiskey haggis, I had the Cod, and Joel had some sort of steak pie thinger… It was all quite good… we also had beer… quite a bit of beer being had on this trip.

After a while (and quite a few mentions/performances of “We built this city on Rock and Roll/Wheat” by Robb [I added occasional drum work]) we headed back to the hostel, which is where we are now.. we’re plotting out the rest of our trip… or as much of it as we’ve figured out so far.

6/6 Hostel in Edinburgh II

Joel just said (supposedly in his sleep) ‘We’ll need 4 total’ when i asked him what he was talking about he said ‘yeah, I was sleeping… ‘ He said his dream had something to do with buying tickets for something… the odd thing being he really only needed 3 in his dream. And now… Lights out.

Hey there.. We’re on to day 3 of our trip.. This was our last full day in London before we headed out to see Scotland and Ireland. We hit the major spots, like The Tower of London, Parliment, Westminster Abbey, and the Tower Bridge. As a bonus, we got to ride on a red double-decker bus. Score! As usual, Pictures are up.

6/5 Tower of London

The next morning we got up, and got ready, then headed on out… As we were leaving Robb said to the girls “Have a good gay…… a good ‘day’”. It was very funny, and I intend to ridicule him about it sometime in the future when he doesn’t expect it, thus lowering his self image, and making me feel like a big man.

Anyway, we got round-trip tickets from Greenwich to London.. made it in to London, and got Underground tickets… then we headed off to St. Paul’s Church, which was pretty nice. There was a statue to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, so hey.. that’s something for you. the price of admission was pretty steep,and the whole thin was under construction, so we didn’t go in. I didn’t mind.. I’ve seen my share of giant churches.

We had gone to St Paul’s first because the Circle and Green Underground Lines were down right in the section we needed to be… so that made traveling around a bit more complicated.. not horrible though.. After St. Paul’s we headed to the Tower of London, and I was excited [suits of armor, remember?]

I should note at this point that Joel and I had opted to leave our packs at the hostel, while Robb (who was carrying the books of information, and had his camel-back bladder in his bag) took his pack along.

We arrived at the Tower of London, and got inside just in time for a guided tour by one of the Yeoman of the tower. He was an animated old British Man in traditional Yeoman’s dress, and made a number of jokes at the expense of Americans, the English, and especially people from Kentucky.. it was funny.

His tour was filled with tales of death, executions, and prisoners… all of which was pretty snazzy… especially that bit about the killing.. The tour ended in the church, where the bodies (sans the head, in most cases) of the executed used to be buried… After a while they were all moved to some other burial spot. Anyway, very interesting.

We then started going through all the museums and things they had, but first, we saw them changing the guard at the guard house… Now this wasn’t the big ole dramatic thinger they do at Buckingham Palace, but it was still pretty kewl, and so we watched that .. then headed in to the museums… We saw examples of different torture devices (the Rack, and the –enger’s daughter… for the life of me I can’t remember what the first part was… I remembered “daughter” and looked through my pictures on my camera ,and found “enger’s” in my picture of the rack… Oh well. [UPDATE: I looked it up online: Scavenger's Daughter] Anyway, we saw those, and read all about them. And we also saw a ton of swords and weapons, and Yes! Suits of Armor. they were very kewl. Henry VIII’s Codpiece seemed.. “optimistic” at best (“Attention shoppers. There’s plenty of room in Kevin Arnold’s crotch”)

Also, there we got to see the Crown Jewels. Woo.

Eventually we got outside, and the chapel is being guarded by yeoman, and plenty of people dressed up or in Uniform are congregating around it.. Joel asked one of the Yeoman, who explained that there was a wedding going on there.. so that was kinda kewl to see.

We also got to check out where Thomas More stayed as a “prisoner” for 13 years before being executed. He had a pretty swanky pad for his day.. though he did have to pay quite a bit for it. Oh, also, if ever you’re going to get your head cut off with an axe, be sure to bribe the executioner so he’ll cut it clean through on the first whack.

As we were walking out, we saw a grave for the Yeomans’ Ravens. Apparently there’s a thing with Yeoman and ravens… I’ll have to look that up when I get home.

Also outside the tower was a tennis court and a playground… all fenced off and looking in disrepair… that seemed less kewl.

When we left the Tower we walked towards the Thames, and got a good view of London/Tower Bridge (apparently it’s called Tower Bridge, but I’ma keep calling it London Bridge.) So we took a ton of pictures, and I took some pictures for a group of ladies… and I tried my hand at taking a shot of myself with the bridge behind.. turns out I hella suck at that now.

6/5 Big Ben

After a time, we headed back to the Underground, and with some doing we made it to the Parliament building… as we walked out of the underground station, we were greeted by A tall, tall tower, with a giant clock on top. I took a number of pictures. After walking all the way around the Parliament building, we found that there was no way in.. I remarked that Big Ben just kinda crept up on us there, to which Joel replied “Where was Big Ben?” “The tall clock just out of the station” “That was Big Ben?” “Um.. yeah” … the conversation continued, with Joel needing a bit of convincing before he accepted that that was in fact Big Ben. Apparently he thought he’d recognize it when he saw it, and this particular very tall clock tower attached to the Parliament building in London on the Thames river didn’t seem quite right. I kindly pointed out that he was a retard. All in All, I found it funny.

So we crossed the street to get to Westminster Abbey. Across the street was a series of protesters (protesting what? I’m not certain, but it had to do with the war in Iraq, and the prisoner abuse thing, at the very least. ) There were beds where people where just kinda hanging out.. and lots of signs. Then all of a sudden this older dude without a shirt started running around that block (it was an open square park like thing.) So he sprinted around the entire thing (though he lost a ton of steam about halfway through).. then returned to the section where the protest signs were.. It was all very strange.

We headed over to Westminster Abbey, and it was closed for the day as well, which was a bit of a disappointment. we hung out there for a bit, and took pictures, etc.. then decided to head off to Buckingham Palace.

6/5 Buckingham Palace

To get to Buckingham Palace we had to walk through another park, which was fine, as the weather continued[continues] to be absolutely perfect. We still hadn’t eaten, at this point, so I was getting a bit hungry (starving all the time) There had been an Ice cream dude at the Parliament Building, but I had been able to resist.. Not so much the next time… Joel and I stopped and got ice cream cones (which, thanks to some fine instructions given to me by Deedre a while back, I was able to eat without making a giant mess of it. Hurray for learning!) A few minutes later, we stopped again, and I got a hot dog… and Joel got a hot dog.. and and Orange Juice… I was able to resist the urge to get orange Juice.. but just barely. Robb, meanwhile, got nothing.

We made it to Buckingham palace, and saw the guards standing there. they change the guard each day at 11:30 apparently.. so we missed that.. I’m hoping we’ll get to see that on Monday before we leave.. that’d be kewl. We hung out there for a while… watched cops walk around with giant machine guns… Which led to another question: What is the role of those guards in the uniforms? I assume they’re more or less ceremonial at this point… but then why do they have modern guns? If they’re ceremonial, shouldn’t they had old style guns to match their uniforms? Seems kinda odd.

Joel and I also noted that lots of people were taking pictures of the signs as well.. Like.. they’d take a picture of a sign that said “Buckingham Palace” then take more pictures … we hypothesized that this was so that when they developed their film, they’d know what each section was based on the signs… but Joel thought that that only made sense with digital cameras..as memory is a bit more easy to waste, whereas using one of every 5-10 pictures for a sign seems like a bit of a waste…. I dunno. Seems like it could be helpful, but also yeah, film is expensive..

We decided to head to the “Cork and Bottle” a wine bar/restaurant suggested by Jonathan. Me managed to find it without much difficulty, Robb and Joel having figured out the Underground system (and routes to get around the closures) quite well. The Cork and Bottle was apparently famous for their Cheese and Ham pie.. so Robb and I both decided to get that. You have to go up to the bar to order food in most of the places we’ve gone, so we’ve been taking turns. Robb went at the Museum Pub, and Joel went at the Cork and Bottle… only we didn’t know what he was getting… so after he left, a waitress game in, and said “Steak Sandwich?”.. Robb and I just looked at each other, and then at her… “Steak Sandwich?” .. “Um.. I…” “2 Cheese and ham, and a steak sandwich” “Oh.. yeah.. We both had Cheese and Ham, we have no idea what Joel got.” So we looked like idiots… Hurray! Joel returned with a bottle of wine, and we feasted… it was all very good, and really really filing.. there was a lot of ham, and a lot of cheese..

On one of the walls was a series of cartoon drawings featuring what I assumed to be a french man and woman (the captions were all in french, and the guy looked like the type that would surrender quickly).. they were all advertisements for a type of wine.. but the first featured the couple at a restaurant in some tropical location, and the girl was topless, and there guy was just staring at her chest (compete with the dashed “stare lines” drawn in and everything.) Classy!

Before we headed out, we asked the waitress about the rules of tipping/gratuity, as we’d been debating it at the table for a while… We’re still not all that clear on it.. but it seems like it’s similar to the states, only it’s not required.. Like, if you went and got food at the bar, and there wasn’t a tip jar, it doesn’t seem like it’s an insult to not tip… Whatever, they deal with tourists all the time, they’re prolly used to it by now.

6/5 London Bridge

After a few glasses of wine, i was falling asleep again… but we decided to head down to the Thames, and see it when it was all lit up for the evening. So we headed back to where we came from, and made it to the tower of London.. only the walkway to the Thames was closed… so we decided to walk to the London Bridge instead… as it was right nearby.

As i mentioned before, the London Bridge seems to be officially names the London Bridge, but whatever.. we got to it, and walked across it. Near the end of it, we caught up to three guys just in time to watch them drop their pants and moon the camera of some guys picture-phone. Classy.

Anyway, the view of the Thames was spectacular, so we just kinda hung out on the bridge for a while… then we started heading back.. All the while in the city skyline was that bullet building I was such a fan of… we kinda ran out of time that evening, so we didn’t get to walk to it…a shame, cause I have no idea what that thing is.

There were a bunch of motorcycles screaming across the bridge too.. They were fast.

So then it was time to head home. We walked back, got the to the Underground station… made it to the London Bridge station, and went on up to the Train Station.. and there it was.. the train the Lewshim. From Lewshim we’d go to Greenwich, and we’d get to sleep… So we waited, and got on the train to Lewshim. we pass the New Cross station, and end up in Lewshim. Hurray! So now for the train to Greenwich… the train… to Greenwich… we’re looking for any train… any train to Greenwich will do.

Nothing…

So we were stuck…. Now.. I had noticed on the sign at London Bridge that there was a train that mentioned Greenwich .. but it was for quite a bit later I thought, so I hadn’t mentioned it then… I figured now was a good time to mention it though.. so with some talking we decided that yes.. that is what we would do.. So we drove back, past New Cross, to London Bridge. There we found that same train I had spotted.. that said we should get on one train, then get off at New Cross station, and find a train there for Greenwich.. So we found a train to New Cross.. and got there.. and looked for a train to Greenwich… any train to Greenwich… damnit. Finally we found a sign posted that said that there would be no trains to Greenwich.. well.. um… that’s the suck. SO there were signs posted for a bus to Greenwich… so we decided to do that… We headed out, and there was a long line waiting by the Bus stop… and somehow we found out (I think the sign posted in the station said) that our train tickets would work for the buses due to the line being down… So eventually a bus showed up. (well, no, it had been there the whole time.. eventually the driver showed up and moved the thing forward about 50 feet. .. and hey, I thought the English were on the Metric system. everything here is feet/miles per hour/yards… it’s weird. ) Anyway, it was a red double-decker bus! Yea! So that drove us all the way to the Greenwich station (well, it dropped us off right in front of St. Christopher’s Hostel… which was our hostel.. Score. we of course sat on the top, and took pictures like mad, cause we’re easily amused American tourists.

Inside the Hostel was a huge party going on in the bar.. with lots of fine ladies .. so we walked on past and went upstairs. There we met up with the girls from the night before, along with a few other people. the girls had ended up going to a play in London starring ..wait for it… JULIA STILES.

When I woke up from passing out, I asked about it a bit, and managed to contain myself, though she could tell I was quite jealous.. she seemed pleased.

So my destined meeting with Julia Stiles was apparently not to happen that day.. a shame too, cause she’s really going to like me.

After that, I went to bed, and fell asleep instantly. Didn’t hear any snoring, didn’t hear much of anything, cause I was totally gone.

Tomorrow we’d be heading off to York then Edinburgh.

Hey, hey! We’re on to day two now, which was really a long, long extension of day one for us. We got our first look at London, and did a decent amount of walking around… to the point where I fell asleep in the pub, and Joel nearly did at the British Museum… These entries were all written a few days later, while I was hanging out in our hostel in Edinburgh, using notes I had scrawled on a piece of paper while we were walking around that second day. Pictures are up as well.

6/4 London Underground

While we were on the Underground there was this loud talking man on a cell phone.. I wanted him to die.

Anyway, we made it to downtown London, and got of the Underground (For reasons unclear to me, i refuse to call it the tube, though Joel and Robb seemed to have embraced this terminology instantly.).. We began walking around a place called “Hyde Park” Yes… it was my first “Hyde Park Experience” [rim-shot, ding!].. We walked around Hyde Park, by the Serpentine river (I assume that’s the river’s name.) for a while… The pigeons and geese there are so tame/used to people that you really could just walk up to one and grab it. One late on nearly dive bombed me, flying no more than a foot from my head…Eventually we made it to the Serpentine Bridge… at this point we noticed that the weather was absolutely perfect. Warm, but not hot, and fairly sunny. It was a gorgeous day..

It was at this point also that I was reminded that the English like the F word.. Seriously, old women walking around dropping the F-bomb at will. 30 somethings throwing it into every other sentence for good measure. It was at first funny, then just kinda weird. Reminded me of Bridget Jones’ Diary.

So we walked along for a while, and came upon the Serpentine Art Gallery.. A small building filled with modern art… We wet in… The art totally sucked. This was your “I grabbed all my colored pencils and scribbled on a piece of paper for 3 seconds, then wanted 1000 pounds for it kinda crap. I was not impressed. I did find it funny when two other people were trying to find the meaning in one though… Now I’m not saying there can’t be meaning in abstract art, and I’m sure some of it is very good.. I like some modern/post-modern art quite a bit.. But this stuff sucked, and should be laughed at and that’s it.

After that we headed over to Kensington Park, which is right connected to Hyde Park. There we got a look at Kensington Palace, a fine looking mansion type thinger with small but ornate gardens surrounding it.. We didn’t feel like paying the [fairly high] price to get in, so we walked around the outside of it. Then I spied a church looking thing, and we walked to it, and it turned out to be the Albert Memorial.. That’s… a memorial to some dude names Albert…. that looks like a church from a distance Yup, that’s all i got on that one.

We headed back to the Underground, and and got ourselves a bit lost, until I pointed out that the street signs were posted on the buildings at each corner, and then Robb got us steered right, and we were on our way.

While walking we came across a sign advertising that Chumbawumba would be performing…. Here I thought they were dead… Now I’m left to wonder why no one has killed them yet.

6/4 British Museum

So after that we made it to the British Museum.. We spent a bit of time just sitting outside, watching the flood of Japanese tourists appear every few seconds. After sitting around for a while, we decided to go in. and one of the security dudes asked us something like if we “lads were planning adventures with those bags” or something… Anyway, we had to go in the other entrance and check our bags if we wanted to go in.. which was more than fine with me.. So we hop in the other side, drop off our bags at the check (1 pound per item, I believe) then we headed on in.

We hit a giant section on ancient Egypt that was quite impressive. Hieroglyphics, statues of Pharaohs, and even a bit of the Sphinx’s beard-.. Then we got to something very, very kewl: The Rosetta Stone

I was very impressed with it. It’s pretty big,and the writing is pretty small…. what I wasn’t impressed with where the retards that kept standing right in front of everyone.. Like some dude would be set with his camera, and all set to take a picture, and some old man would just walk right in front, then stop. Um… MOVE! Anyway, that was the Rosetta stone.

What I was really looking for (like, before we got here, one of the things I wanted to see) was a room filled with suits of armor, cause that would be really kewl.. but this place didn’t have it.

It did have all sorts of items from The Etruscans, and Corinthians, and the Greeks and Romans… My brother Jefe would have loved it.. and I found it all quite interesting.. but it wasn’t quite the Medieval stuff I was looking for… I was thinking Rome -> Ancient Romans and Greeks. England -> Medieval Kings and Knights.

They did have a pretty nice Trojan War set up.. almost certainly cashing in on the movies popularity.

We made it into this clock room, and they had all sorts of clocks set up there… all running at almost the exact same time.. I imagine my father going insane in that room trying to keep each clock running at exactly the right time… Anyway, there was this one clock that had a metal plate at the bottom with a track cut into it that went back and forth, and there was a metal ball that rolled down that track… so the plate would tip in one direction, and the ball would roll all the way down to the end of it.. and when it hit the end, it would hit a metal rod that would activate a switch, that would tip the plate in the other direction,and the ball would roll down to the other side, slowly moving back and forth down that zig-zaggy pattern. Each trip took 30 seconds…so by the time it had gone there and back again, it had been a minute. I was in awe… and it took a while to figure out / read that this was not in fact a perpetual motion machine (the thing has a spring that needed to be wound every 21 days.)

Then we hit a room that had some very nice swords, and I always find swords impressive, so I hung out there for a while… In time, we had to head back to the baggage check, and we talked to the dude there for a bit about what all there was to see, suggestions, etc. he was a pretty nice guy, and told me that there’d be suits of armor at the Tower of London, and I was pleased. we’d be heading there tomorrow.

So after the museum we went looking for a place to eat… i think we were all pretty tired as well, as we’d not slept that much on the plane, and we’d been walking around all day. eventually we made it to the Museum Pub, and we grabbed a seat… we couldn’t’ find any menus… so Robb asked, and the dude said something like he’d get them for us in 5 minutes, but I’m not really sure what he said… anyway, we continued to sit around for a while, and eventually we got menus, and Joel and I got pints of Young’s Bitter. Eventually we got our food, and downed that pretty fast.

6/4 Museum Pub

While we were eating a large group of people about our age showed up, and they hung around by the bar, and at one point one person said “Cheers” then hey all said it, like instantly.. I thought that was kinda kewl. Also, there have been a LOT of really hot girls around here. There was a girl sitting at the bar that looked quite a bit like a young Gwyneth Paltrow/ that chick Lloyd was trying to date “through Friday” on Undeclared (“Sick in the Head”). Seriously, lots of very pretty girls.

So we’re hanging out in the Museum Pub, and I’m fairly certain I’m falling asleep.. and we decide to take off, so we can make in time to the “Jack the Ripper Walking Tour”. this was on Jonathan’s suggestion.. so we headed out, took the Underground to the stop, and showed p at a fairly decent sized group already gathered. now, there was some dude that was an expert on all things Jack the Riper, or something like that, and he was supposed to be leading the tour today, but he wasn’t there, so we settled for some other guy, who turned out to be quite good as well… I suppose it helps to have no real basis for comparison though. So this tour started out right by the Tower of London, and we’d walk for a while, then stop at some specific site (of a murder, or someone’s house, etc..) and we’d get filled in on a bit more of the story.. Now, I’d seen “From Hell” [thanks to Cathy's insistence], and the first thing the guide said was that I should forget everything that movie said .. which was not a problem, cause I’d already forgotten most of it. So the tour moved throughout town.. leading us down places ( like Petticoat Lane), and we heard the story. One thing that hurt the tour a bit was that every one of the murder sites has since been changed, so you don’t quite get the real feel for what was going on back in the day.. Towards the end of the tour it began to drizzle, and it looked like it might downpour, but the rain held off, which was very nice, and we were able to hit the underground station afterwords, and head on or way to our Hostel.

Our hostel was in Greenwich, which the Underground didn’t hit, so we’d have to take a train to get there.. so after making it to London Bridge station, we got tickets for the train, and made our way to Greenwich .. Right around the corner from the station was the hostel… We got in, and the main floor was this bar/club.. The kinda you’d expect to see hooches and frat guys in. You know, the kind of place I just assume BDF would like. Zing! We walked through to the hostel desk, checked in, and headed up to our room.. it was a 8-person room.. We headed inside… Girls!

In the room were two girls from University in Tennessee studying abroad this summer (in Venice, I believe).. They’d take trips to different places on weekends, and this weekend they were in London…

One girl (the top bunk, the blond) was very outgoing and friendly, and started asking us questions/talking. They’d been to Florence and Rome already, so i talked to them about that a bit (they’d kinda been forced to camp..which they were not planning on doing, which kinda ruined it for them. Also, they didn’t get to see The David, which hurts it quite a bit more) They wanted to know what I thought of the hostel here compared to others, and the hostel seemed quite nice thus far.. and indeed turned out to be fairly good. Anyway, after a while, Robb and I went and took showers, and when we returned we all soon fell asleep… Well almost all of us. I’m a light sleeper, and Joel is a snorer. I spent the first part of the night huddled over his bed with a giant knife, having a debate with the angel and demon on my two shoulders. Nah.. I eventually just grabbed my earphones (the ones that go through my ear canal and rest right up against my brain) and put those in, to deaden the sound, then put my sleeping bag over my head, and all was fine. I just couldn’t fall asleep, which is weird cause I was really really hella tired… Shoulda had another beer I guess.

Okay! Time to start with the journals. I’m trying to break them up a bit more this time, as many people seemed to think they were too long last time. I’m also feeling ambitious, and trying to keep up with the pictures at the same time, and add some into the text as we go. Anyway, it’s the same deal as last time: I took my Handspring along on the trip, and a snazzy keyboard for it.. and whenever I had the chance or the desire, I’d write what all was going on, and what we did.. or just rambled on and on about unrelated nonsense for a while.. The program I was using (memopad) Limited the size of each entry, so I would name each entry with either where I currently was (on a train, on a plane, in a hostel, etc..) or what the entry was about.. So those titles are what preceed each entry. I also decided not to edit these things again, so if I don’t notice a glaring error or a sentance that makes no sense, etc… let me know, so I can fix it. Danke!

Anyway, let’s get on with it: This is “Day 1″.. I’ve decided to break up June 3 and 4, which to us were really one L-O-N-G day… from driving from Grandville to Chicago to A number of flights, to landing in London and still having the entire day ahead of us.. This entry gets us as far as landing in London. Pictures are up as well.

6/3 Chicago [O'Hare]

I’m at the airport in O’Hare.. We drove out Thursdays morning around 10ish… maybe 10:30, headed out to my parents place, and had some food, then my dad drove us out to O’Hare. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4, but since we were early, they asked if we wanted to head out at 3… we said yes.. This ins a Continental flight.. to Newark.. the next flight is a Virgin flight [Joke Averted!] to London… our seats to London so far are not together.. we very much would like to fix that… only they can’t do that here… we gotta try when we’re in Newark.. with us leaving at 3, we’ll have plenty ‘o time to try… That flight doesn’t leave til 9:45ish, I think… Anyway, that’s that.

I took a bunch of really big sinus medicine pills in the hopes that it’ll open up my ear tubes so I don’t explode on take off… that’s now the part I’m most nervous about.. just cause seriously, it hurts like all sorts of hell. We shall see.

I’ve got a long flight ahead, so I figure I shouldn’t waste time now talking about things I could waste time talking about later… so I’ma see if Joel wants to play some gameboy… We’ve already taken many pictures.

6/3 New Jersey [Newark]

We’re in New Jersey now. We’ve got a bit of a wait… I think at this point we’re waiting for someone to show up at the Virgin desk so we can ask about getting all of our seats together… we’d better get our seats together, cause otherwise this flight will be very, very long… Unless I’m placed next to Keira Knightly, in which case this entire flight will be nothing but me giggling a lot, and stammering to say hi every 15-20 minutes.

Anyway, the first flight was relatively uneventful… the pills I took prolly helped some… I still got the whole ears plugged and painful as hell thing, but after about a half an hour one ear completely popped, and the other one stayed plugged and painful for at least an hour or so, I guess. But it wasn’t all that bad, and I was pleased that I was only hella dizzy for a short time, and then I just went back to reading..

One nice thing was that the weather is very nice, and very clear, so on our approach to Newark we got a fine view of down town New York City… though it was on the other side of the plane. Last time on the flight in it was really foggy and rainy. Not so this time. Anyway, we landed 30 minutes early, which is in addition to the hour early we were from the earlier flight.. so we’ve got some time to kill. Despite this airport being fairly lousy with signs and information, we found our spot fairly quickly, and got some food, and now we’re just sitting here..people watching. People watching at an airport is fascinating… I got to do quite a bit of that back in Paris last year.. far too much, come to think of it. Anyway, that’s what we’re doing now… until the desk dude shows up and we demand to sit by each other.

Hrm.. Maye it’s time for some gameboy…

6/3 New Jersey [Newark] 2

We’re still here. No love on the getting seats next to each other… Which is unfortunate… I think I have a window seat, so I’m not too worried about it… we’ll see if we can try to trade for seats or something. I dunno. at this point I’m tired, and getting cranky.

So a GIANT Air Swiss plane was parked right by us, and then an Air Israel plane showed up.. and a whole bunch of Jews unloaded… some of them looked like they were Hasidic Jews with the ear locks and the full deal. Also, some people in he airport are way to freaking loud.. Examples: When we were in O’Hare there was this middle aged dude who kept answering his phone in a loud “Yo, Yo, Yo!” It was…. not good.

And here there’s this lady that talks really loud, and is involved in something computer related… and is one of those people where you say something like “It’s starting to rain” and she’ll be reminded of something that gets her talking about everything under the sun (from some random trip she took years ago, to her father being retired now, to why she was certain Mini-Discs were the wave of the future, yada yada) for a Long, Long time.. I very much want her to stop… So she will most certainly be sitting right next to me on the plane.

Seriously.. people watching at an airport is interesting.. until you start to notice that some people are just messed up.. then it gets you angry, then you just give up an try to take a nap.

I hope they have good movies on the plane…. i.e something NOT with Martin Lawrence

I hope Ned is doing well… he’s got 7 goldfish friends now.. which he has prolly already eaten.

Maybe I should just sleep the entire flight..

Seriously, that girl won’t shut up… NOBODY CARES!

6/4 Flight to London

I’m writing this all now on the 6th, at night, in the Hostel in Edinburgh.. but I wrote stuff down on paper while we were out and about, and am now just filling in the gaps… I think when last I left, we were waiting to get on to the plane from Newark to London.. well it appears we did alright there.. Here’s what all went on:

We weren’t’ able to get seats next to each other.. which really worked out fine, I think.. Well it worked out fine for me, anyway. Robb mentioned he planned on sleeping a bulk of the trip, which made good sense, as when we landed it’d be towards the morning, and we’d have a full day ahead of us. Anyway, All 3 of us got pulled aside for “random” bag checks, even though Joel was way the hell back there and Robb and I were together… Turns out about half the plane got pulled aside for the Random bag check.. But they were far nicer than that French dude that made me strip off half my clothes and took apart my entire bag last year… The girl checking through my bag was impressed with my earphones case, and liked my electronics… I decided to just say thanks rather than make some joke that would surely have gotten me kicked off the plane for one reason or another.. Turns out I don’t trust myself when in places that forbid you to say things like “Bomb” or “I’m planning on killing the president”.. no real reason.. just turns out my humor requires a more free, less regulated atmosphere or something. anyway, I get on the plane, and what I was most worried about was room to put our packs in the overhead compartments.. no problem, plenty of room. Robb was one row behind me, and Joel was 2 rows in front of me. I was placed at the window seat next to two girls, Score.

SO I sat down, and we talked a little bit.. then a stewardess came over and asked to see my ticket.. so I handed her my stub.. and she said “no.. your ticket. paper ticket” and I was confused… cause the dude at the desk took our tickets.. So I looked at Robb and said “Robb?” and he said to the flight attendant that th guy had taken them.. then she asked if I had any of my other tickets.. and I turned to Robb again, assuming he had them… but he couldn’t find them.. so I looked and found them in my wallet dealie… and handed them over.. and sure enough… they weren’t there, cause the dude took them… But the small stub thinger was still there.. so she said thanks, and left… Weird thing though: when she was asking questions, she didn’t have a British accent.. then when she said thank you, it came back… very odd. .. which leads me to another segue: When we got on to the plane we were met by a really cute blond flight attendant that was looking at tickets and telling people what aisle to go down.. and D-A-M-N.. I would have done anything she said to me. “go toss myself into the jet engine? Okay.. can I buy you something nice first?” Yeah they were pretty, and had accents, and it was all very, very kewl.

Anyway, back to those girls I was sitting by. They had both recently graduated from college, both now living in Houston, Texas One just graduated from medical school, and would be starting residency once she got back. the other was a first grade teacher. I talked to them a fair bit, and they were quite friendly. they were going to London, the Paris, then throughout France and Italy, so I mentioned a few of the places I’d been, and recommended Florance. It took us quite a while to take off for some unknown reason, so we talked for a while. My knowledge of the Mommas and the Poppas helped me out yet again… Eventually we took off, and this time I had no problems with my ears at all, which was awesome. After a meal I fell asleep.. and woke up to another meal.. I woke up and looked over, and the girl next to me asked “do you want some food” and I replied “Is that….. … .. um….. …. breakfast?” I was very out of it, but she found it funny, rather than just assuming/realizing I was retarded.. so score one for me. After breakfast I slept a bit more.. then woke up as we were approaching land.

6/4 Landing in London

So the girl I was sitting with and I spent the rest of the flight looking out the window…What we both found most fascinating was a tall skyscraper shaped like a bullet. From on high it looked very kewl. So we landed, and all was fine. We went through a long line at customs.

Eventually we got through all that, then headed to an ATM for some money, then on down and found the underground station… so after a little huddle Joel and I got in the information line, while Robb plotted out using his book what we needed to get accomplished The people in the front of the line did not speak English, and really didn’t seem to get what was going on.. Meanwhile Joel and I found maps of the underground routes, and we figured out what all we needed… Eventually we got to the front, after making a few jokes with the British lady ahead of us about that group that didn’t know what was going on..and we got our tickets..,, I saw and bid farewell to the two girls I had sat by, and we were on our way..