England Trip - Part 2

Alright, on to Part Two of the trip now.

On Tuesday, after a brief stint in Norwich to visit YayCoffee, see the castle and a do a bit of shopping, we continued on to London, sans YayCoffee.

On to Part 2...

We got into London kind of late-ish. Did I mention that England closes at like 5. Why would no one mention that to me? Basically just bars and restuarants open after 5. Puts a real damper on maximizing the hours in your day.

Anyway, so we arrive at Victoria Station finally after a mix-up on whether we needed to be on the eastbound or westbound train. To be fair, we were in the north/south bend. That is always confusing to me. But finally we get where we needed to be. We exit the tube and proceed to get completely turned around. I KNEW I should have brought a compass but was told that was foolish. Turns out that our hotel was EXTREMELY easy to get to once you determined exactly which side of the station you were on and which was was indeed north. I think having the Atlantic on the west really screwed with my interal compass.


Victoria Station


Out of focus double decker buses

We stayed at the Elizabeth Hotel which was also nice and roomier than expected. Does anyone know what is up with the Brits and their crazy obsession with doors? There were so many doors in the hotel! You would walk by two rooms and then have to go through another door to get to the next set. And there were crazy pathways and hidden stairways. It was a bit like being in the Clue house without all the inconvenient murdering. But one of the passageways did plop you out right in front of the kitchen which made me giggle. Apparenly you have one little fire that destroys 85% of your city, and you get paranoid.

Once we got settled and found the closest restuarant (which was, of course, a sandwich shop. You couldn't escape them!), then Dinah and I went on a Jack the Ripper walk. The walks were some of my favorite things to do. It was like being IN the History Channel. So fun! It was really cool being at all the murder sites and hearing the stories. However, the spastic English weather was in full effect, so despite it being a bit warm when we went to dinner, by the time we got to the place to meet our guide, it was quite cold and rainy. We were shocked by how many people braved the weather to go on a mid-week walk.

We arose the next morning and headed off on a city tour aboard a double decker bus. Let me tell you, New York City cabbies seem cautious compared to these guys. I was actually thrown from my seat and into Taryn at one point.


Buildings along the Thames


Buildings on The Strand?


Really Old Building 13

You might have noticed that label below that last pic. Yeah, I have no idea what a MAJORITY of the buildings actually are. In my next post, I will be having an "Identify this Really Old Building/Statue" contest.

After the scary, wet tour, we headed to Westminster Abbey which was just.... amazing. It was incredible. Knowing its history and being surrounded by all of the memorials and sculptures was just incredible. And, I learned that the English apparently don't have that walking across graves thing that some of us do. Is that a Southern thing? Anyway, like I said, amazing!


Westminster Abbey


Westminster Abbey


Westminster Abbey

Next, Taryn and her friend Rick Steves planned a little walk around the Westminster area for us. We checked out Big Ben, House of Parliment, the Texas Embassy (left over from when Texas was its own country, but now is really just a Tex-Mex restuarant), and Trafalgers Square.


Big Ben


London Eye


Me and the Eye. See, I WAS actually there. This will be the only picture of me you find. :)


Taryn and Ben


Texas Embassy


Trafalger's Square...not a great picture though

We headed back to meet up with Dinah and get some dinner. We went to this place called Jenny Lo's Teahouse. It was Chinese food with a Vietnamese twist. Pretty good, great prices. Then we went back to the hotel to rest up from our busy day and caught some of the Brit Awards on the telly. Oh, Oasis. Just. Wow. Um... Yeah. I was sad Lily didn't win. She didn't seem pleased either.


I like your shoes, Lily!

The next day, Taryn and I headed over to the Tower of London which I also loved. What? It was super cool. I wish I had gotten to see more torture devices though. Just in case you were wondering, the Tower is well stocked for the coming zombie wars.

Anyway, we did the Beefeater tour. Our Beefeater was a bit difficult to understand. You had to really focus. Let your mind wander in the least and you completely missed whatever he said.


Tower of London


Tower, again


Jewel Tower


Armory. Perfect for zombie attacks.

The Tower also provided a nice view of other sites nearby. I don't really know the names of the buildings, obviously, but the Gerkin and that really old building were quite interesting to see right next to each other.


The Gerkin and Really Old Building 19


Tower Bridge

Then we walked over the St. Paul's Cathedral. Absolutely breathtaking. I probably spent more time there than anywhere. Just WOW. The architecture, the history, everything was amazing. The ceilings were unbelievable. The amount of work that went into it is just mind-boggling. It was one of the few places I actually WANTED the audio tour so I could learn more. I have no pictures from inside because I am not a BRATTY RULE BREAKER unlike some other visitors that day. The signs did not say no photos unless you really, really want one. They said NO PHOTOS. Grr... Some people.


St. Paul's Cathedral

After St. Paul's I headed over to Chinatown to look around, thinking perhaps I would strike backpack gold in another Chinatown (I have a black leather backpack that I use all the time which I got in Chinatown in 1995. Yeah, it's a little beat up and worn out). I walked around that area, then around Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus. Ooooh, I got to see the big Equius poster. Hot!


Chinatown


Equius or Naked!Harry Potter


British theatre is more exciting than American theatre


Piccadilly Circus (would have been a better night picture)

By that point, I was losing light and needed to get back to the room to meet up with YayCoffee. We all headed over to Embankment for dinner as we were going on another walk that night and needed to meet up with the guide. It was an Alleyways, Apparitions and Ale walk. SUPER cool. We didn't see any ghosts, but the stories were quite interesting anyway. I learned that the grass in St. James's Park is so green because it is a mass burial site for plague and fire victims. Fascinating. Oooh, and we think we found Sting's apartment! He wasn't home. Darn.

The next day was our last real day in London. Taryn and I headed over to Buckingham Palace to check things out. Sadly, we didn't get to see the changing of the guards. Apprarently they are changed less frequently in the winter months. I thought the Victoria Memorial/Monument was really cool. I do love a good fountain. Then we walked through St. James's parks where I informed Taryn that there were dead people everywhere.


Buckingham Palace


St. James's Park


Victoria Memorial

There was this castley type thing that we could see but not identify. I thought maybe St. James's Palace. Dunno. Anywho, from that point, we headed over to Oxford Street to do a spot of shopping. We hit H&M and Top Shop. I got a couple of really cute shirts, earrings and a purse. Oh, and a scarf. Sandy tells me it is a boy scarf, but I choose to disagree. First, it has a pink stripe. Second, it is NOT a manly fabric. Third, I saw a WOMAN wearing the EXACT same scarf. I wanted photographic evidence, but Taryn said no. Anwway, it was totally a girl's scarf.

We spent the rest of the day just sort of roaming around. We had wanted to try to get tickets to a show, but nothing we wanted to see had discounted tickets. Then we met up with the other girls and hung out and prepared for our journey home the next day.


Name that Really Old Building or Castle

Our flight left at 10 a.m. on Saturday, so we were up quite early to head out. By this point, my calves were a just giant knots of muscle. So bad that it actually HURT to walk. I tried to stretch, but it was not helping. I also was quite congested which meant that my ears were clogged...the...entire...flight. They didn't pop until sometime on Sunday. Quite annoying.

The flight home wasn't too bad either. Good movies. I had lots of stuff to read and ended up staying up the whole time.

So, that concludes the tales of my England adventure. Nothing really wacky happened. No mishaps. That is kind of unusual for me. I wasn't attacked by any wildlife at all. I am still a little drained, but it was definitely worth it. I would love to go back and see all the things I missed. Because of time constraints, I didn't make it to any museums. So those would be great to see. And I would like to have some more time to just wander and maybe relax a bit more.

If you would like to see more of my photos from the trip, check out my Flickr.

England Trip - Part 1

Alright! I am back from England and finally ready to do The Post.

We took off from DFW to Gatwick at about 7:00pm on Friday. Our flight was not crowded at all. This totally rocked because it meant that we all got our own row to stretch out in and sleep for the flight over. A combo of industrial strength earplugs, an iPod and a muscle relaxer provided me with a pretty sound sleep meaning we were not completely exhausted when we got there.

The flight was good for the most part. We had the obligatory screaming child. I should have known she was trouble when I noticed her jumping up and down in the seat as we were loading the plane. I should have slipped her a Benadryll laced gummy bear right then. She proceeded to throw quite an impressive, loud, LONG, scream-filled tantrum for about 45 minutes followed by a 30 minute sobbing wind down. Everyone was pretty much like GIVE HER WHATEVER SHE WANTS. After my offers of Junior Vicodin were turned down, I shoved my ear buds in as far as they would go and turned up my Relaxing Music For The Plane Mix and tuned her out.

Finally she did calm down and sleepy time arrived for all the passengers. It was nice. Well, as nice as sleep on a plane can be. In fact, one minute, it seemed like we were over the middle of the Atlantic, the next I was being prodded awake for breakfast.

Then, we finally got off the plane, claimed our luggage and attempted to call YayCoffee. The pay phones were not very cooperative as you could not just enter a calling card number, you had to insert the actual card. And of course, we did not have one on our persons. And, of course, every place in the airport seemed to be sold out. Finally we managed to call her after much gnashing of teeth. We got on an incredibly crowded tube filled with young rugby hooligans. Well, maybe not exactly hooligans. But they were young and going to a rugby match. There was a possibly insane lady on the train briefly, but I am pretty sure she comes standard on every train and bus around the world.


Sandy on the train to Bath

We met up with YayCoffee in London and proceeded on to Bath (or Baaaaaaaaath, as the Brits say and mock you for pronouncing otherwise). We checked into the hotel and dropped our bags of at the largest hotel rooms in England. Seriously? The one that Taryn and Dinah were in was large by AMERICAN standards. If ever you are in Baaaaaaath, I highly recommend the Parade Park Inn, Room 30.



The Parade Park Inn


View from room


Garden across from hotel<

We headed over to a pub called Sam Weller's and had some pints. By the way, that would be the first drink I'd had in about six weeks. So yeah, I got TRASHED. I did have 5 pints that night over a 7 hour period. But seriously, I was feeling it after one and half.


Dinah at Sam Weller's


Warning label


Bath Abbey at night

On Sunday morning, I awoke with a touch of a hangover. After a little purging and a LOT of Advil, we headed down for our first of MANY English Breakfast. Don't know what an English Breakfast is? Well, it is fried egg, bacon (of more of a Canadian style), bland sausage, mushrooms, half a tomato, and BEANS. Yes. And they will totally put the beans on your plate to taint the other foods unless order to hold off on the beanage.


Full English Breakfast

Seriously, I feel a little nauseated just looking at it. Anyway, after breaking our fasts, we headed to the Roman Baths and the Museum of Costumes. The Baths were really amazing and made me wish I could afford to do the actual Bath spa vacation thing. The water was a little greener than I would choose for my own bath, but those Romans are crazy cats.

The Museum of Costume was really neat. I got to try on "real" corsets. I felt I could have gone tighter, but there was no bedpost to grab on to. But the dresses were really fascinating. Learning about the history of the different dress styles and the reasons behind them was really interesting. But I am a nerd like that. By the way, there was a pimp suit in the fashions of the seventies. HOT!


Roman Baths


Bath Abbey


Bath

After lunch, we headed to Stonehenge which I was SUPER excited about since I didn't think we were going to be able to fit in. I guess my friends could not resist my sad, puppy dog eyes. I wouldn't say that it felt mystical or magical, but it was kind of humbling to be looking at something so old and mysterious. The sheer size of the stones was absolutley amazing. It was as tall as I expected, but it always seemed wider in pictures. But still it was awesome. If you look through the images in chronological order on my Flickr, you will notice a great variance in the sky between the photographs. You would think it was over many, many hours. Nope, one single hour. It was a bone-chilling cold with winds whipping across the fields. It started off a little drizzly and overcast. A third of the way around, the skys began to clear almost completely. By the time we were finished there were the briefest of snow flurries, followed by a short shower, then a HUGE rainbow. Crazy.


Stonehenge


Stonehenge


Stonehenge


Stonehenge Rainbow

The following day, we headed to Norwich to check out YayCoffee's stomping ground. Norwich was not quite the small fishing villiage filled with cottages that I was anticipating. Really people, learn the difference between a small CITY and a small TOWN. Pineland? Small TOWN. It has under a thousand people. It has one school, one grocery store and two restuarants, one of which is a Dairy Queen. Norwich? Small CITY. It has MALLS. Plural. It has a freaking castle. And an airport if I am not mistaken. CITY. Anyway, it was pretty neat. Dinah and Taryn stayed at this B&B across from an uber-creepy burnt out church and abandoned hospital.


Creepy Abandoned Hospital


Creepy Burnt-Out Church that would NOT appear any brighter in pics. I think the Winchesters need to investigate this obviously haunted church.

We visited the Norwich Castle which I felt could be a little more informative about its origins. Or maybe I should have read the plaques better. Whatevs.


Norwich Castle


Norwich City Centre

Alright, so that covers Saturday through Monday. I will cover the rest of the trip in part 2.

If you would like to see all the photos check out my Flickr