Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Meal, fit for a King
Ready to tuck into one of the famous Angelo cooked Curries at Aunty Eileen and Uncle Angelo's place It is such an amazing feeling to be in a country where English is the native language!!! We've been able to put our hands away and communicate using words only...phew... After staying a night in London Gatwick airport, we were able to find one nights accommodation in dorm beds in a hostel near Notting Hill. Problem was the hostels were filled with French travellers over for Le Tour De France kicking off in London this year and we could only get the 1 night. We were lucky enough to meet up with friends from my Vietnam Intrepid Tour group from 5 years ago and found a spare bed out of town for the Saturday night. Sunday we caught a bus up to Lew's Aunt and Uncle's place in Culcheth for a week's stay to find a van for the next leg of our journey. So wonderful to have a little pit stop like home.
Our first day in London we travelled around on the underground and saw all of the main tourist highlights like Big Ben (my favourite), St Paul's Cathedral (Heaven's Gate), Tower Bridge (what everyone thinks is London Bridge) over the Thames River, the London Eye, Hyde Park
Big Ben
Us and Ben... and, of course, Buckingham Palace. We also found an internet cafe and did the last blog and called home using Skype which was so great being so cheap online.
Lucky we did the highlights on Friday 'cause Saturday was packed with people watching the prelude time trials for Le Tour De France. Lew and I were interested enough in the race that it wasn't a problem and we tried to catch some of the race but they just go by too quick. We caught more of them by sitting near a big screen near the 2km to finish marker. We're now hoping to try and catch some more in Paris for the end - fingers crossed. That night we met up with Karen and Rob, two people who I met in Vietnam, and Karen's partner, Paul. The plan was to do a Jack the Ripper Tour but after meeting up we figured we'd rather just have some drinks and a meal so we could actually chat. We had a great Thai meal in a pink Thai restaurant in SoHo...YUM... Been a while since eating Thai. It really was a quick visit so we're planning on having a few more
Aunty Eileen and Lew
Outside the Church in Glazebury, where Lew was baptised 25 years ago... nights back in London before we fly home.
The trip to Culcheth, where Eileen and Angelo, Lew's Aunt and Uncle, live, was a coach to Manchester, a train to Warrington, dinner in a 400 year old pub and then a local bus into Culcheth. It was just so great to turn up on their doorstep and fall into open arms. Eileen told us she was ready with the washing powder and fabric softener and our first day there was apparently their first sunny day in a while so we did about 3 loads before having a lovely Italian dinner in the village.
On Tuesday Stephen, Lew's cousin, arrived home after living in Thailand for 6 months so we went out for a few drinks with him and his girlfriend, Linda, and son, Matthew and had take away chinese back at home. Our main project, though, was to find a van before heading to Ireland and Scotland. There were heaps listed so we hired a car for 2 days to drive around and find one. Most of the people we called had already sold their van but we eventually found one we liked and decided to get it even
Westminster Abbey
Impressive stone carving in the wall of Westminster Abbey, London though it wasn't taxed. Insurance is what you have to get before you can tax it and that nearly brought our plan to drive around Europe undone! Lew spent nearly half a day on the phone to insurance companies who wouldn't insure us because we didn't have EU driving licenses (even though we have international licenses). We ended up finding one company on who would insure us for a fortune and one company through the broker in town - also a fortune but a better pro-rata refund policy so that's who we went with. So, we have our big red van with its MOT (like a greenslip), insured and taxed, ready for the road. YAY!!!!!
We now fly to Ireland (Dublin) tomorrow, then onto Scotland (Edinburgh) on the 18th, then making our way to Inverness, before flying back to Liverpool on the 23rd. We then have a few more davs before in Culcheth before heading off on our driving Odyssey around Europe.
Cheers,
- Lew and Holly
Advertisement
Tot: 0.118s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0593s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb