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Published: April 27th 2009
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During the month of April Spain celebrated Semana Santa, while Germany had winter break, so Fin and I decided that we would travel the world. Our first stop was England and Scotland. First on the list was London to visit our friend Pablo and Fin's cousins Steve and Tom. Fin arrived in London a few days before me to visit with Pablo, film and have guy time.
A few days later I showed up. After a long day of traveling, I arrived in the afternoon and was shocked to see sunshine(we were actually really lucky to have sunshine throughout most of our trip). From the airport I headed over to the train station to meet Fin. While in London, Fin's cousin Steve and his wife were nice enough to let us stay with them, so we headed over to their house which is in Putney, a cute "posh" neighborhood with nice bars and restaurants. Of course Fin was ecstatic to see his cousin, who he hadn't seen in almost 4 years, and told me multiple times how awesome and how much he was like a brother to him. After meeting Steve and his other cousin Tom(who are in a band
and left us to have band practice) we headed to the tubes to meet up with Pablo. It was great to see him as it's been almost a year since we last saw each other. However we didn't have much time that night to explore the city because we wanted to get back to visit with the cousins. We decided that we would go have dinner and try to see as much as possible. But of course I have no idea where we went, 1 it was dark and 2 it was my first time in london. It seems like we walked through china town though because after passing about 100 Chinese restaurants(which fin hates) we found a reasonably priced Italian restaurant. We talked and laughed and Pablo took pictures of us eating. After dinner we decided to return so we could spend some time with Fin's cousins. However they were exhausted from band practice and left Fin and I to hang out alone! Instead of going to bed we decided no watch "the wrestler," where I learned that wrestling is fake and was very disappointed.
The next day we woke up bright and early and headed over to
Pablo and Fin
Walking along the River Pablo's neighborhood. Because Pablo lives on the other side of town we had to take the tubes and then a bus, so I was able to ride on my first real read double decker bus! We met Pablo at at a tiny cafe, which became our favorite place to eat breakfast. An old man named Jimmy and his son own the place. Every day Jimmy wakes up at 4 to make chocolate cake, carrot cake, apple crumble, walnut cake and much much more! After our delicious breakfast we head off to have a good day of site seeing. We took a bus over to the london bridge, london tower and then the tower of london. Inside the castle we learned all about Henry VIII, a king dressed to kill! the advertisement they had was actually very strange, but there was a very nice exhibit of armor and weapons that Henry VII used. There were also ravens in the castle and for some reason they were very important, however some of them were allowed to walk free. We found one that had been injured and sadly pecked at the grass(Sara I wish you had of been here to help it). I
Tower Bridge
Pablo took us to a little hide out on the other side of tower bridge where NO one goes, except Pablo. We had a wonderful view without being bombarded by tourist! wanted to find one of the bird specialist to tell them a bird was hurt, but Pablo and Fin convinced me that it was going to die and there was no point(I think next time I'll go with my better judgement as I'm still have a bad conscious.) We(mostly Fin and Pablo) were really excited about the torture chamber, but once we found it there were only 3 or 4 devices on display along with an information board telling us that only 85 people had been tortured, that it was very uncommon, and most prisoners were treated well and freed at some point. I guess the British are just as deceiving as the Americans. We did however find a very interesting tower filled with graffiti from prisoners. The wall were covered with poems and drawings that had been carved hundreds of years ago. After spending some more time at the Tower of London we continued our walk along the river. Along the river was a movie theater and of course we had to stop and look. Because it was very large Pablo went looking for movie times and prices while Fin and I found a quite place to relax. There
Medieval Contraptions
Before we entered Tower of London, one of the "Royal Palaces" was a man sleeping next to us on a couch. So we decided to sit down also and relax a little. Pablo left, and of course was gone for what seemed like an hour. Slowly Fin and I let our eyes closed and a while later were woken up by the yelling of a guard telling us sleeping was not allowed! Finally Pablo returned and told us the next movie that we wanted to see wasn't playing till much later. Fin and I headed back to Steve's house for some family bonding time. All day long Steve had been asking us in his thick Scottish accent if we wanted "a curry," which really means Indian food. This sounded delicious, especially after having eaten bland Spanish food for the past 8 months. Dinner was wonderful, however I had the hardest time trying to understand Scottish, as Fin's cousins were excited(had a few beers to drink) and talking unbelievably fast. They had a great time "taking a piss out of me." After dinner we went home and crashed.
Our last day in London Fin was starting to get sick, so after breakfast at our favorite cafe Fin rested at Pablo's house,
Fin and Pablo
Filming the medieval festival while Pablo and I explored Brick Lane. We only had a few hours, as we had to catch our train to Scotland, but I really liked this neighborhood. The weather was very nice and so everyone was outside, eating, selling jewlery, drinking beer and having a good time. Pablo and I stopped at a pub and I had my first English beer. When we were finished we raced back home to get our bags and head over to the train station. Of course in every vacation you have to have a time where you almost miss your train, bus or plane. And today was our day. Pablo and I where a little late getting back to his house so we had to run to the bus stop, anxiously wait on the bus, run to the train station, frantically ask a staff member to help us get our tickets, and then within seconds run past the ticket collectors on to our train! And we made it!
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