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Hello Everyone!!
I know you are all wondering what the heck happened to us since it has been a Bazillion years since we have sent a new blog, but we are back to traveling and having a great time. We spent the month of April in the States catching up with family and friends (sorry we weren’t able to see everyone, but we still love you all), but the travel bug was itching and we had to get back to our journey.
To sum up our time in the US, we landed in Utah, stayed in the Falls for a few days and caught up with my family and had a surprise birthday party for Heather (and she was surprised), booked it to Spokane to see Heather’s best friend’s new baby Isabella Rose, chilled with her family a bit, made it to Seattle to hang with my brother and his fiancé, as well as catch up with some friends there, then back to Idaho Fall then to Boise to hang out with Alan (who is now a taken man...sorry Jewel), and then to Utah where we flew out to London on the 6th of May. In between all this
we spent uber hours planning the trip that we are currently on and thus far we are not regretting the extra hours we put in at all. We also decided on this trip to down for easier mobility and bought some new nifty backpack-converible-roller packs to hold the little bit we would be traveling with (thanks for the good idea Fred!).
As for this past week, I don’t think I will be able to sum it up in one paragraph because we have kicked our asses trying to see all that we have seen, but one hundred percent worth it. We left on a Saturday from Utah (thanks for the ride Mom!) and I slept one hour Friday night while Heather didn’t sleep at all, but we had a full day of travel to catch some z’s. We had a thrilling surprise when we boarded our plane to find ourselves in the third row smack-dab in the middle of the first class section (which definitely has more cush and comfort than coach). Turns out all tickets on the flight were sold as coach regardless of the plane having a first class section. We sat down and it looked like
it was going to be a good flight, unfortunately there was a toddler across the aisle that was less than impressed with first class. So we did sleep, but woke up every once in a while to some screaming…oh well!
We arrived in London at 11am, very tired, but decided we would give sight seeing a go and wanted to adjust to the local hours. Around 1pm, after getting a little lost, we found our hostel, threw our luggage in the room, and jumped on the tube (subway) to venture. We headed to Piccadilly Circus, similar to NY Time Square, saw the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, the Eye of London, Hyde Park (the park Central Park was designed after) to listen to the local “prophets” at the Speaker’s Corner, then headed to the Tower Clock (more commonly called Big Ben…which actually refers to the bell in the clock tower) and Westminster Abbey. It was unbelievable that we were able to see all this on our first day, but the tube system is amazing. After walking around like zombies for the day we found a great little India restaurant and had some good grub with lots of leftovers
then head to the hostel for a shower and some much needed sleep.
The next day we had no specific agenda, but thought it would be cool to see the National Gallery which houses works of Da Vinci, Monet, Botticelli, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, as well as all the Ninja Turtle name painters. The bonus part was that it was free of charge and even offered free tours. We first stopped off in Leicaster square to look for cheap theatre tickets, but everything is very expensive in the UK, so gave up on that, grabbed some lunch and made it to the National Gallery for the 2:30 tour. After the tour we started to make our own way around the gallery and quickly realized we didn’t have much time before the placed closed so we kicked it up a notch and managed to see it all and loved it.
After that we headed to the hostel to eat our leftover India food and chill for a bit and at about 10pm and we decided to head back to the Westminster area for some spectacular night views. We couldn’t stay out too late though because the next day we were
heading to Salisbury via bus to check out some famous rocks and our departure time was 7:15am and we were still dragging a bit. Also the hostel didn’t make it easy for us either because we had to switch rooms for the night from the top (6th) floor all the way to the basement floor with no elevator available to assist. When we made it to our new room, we found one guy asleep but he sure had a snore on him!
We made it to the bus station on time and headed to Salisbury where we would grab another bus to take us to Stonehenge! Everybody knows what Stonehenge is, you learn about it in school and see shows about it on the History or Discovery Channel, but I never thought I would see it in person. We arrived to the tourist Mecca around mid-morning and were amazed to see that it is stuck between two highways instead of off the road a bit, and there’s path encircling Stonehenge keeping the visitors at a fifty foot distance at all times—so you can no longer walk up and touch the stones—LAME! They were charging about US$12 per person to
see what you could see from the road so Heather and I decided we would skip getting in to the fenced area, which would only put us a few feet closer anyhow, and walk along the street for our view. I threw Heather on my shoulders with camera in hand and took some snapshots. Twenty minutes later we were back on the bus heading North to the town of Avebury.
Avebury is not a well known town to tourist, it’s only one hour north of Stonehenge on the local transit and also has similar rock formation, but is about 16 times larger. Also it is free and you can touch the rocks if you want to! This rock formation is about one mile in circumference and was a lovely walk. For those of you who don’t know much about these rock formations, they are formed from a blue rock that is warm to the touch and is found in Wales, which is over 100 miles away. The Stonehenge rocks weigh about 45 tons each and the construction dates back 5000 years while the Avebury megaliths date back from 2500 BC. So the question is how did these stones travel
so far away from Wales and how were they lifted on end? We think it was the same people that built the Great Pyramids of Egypt and gave us the Grand Canyon…damn aliens.
At the end of the day we found a grocery store grabbed some meat, cheese, and bread and jumped a bus back to London while making some easy dinner. The buses aren’t the most comfortable form of travel, but we were able to catch up on some sleep and it has made our travel time fly. The next day will be our last day in London, so we were off to see some more local sights.
We awoke to find beautiful sunny weather and headed to Buckingham Palace to witness the ever-so-popular Changing of the Guard. It isn’t exactly tourist season right now, but the amount of people at Buckingham was absolutely crazy. Around 10:30am the new guard leaves the Wellington Barracks accompanied by a band while the old guard leaves St. James Palace around 11:10am also with a band. They then meet in front of the Palace gates where the two officers touch hands to symbolically exchange keys. Then the two bands rock out
a few songs, including the Mission Impossible theme and Sinatra’s New York, New York for this particular day. It was a fun experience minus the pushy tourists, but it had to be done. After all the fun we headed to Tower Bridge to start a 4km walk along the Thames River.
We crossed the bridge and were in search for a classic English meal, fish and chips, and we found a little pub and ordered. We were expecting a few small strips of fried fish and some fries, but we each got what seemed like half a fish that was battered and fried with heaps of fresh cut fries and some peas…it was yumalicious! After consuming the grease we headed west along the river and were able to view Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, St. Peter’s Cathedral, Millennium Bridge, as well as visit the Tate Modern Museum, which, of course, was free or else we wouldn’t be there! Inside we saw art work of Picasso, Jackson Pollack, as well as one of our favorite favorite paintings, Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali. I am sure we both stood there for a long time just staring at it not believing it was
an inch from our noses.
After losing each other in the Tate (not a fun experience without cellphones) we finished our long walk at Tower Clock and found some grass on the Westminster lawn and relaxed for about an hour. Since this was our last official night in London, we decided to head to Piccadilly Circus and find some good dinner. Well, once there it was a bit late so instead of finding a nice restaurant we found a grocery store, bought some sushi for Heather, and I got some hummus with bread and a bag of carrots. We found a seat around a fountain across from the neon lights of the area and enjoyed a good meal. The next day we were heading North to a town called Oakham where a great friend of mine from college named Katie was living.
Oakham, being a relatively small town, was an absolute blast. Not only did we get to see some of the most beautiful country side, we also got to catch up with Katie and meet some of her neighboring friends as well. Katie greeted us at the bus station with her new Mini Cooper, and we headed
to her place to drop our bags then off to the local pub for some Guinness goodness. After chatting the afternoon away we headed to dinner and ate the best Indian food I think I have had yet, and then we headed to back to her place to chat the night away and sleep in a comfortable bed!
The next morning we loaded up in the car and headed to Cambridge for the day to hang out with Ivy League folks. We thought about heading to Cadbury World chocolate factory, but once I saw they wanted about US$25 per person to enter, we had no problem skipping out on that and just buying a bar at the store. In Cambridge we saw the university and walked along the cobblestone streets, plus we stumbled upon a fudge shop when the fudge man was making a new batch. We watched him work his magic and at the end he cut some off on a knife and put it in front of my face and we all sample some very fresh fudge. That night we made it back to the pub yet again and met up with some neighbors for some drinks
then head back to Katie’s joint for a great home cooked meal. The time there went entirely too fast, but it was great to see Katie and she treated us like royalty and really took care of us! Thanks Katie we love ya!
So right now I am sitting in a pub in Belfast, Ireland with Heather, she says hello, and trying to catch up on where we have been. So a bit behind, but stay tuned for our next blogs where we searched the Necropolis of Glasgow for ghost and hunted for Nessie in the Loch Ness and many other adventures. There you have it, still going strong. Thank you for all your past comments and keep them coming!
Love Ben and Heather
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anonymous
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You guys rock! Have fun in the UK and keep in touch, Love the photos. Phil