Suffocating in Southsea

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Well, at least I think I'm in Southsea - maybe its Seaforth. Eh, either way - I'm somewhere near Portsmouth, (which I think is in Wiltshire - or at least near there). We're staying in a hostel againg tonight - which is good because it means I can get on the Internet and bore you all senseless with what I've been up. The unfortuate part of the story is that there is only ONE room in this place where you are allowed to smoke - the same room where the internet access is. Doh!

Ok, now that I've completely confused everyone as to where exactly I am, and complained about the cloud of smoke I'm looking at this screen through, I'll start on the more interesting stuff...

We spent a fair while exploring Edinburgh castle - the Scottish war memorial in there is very cool - 'classy' is probably a better word than cool actually. The castle is big (obviously) and its a castle. That's basically it. I took photos - so I'll show you the cool bits when I get home.

After we left Edinburg we drove down to Hadrians wall - leaving Scotland behind us. Hadrians wall is this huge wall that the Romans built to protect their empire. Its basically a big stone wall - or more accurately - bits of a big stone wall. It actually snowed on us while we were there (you can just imagine us all going 'is that hail? snow? sleet? is it snow? do you reckon its snow?' cant you?) Anyway - it was pretty cool to walk along the wall for a bit in spite of the weather.

We spent that night in a tiny village called 'Once Brewed' - where the guy at the local pub laughed at us when we tried to order our dinner. Are we the only ones in the world who didn't know what 'Scampi' and 'Gammon' are? Do any of you guys know? (If I remember I'll end the suspense and tell you what they are next time I add an entry).

I'm even having trouble remembering what else we've done! We went to York - I liked York. It a really cool town - you can feel the history and the people were heaps friendly. Deb, Emma and I took a ghost tour in York (Aaron and Luke were too scared..) which was amusing, not exactly scary, but interesting. We're doing the 'Jack the Ripper' walk in London...that should fun.

I think one of the highlights of the last few days has got to be the Cadbury Chocolate Factory Tour we did yesterday. Mmmmmm. We got free chocolate (although, when you consider the cost to get in, it's not so 'free'). The whole place smelt great - they even let us sample warm chocolate in its liquidy form. Yum! Still, the swiss chocolate is better. Next time I think I'll have to find a swiss chocolate factory to tour! The healing qualities of chocolate were proven though - Emma could barely speak from her sore throat when we arrived, but by half way through the tour her voice was back...

We also checked out another castle - Warwick castle. This place was a bit more like a themed park -not with rides or anything, just people dressed up and more hands on stuff. It was pretty freaky seeing how people used to be tortured and stuff though - man, people can be nasty!

I also had a look around Oxford - kind of a hurried tour but it sure felt like a university town. I could almost imagine going to uni there (not that I'm EVER going back to uni!). I had to laugh tho - I was doing the tourist thing and taking photos of one of the old colleges when some of the students went past - reminded me of all the times I've laughed at tourists taking photos of Sydney uni - then again, Oxford is way cooler than usyd!

Anyhow, today we went to Bath and wandered around the Roman bath house. It was really interesting to hear the history of the place and how it has been used over the centuries. Its still hard to grasp that we're looking at and walking through or on stuff that has been around since before most people knew Australia even existed!

I also made a rip to the Jane Austen centre in search of souveneirs but franky it wasn't really worth the effort - they didn't have much cool stuff. Sorry guys (well, girls anyway) - no cool stuff to bring back for you.

Of course, after Bath the next logical stop was Stonehenge. Again, a cool place to see - you see these places all the time on TV or whatever, but its just totally different to actually be there. Anyway - took pictures, will bore the unfortunate with them later 😊

Not sure where we're going tomorrow, but on Tuesday we're back to London for a couple of days before Deb, Luke, Emma and Aaron head home and leave for Ireland. Wednesday I get to see Jennifer - whooo!

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Comments

[mum]

tj and lost comment
Tara's going to read all the stuff when she goes home. and i will try to remember what i said andputit back on line. good reading shells.