Blogs from United Kingdom, Europe - page 2989

Just a quick message today! Just to say thankyou to all those who sent messages of concern. I am alive and well up in Wigan......Was nowhere near London when it happened fortunately.....Although I had planned on being down there this month, but had decided against it.....Sorry to those who were trying to phone me, but the mobile phone networks were pretty much switched of due to the fear of mobile signals setting bombs of and so that emergency services had access to every phone line available.... Right Rochelle if you get to read this, flick me an e-mail... ....and Geoff you keep yourself outta trouble buddy!!!...... read more

With the arrival in the UK of “Crazy A”, Sal’s mum Ann, the new trio of “the A”, Sal and Mick decided that it was an apt time to visit and explore Scotland, where Sal’s dad Ian was born and raised. We woke on the morning of July the 7th to some horrible news: London had been the target of four coordinated terrorist bombings. As the day unfolded, the full extent of the horror that had taken place became apparent to us. However, being the intrepid travellers that we are, we decided that not even terrorists nor anarchists/anti-globalists/people who don’t wash very often (the Gleneagles summit was on in Scotland at the same moment) would prevent us from experiencing the world. We headed up the M1 and crossed the border at the famous Gretna Green, synonymous ... read more

Due to circumstances, the cat's out of the bag. Nick and I were originally headed to Pamplona, Spain for the annual San Fermin Festival, and ultimately the running of the bulls - which has been a dream of mine since I was old enough to know about it. I even re-read The Sun Also Rises, by Hemingway, in preparation and as a means to subside my uncontainable excitement. Needless to say, the trip has been a distraction since we'd decided to first make it back in April and was something we had been anticipating to be the highlight of our study abroad experience in general. But fate wasn't on our side. If the trip from Kansas City to Shannon was a nightmare, then the trip from Shannon to Spain was a very slow, very painful sodomizing ... read more

Well as everyone would know by now, London was not the place to be in today. We arrived in London at 7am at Heathrow. Due to delays in Bangkok and long lines in customs we were late getting out of Heathrow, which turned out to be a blessing. We arrived at the tube station at about 8.45am to buy our tickets for the Piccidily line to central London. We had to wait for a while and suddenly the station was closed down. At the time we were told that a power failure had stopped all all the underground. We thought that if we waited a while it might start up again, but as news spread it soon became clear the tube stations were not going to open up again and we would need to make other ... read more

Classes couldn't go by quickly enough today. My mind has been distracted all week, and indeed all of the last three months by a weekend excursion I'll be leaving for in an hour. In a lot of ways I've been waiting a lifetime to take this very trip. My bag is packed. All my information is set. I'm not checking any bags this time (thank Christ). I won't be able to make any additions to this travel blog over the weekend, so monday will be a big post, with plenty of retrospective entries. For those of you who don't know where I'm going, I won't spoil the fun. Tune in on monday. But as far as the trip is concerned, I'm beyond excitement. I've been waiting to do this for a long, long time, and it's ... read more