The UK So Far

Well, our internet options have been spotty at best, so I haven't been able to blog like I wanted. However, I have been writing down where we go and what we see every day so I won't forget! (I know, Ginna, we made fun of you when you did it in Paris, but it's a good idea.)

We actually had a decent amount of trouble getting to London. Really it was Newark that was the problem. They had a "ground stop" going because of weather for a good solid two hours and made us miss our first flight to London (9:10pm) and almost miss the new one they booked us on (10:10pm) which was the last one out for the day. However, we made it on the plane (after sprinting) through Newark and to London on Thursday around 10am (London time).

We napped the first day and then had a leisurely evening strolling around London. We saw the likes of Fleet Street, Drury Lane, Cecil Street, Covent Garden, the Southbank, the London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben, and Trafalgar Square. Throughout the night we saw plenty of crazy Harry Potter fans dressed up running about the town like the end of the world was near.

Friday we woke up bright and early (4:00am) to catch the train from King's Cross to Paris for the day. We walked the wrong way on La Fayette Street for about two hours before we gave in and bought metro passes for the day. Our first stop was Notre Dame. It's still as beautiful as it was in 2004, don't worry. We also had some delightful glace (ice cream)! David had mandarin and I had raspberry. It was possibly the most delicious thing we've had the whole trip! Next we walked by the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees, and down to the Eiffel Tower. We took a much needed nap on the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower and then headed back to the train station and back to London!

Back in London we got an authentic Italian calzone and ate in in line for HP7.2! We were in line with some crazy Aussies who, once they found out we were on our "honeymoon" asked us ten bazillion questions about the wedding, looked through all the pictures I had on my phone, and told us we were definitely going in front of them in line to pick our seats for the movie (their wedding gift to us) all while drinking beer (in line, at the theater...). The movie was, well, disappointing to say the least. But that's a whole different blogpost.

Saturday we took a cab to the airport to get our hired car! I drove it off the lot and we have had zero problems getting used to driving on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road. It's actually kind of awesome.

We drove to Oxford first. We stopped at Hedington Library to check the maps to see where all of the colleges were in reference to us. We then drove to the middle of town and walked from there to the Eagle and the Child. Sadly, the pub has been bought by a chain and only has one small corner dedicated to Tolkien and Lewis. It was not the authentic pub we were expecting. We also walked by Christ Church and thought about going to one of the literature colleges but chickened out. Oxford is full of tourists, which we didn't expect either. There was an entire shopping center, streets lined with popular stores. There was barely a scholarly feel to the place at all. Shocking. We wondered how many of the people touring and shopping even had an idea of the brilliance that has graduated from and taught at Oxford University.

From Oxford we drove down to the coast to the city of Portsmouth. Really for no other reason than to see the south coast. There was a crazy sky scraper that we never figured out the name of, and a leisure center on a lake (in the middle of a Relay for Life, actually) where we sat and looked out over the water for a while.

Next we drove to Stonehenge. I'll just say now that the driving in England is absolutely beautiful. I have the same feeling when I drive through Pennsylvania and Maryland. Everywhere you look you are struck by the beauty of the countryside. I love it. Stonehenge was exactly what we expected: a bunch of giant stones piled on top of each other in a circle. The crazy part, is that there is a fence around the area and you have to pay 7.25 to go inside the fence. However, once inside the fence you can only get about 5 feet closer to the stones, which is still a good 30 feet away from them... We stayed outside both fences...

We spent Saturday night in Cardiff. Wales is crazy. Welsh is crazy. There are lots of "w"s and they seem to all make a different vowel sound. We wandered around for a while and ate at a local pub, then passed out for the night. The next morning we walked through Bute Park where we saw TONS of super cute puppies and had breakfast baguettes and hot chocolate. YUM!

(It's now Sunday if you're having a hard time keeping up.) After leaving Wales we took two detours. One to "The Big Pit" which was actually a cole mine (we were hoping for a big pit). The next was to Tewkesbury Abby (for Brant). The Abby was beautiful and so were all the trees around it.

Next we stopped at Stratford-Upon-Avon. We wondered up to the town statue which was dedicated by someone who's name I don't remember to honor Shakespeare. We thought it would have been funny if they'd sculpted "Shakespeare" not even knowing if he was a real person. We did some shopping at the Royal Shakespeare Company and then headed on our way.

We got to Liverpool that evening and promptly got lost. Liverpool was a little dirtier than we expected but after accidentally going through a tunnel to the other side of the water and bac we finally found where we were staying. Apparently in Liverpool, the only food available after 9:00pm is in Chinatown. We got "take away" Chinese and retreated to our room to the first constant WiFi we'd had all trip (also we watched the USA choke).

When we woke up this morning we walked around Liverpool One (a shopping area) and the Albert Dock (I think it had something or other to do with the Beatles) then we were on our way to Hadrian's Wall. There isn't much wall left... We saw an area where there use to be towers and a very zigzaggy part of the wall left. We also saw a priory from the 1100's.

We drove from Hadrian's wall into Scotland (!!!) where we are currently. We arrived in Glasgow, took a short nap, and have been walking around town this afternoon. We saw the botanical gardens and ate a cute pub that was very bookish/artsy. Shortly we will be headed to bed because we have to wak up at 3:00am to drive to Kennacraig to catch our ferry to the Isle of Islay so that we can tour Laphroaig! Goodnight!