Well, I am slowly but surely getting to writing in the missing posts on some of the days I didn't have access to a computer on our trip.
I just finished Day 1 - Leaving for England and Day 14. Yesterday I wrote Day 12 (continued) and Day 13. So if you haven't already read those, take a look.
I only have 3 more missing days to go (Day 15, 16, and 17)!
After I get in those days, I will go back through all of them and start adding in pictures :) I will let you know when there are pictures to see. I hope you are enjoying reading this as much as I am enjoying writing/sharing our trip.
Sara
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Strawberry Festival
Memorial Day Weekend (5/24/08) was the annual Strawberry Festival in Garden Grove (my home town). I seriously look forward to this weekend every year. It starts on a Friday night with the carnival (booths, rides, & food), then the openning parade is Saturday morning, and the rest of the carnival continues through to Monday.
In 2006, I took Jeremiah there for the first time. We got up to watch the parade and it was the first parade he had ever seen in person. I had actually marched in the parade when I was part of the Marching Band & Colorguard back in High School. He enjoyed the parade and the carnival so much that now he looks forward to it also.
I don't quite remember why we couldn't make it last year to the Festival, but we couldn't and said we would definitely make it this year. Well, it just so happened that our flight back from London arrived the night before the Parade. So we stayed at my parents' house on Friday night and woke up in time to see most of the parade that morning.
It was fun. Then we walked over to the carnival and purused around the booths looking at all the trinkets for sale. The rides are no longer a draw for me anymore as I just get sick on them now (is that a sign I'm getting old?) but the food is lots of fun. The best part is the straweberry desserts (it's not called the Strawberry Festival for nothing!).
We spent a little time there and then walked back to our car to go home. Here are a few pictures:
In line for the yummy Strawberry Dessert.
From the parade (mainly for Debbie & Jordan :) )
Oh, my silly parents :)
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Day 22 - Home!
May 23, 2008
Well, we made it home safely and on time without any problems and only one slight delay at the beginning (one person on our flight checked in but then never showed up for the flight so they took about 30 minutes getting their luggage off the plane and then we had to wait in the que to take off so we were delayed by about 1 hour but they were able to make up that time in the air and we landed just after 7:00pm PST, 3:00am UK time).
We managed to stay awake the entire flight, although it was hard those last few hours as it was nearing the mid-morning for us on UK time but all the movies did help. We slept very well last night and actually woke up around 6:30am here feeling very well rested and recovered.
I will write more later about the day leading up to the flight as it was our last day in the journey, but right now we are getting ready to go work out at the gym and then getting ready to enjoy the annual Strawberry Festival here in town at my parents house, complete with a parade and everything! (I look forward to this each year :)
We had an amazing trip and will share more about the "missing" days later so make sure to check back in to read about those days. We will also be adding photos to all the posts so you can see what we experienced as well.
Thank you for all your prayers. This was a trip of a lifetime and we are excited to see what our next big adventure will be.
We hope you have enjoyed reading about it so far as much as we have enjoyed living it and writing about it. Leave comments if you feel like it as we love to read those :)
Until later...Love,
Sara & Jeremiah
Well, we made it home safely and on time without any problems and only one slight delay at the beginning (one person on our flight checked in but then never showed up for the flight so they took about 30 minutes getting their luggage off the plane and then we had to wait in the que to take off so we were delayed by about 1 hour but they were able to make up that time in the air and we landed just after 7:00pm PST, 3:00am UK time).
We managed to stay awake the entire flight, although it was hard those last few hours as it was nearing the mid-morning for us on UK time but all the movies did help. We slept very well last night and actually woke up around 6:30am here feeling very well rested and recovered.
I will write more later about the day leading up to the flight as it was our last day in the journey, but right now we are getting ready to go work out at the gym and then getting ready to enjoy the annual Strawberry Festival here in town at my parents house, complete with a parade and everything! (I look forward to this each year :)
We had an amazing trip and will share more about the "missing" days later so make sure to check back in to read about those days. We will also be adding photos to all the posts so you can see what we experienced as well.
Thank you for all your prayers. This was a trip of a lifetime and we are excited to see what our next big adventure will be.
We hope you have enjoyed reading about it so far as much as we have enjoyed living it and writing about it. Leave comments if you feel like it as we love to read those :)
Until later...Love,
Sara & Jeremiah
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Day 21 - Back in London
May 22, 2008
I woke up just before 8:00am and started getting ready for our last full day in London. Jeremiah got up shortly after. We went downstairs and Mike and Gillian were both still around and haven't left for work yet which was nice to be able to see them again.
Mike helped us figure out part of our route on the Underground and DLR as we had never travelled on the DLR before and weren't sure if our Oyster cards would work on them or not. But he assured us they would.
We ate some cereal and finished getting ready. We said goodbye to Charlotte as she was heading back to school that day and it would be the last time we would see her. Then we were out the door to our favorite bus stop right around the corner just to find out that that bus stop is temporarily out of order. At least it wasn't out of order when we were using it everyday at the beginning of our trip! We quickly walked up the street to Walthamstow Station to the next stop and waited a few minutes for the bus to arrive: 275 to Barkingside (the voice on the train says this in a nice English accent every time someone gets on or off the bus just so you know exactly which bus you are on. We got so used to hearing it at the beginning of our trip and the female voice says it in such a unique way that, during the other parts of our trip outside of London we would just randomly say it to each other. It was fun and full of good memories. The return bus is "275 to St. James Street.")
We got on and headed to the top level and sat in the front seats. We figured this would be one of our last times to be able to do that on the trip so we needed to make the most of it. I think some of the trees have grown since the last time on the bus because the roof of the bus sure did hit a lot of tree branches along the way (whack!). It wasn't until then that I noticed that all the trees along the road had weird shaped to them because they are trimmed away over the road area to allow for the double-decker buses to get through.
We got off at Woodford Station and stopped at a little store to pick up a small bottle of water for the day. Then we went on the underground (Central Line) to Stratford Station. There we changed to the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). We were a little confused on exactly where to go so I asked for some help from one of the assistants; he was very nice. We walked to the right area after going down some stairs, then across the way, and up some different stairs. We didn't see any trains coming on the sign for the platform he told us to take so we were a little confused as to which platform to be on.
Right before this, as we were walking up to the platform, Jeremiah saw a standalone sensor that you are supposed to swiped your Oyster card on (Notes: An Oyster card, if you didn't know or hadn't already figured it out, is a card that you can load up money on and then swipe each time you take the Underground or a bus; it then deducts that fare from the money on the card. This makes travelling very fast. Plus, it's supposed to give you a better rate of fare on the Underground so you aren't charged as much. Normally, when you enter a station, you swiped the card on the way in to get through the turn-stile and then you swipe it on your way out to get through the Exit turn-stile. It then knows exactly how far you travelled and deducts the right amount. For the DLR, there were no turn-stiles to go through or exit; just these stand-alones that are really easy to miss if you aren't looking for them.)
Jeremiah thought we needed to swipe our cards as that's what it said to do, so we did. But then it didn't quite make sense to me that we would swipe it once upon entry to the Underground, once upon entry to the DLR, and then once upon exit from the DLR - an uneven amount when everything else so far had been an even amount of swipes. So I asked an assistant and she explained that we should have swiped the cards upon exiting the Underground but since we hadn't, to just swipe one more time at the standalone and that it would work everything out. So we did and it deducted the right amounts.
We got on the next train that came because it didn't look like a train was coming to go as far as we needed to any time soon. The distance between the stops on these train came really fast so you really weren't on it very long. The train terminated at Canary Wharf, about 5 stops before we needed to get off. So all the passengers that needed to continue on further and no go back the way we had just come, got off and waited for 2 minutes for the next train for Levisham or Lewisham (can't quite remember the exact name right now). We got on that train and headed off again.
We arrived at our station, the one for the Maritime Museum in Greenwich (can't remember it's name at the moment either), and made our way up to the surface. We then followed a walkway towards where we thought the Museum would be. We then found some signs indicating that we were going in the right direction. It wasn't too far away from the station and, Mike was right, it was one of the largest buildings in the area so you really couldn't miss it.
We walked up to the front and took a few pictures. Then we walked over to the left to go behind the building and make our way up the steep hill a little ways off to the Royal Observatory. We noticed that there were a lot of school groups here with elementary age children and figured that this must be a great field trip for them as the museum is free and there is plenty of green grass all around to play on.
Before we had gotten anywhere near the hill to go up to the observatory, I heard this little girl say to her teacher and classmates that "I would rather be in school than have to walk up that hill!" It was pretty funny.
We then made our way down a path and to "the hill". It was rather steep and I was glad to be done with it by the time we reached the top. We went into the building there and made our way down some stairs as Jeremiah had read online that they had some shows on space from 11:00am to 4:00pm and we thought we would try to make it for the first showing.
When we got down there, there wasn't any show on nor did it look like there would be one any time soon. We sat down and watched the TV screen in front of us that had a slideshow on it showing what shows they were going to have throughout the day. The first one didn't actually start until 1:00pm. I found a flyer with all the shows and times on it and then we headed back up the stairs.
We watched a short looping video they had playing in one room about the stars and planets (it was interesting, but, honestly, I was more interested by the woman on the side of the screen that was signing the whole presentation for the deaf kids/adults in the audience; I've always been fascinated by sign language).
Then we moved on to another room and quickly walked through it. We walked out of this building as there wasn't much left to do (we skipped one room that was interactive as there were a ton of school kids in it playing around).
We walked outside and followed the signs for the Meridian Line. But first we made a slight detour to a little room where they had all different clocks on display that were used on ships up until the 1950s. They were pretty neat to look at.
Then we went around the corner and saw people hovering over the Meridian Line so we continued on to the next building which used to house one of the Royal Astronomers and his two assistants. They set up his old rooms as they would have looked and we walked through all of them. Then you entered this one room with a lot of clocks and time pieces in it and in here were on display Harrison's 4 clocks he made trying to win the £20,000 Longitude prize back in the early 1700s. We had no idea that his actual clocks would be here!
These clocks were made to solve the problem of ships at sea not being able to clearing know their Longitude and thus many ships crashed and many sailors died. So after much uproar from the people and from professionals, Parliament set out a competition with the above mentioned reward to solve the problem of Longitude while at sea. Harrison was the one to solve it but it took him 4 trys and many many years.
These clocks were pretty amazing as you looked at each of them and tried to see how they worked. It's hard for me to comprehend just how someone could think of all the little details to something like this. You weren't supposed to take pictures of anything in any of these museums and had "guards" walking around everywhere to make sure you didn't do anything you weren't supposed to. But I ended up getting a picture of each model before I was told that I couldn't do that. :)
After this museum, we went back outside and I got my picture on the Meridian Line. For £1 you could have your name written on a certificate (just a piece of paper) with the exact time to the one thousandth second stating that at that exact time you were straddling the Meridian Line. Funny thing is, that in order to put your coin in the machine you can't be straddling the line so you really weren't straddling it at the exact time stated on the certificate.
We then walked through the exit and took a few pictures of the Meridian Clock whose time never changes with daylight savings time (not sure if that is the exact name of the clock or if it is something different; I will have to ask Jeremiah).
We then headed back down the hill and to a little cafe outside the Maritime museum. We ate some lunch as I was starving and then headed back to the front of the museum to finally enter it.
The main reason we wanted to go here was because we thought it may be where there were naval uniforms on display which we had used as a basis for the 1800s Naval Uniform that I recently made for Jeremiah (if you didn't know I did this and that he wore it to a Jane Austen Evening back in January, you will have to wait for the blog post about it which I have yet to write; but it will come soon and then you can see pictures about the event).
I really wanted to see those uniforms close up to see if there were any tricks to making them that I couldn't see through the pictures online.
We walked inside and were about to go around the front counter when we were told we had to get a ticket at the counter. Not sure exactly why you needed a ticket that said "Free Admission" on it, but we followed their rules.
We then walked about and saw some really neat things. They had the whole back panel of a ship that they ended up destroying at some point and that was really neat. Jeremiah got my picture next to it. The name of the ship was Implacable, I believe.
We walked throughout the various rooms and enjoyed what they had on display. They had one exhibit devoted to Admiral Nelson and had some of his uniforms on display; they even had the last one he wore when he was shot and killed in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
We walked around a bit more but it wasn't quite what we were expecting. It was interesting and they had some really neat things on display, I was just hoping for some more uniforms. Oh well.
Around 3:00pm, we left and walked back to the station to head north and then transfer to the Jubilee line to head over to London Bridge. We thought it would be nice to look around Central London one last time before we had to leave.
I remembered seeing the "Wobbly Bridge" (a pedestrian foot path alongside a bridge that used to wobble a lot when it was first made) on our trip down the River Thames and I thought that might be fun to cross. We got out of the station and walked up to the surface and found our way to the river. The London Bridge wasn't too far away but I didn't see the Wobbly Bridge. We walked to the middle of the London Bridge and took some pictures. Then we decided what to do next. I wasn't in the mood for walking too much more and I thought it would be fun to walk across Tower Bridge which was to the east of us. Jeremiah thought that we were getting out at this station to try to find The Globe Theatre, which was somewhere to the west of us.
At first I decided to just go to Tower Bridge, which holds a similar fascination to me as Brooklyn Bridge, so we wouldn't be back-tracking in any of our walking. But as we started, I thought I might regret not doing as much as we could before we left for the day so I changed my mind and our walking direction and started off to where we thought the theatre was.
I did ask someone if they knew how far way it was and he said it wasn't too far and to just follow this certain path (but I couldn't quite understand what path he said). So we found the path that walked mainly along the River Thames. Since you can see the theatre from the river, we thought this was a good plan. Not too long later, we found signs to point us in the right direction.
We came across a pirate looking ship that actually had been around since Queen Elizabeth I's reign. They do living history events on it now and it is permanently docked at the harbor.
We continued walking and then came up to what we believed was the theatre but it was rather disappointing and not what I thought it would be: it was a brick rounded building. It didn't seem quite right so we walked a little further and then the real theatre came into sight. Now that was what I was expecting.
We took a few pictures and then found a place to sit. I bought my last 99 cone of the trip and we enjoyed it. After a little bit we headed back the way we had come as we needed to get moving to make it back in time for dinner with Mike and Gillian.
On the way back we stopped to read a sign that we had missed on the way in. I had noticed the interestesting wall with scaffolding surrounding it but hadn't really thought too much about it. When we read the sign associated with it, we learned that it was a wall to what used to be a great hall from hundreds of years ago and this is all that remains of it. Kings used to use this house with the hall; I can't quite remember what year it was though. So I took some pictures. The scaffolding was all around because it was right next to a more modern building from the 1960s which was going to be demolished soon and they are trying to stabilize the wall to avoid any damage to it during the demolition. It was a pretty neat find.
We then continued down, passed the way we had come, and walked to Tower Bridge, taking pictures along the way.
The bridge was fun to walk on and I was able to get some different shots of London Tower and Tower hill.
Once over the bridge, we walked the sidewalk around Tower hill to the nearest Tube station. We got to see some ruins of the Tower that we hadn't seen before on our previous trip so that was really neat.
We then made our way into the crowded tube station and got on a District Line train. After a few stops, we got off (at Mile End) and changed to a Central Line train. At Leytonstone stop (just 2 or 3 stops before our stop), we exited the train to wait for another one as there is a split in the tracks and we needed a train that would go on the other split.
We only had to wait a minute or two and then we got our train. We exited at Woodford Station and headed out to the street and to our bus stop. We only had to wait 3 minutes for the bus to arrive and then we boarded and headed up to the top level. Others had already taken the front seats so we sat one row behind. But as soon as one row in the front was clear, we headed up to it as this was definitely the last time we would be sitting up there.
We got off at our stop and headed up to the house. Mike and Gillian were already home and it was just about 7:00pm. We had reservations at the Indian restaurant at 7:30pm. We chatted with Mike a bit while Gillian fed her mother upstairs. Just before 7:30pm, we headed out the door to walk up the street to the restaurant.
I have never had Indian food before and Jeremiah hasn't had it too much, so we let Mike and Gillian pick out most of the dishes and luckily for us, they prefer chicken dishes over others. We had a special where it was an "all you can eat" so we order a bunch of different dishes to try.
I wasn't sure how they would taste but I wasn't sacred of them either. They ended up being really good. The flavors were really nice and everything went so well together. We finished off all the dishes we had ordered and were stuffed by the end. It was a very good first experience with Indian food. It was also a really nice time to spend with Mike and Gillian.
We walked back to the house and I got on the computer to check in for our flights. Jeremiah chatted with Mike and Gillian while I did this and they got the evening tea ready. After I had finished, I went in to the front room to join them.
Gillian had gotten out her Capernwray albums and sat down with us to show the pictures to us. It was really fun looking at those and hearing some of the stories. It was also really neat to see Peter, Debbie, Uncle Bill, and Gillian all so young. I'm not sure if I had ever seen pictures of them so young before. We really enjoyed this.
Then we shared our pictures from the trip with them so they could see where we had been. By the time we finished, it was 11:00pm and Mike had to get up early the next morning and we were tired as well. We were going to look at some of their pictures from their recent trip to China but Mike promised to put them up on a website to look at later (we're holding you to that Mike :) ).
We all then headed up to bed for the night. It was a really good last day in London.
Love,
S&J
I woke up just before 8:00am and started getting ready for our last full day in London. Jeremiah got up shortly after. We went downstairs and Mike and Gillian were both still around and haven't left for work yet which was nice to be able to see them again.
Mike helped us figure out part of our route on the Underground and DLR as we had never travelled on the DLR before and weren't sure if our Oyster cards would work on them or not. But he assured us they would.
We ate some cereal and finished getting ready. We said goodbye to Charlotte as she was heading back to school that day and it would be the last time we would see her. Then we were out the door to our favorite bus stop right around the corner just to find out that that bus stop is temporarily out of order. At least it wasn't out of order when we were using it everyday at the beginning of our trip! We quickly walked up the street to Walthamstow Station to the next stop and waited a few minutes for the bus to arrive: 275 to Barkingside (the voice on the train says this in a nice English accent every time someone gets on or off the bus just so you know exactly which bus you are on. We got so used to hearing it at the beginning of our trip and the female voice says it in such a unique way that, during the other parts of our trip outside of London we would just randomly say it to each other. It was fun and full of good memories. The return bus is "275 to St. James Street.")
We got on and headed to the top level and sat in the front seats. We figured this would be one of our last times to be able to do that on the trip so we needed to make the most of it. I think some of the trees have grown since the last time on the bus because the roof of the bus sure did hit a lot of tree branches along the way (whack!). It wasn't until then that I noticed that all the trees along the road had weird shaped to them because they are trimmed away over the road area to allow for the double-decker buses to get through.
We got off at Woodford Station and stopped at a little store to pick up a small bottle of water for the day. Then we went on the underground (Central Line) to Stratford Station. There we changed to the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). We were a little confused on exactly where to go so I asked for some help from one of the assistants; he was very nice. We walked to the right area after going down some stairs, then across the way, and up some different stairs. We didn't see any trains coming on the sign for the platform he told us to take so we were a little confused as to which platform to be on.
Right before this, as we were walking up to the platform, Jeremiah saw a standalone sensor that you are supposed to swiped your Oyster card on (Notes: An Oyster card, if you didn't know or hadn't already figured it out, is a card that you can load up money on and then swipe each time you take the Underground or a bus; it then deducts that fare from the money on the card. This makes travelling very fast. Plus, it's supposed to give you a better rate of fare on the Underground so you aren't charged as much. Normally, when you enter a station, you swiped the card on the way in to get through the turn-stile and then you swipe it on your way out to get through the Exit turn-stile. It then knows exactly how far you travelled and deducts the right amount. For the DLR, there were no turn-stiles to go through or exit; just these stand-alones that are really easy to miss if you aren't looking for them.)
Jeremiah thought we needed to swipe our cards as that's what it said to do, so we did. But then it didn't quite make sense to me that we would swipe it once upon entry to the Underground, once upon entry to the DLR, and then once upon exit from the DLR - an uneven amount when everything else so far had been an even amount of swipes. So I asked an assistant and she explained that we should have swiped the cards upon exiting the Underground but since we hadn't, to just swipe one more time at the standalone and that it would work everything out. So we did and it deducted the right amounts.
We got on the next train that came because it didn't look like a train was coming to go as far as we needed to any time soon. The distance between the stops on these train came really fast so you really weren't on it very long. The train terminated at Canary Wharf, about 5 stops before we needed to get off. So all the passengers that needed to continue on further and no go back the way we had just come, got off and waited for 2 minutes for the next train for Levisham or Lewisham (can't quite remember the exact name right now). We got on that train and headed off again.
We arrived at our station, the one for the Maritime Museum in Greenwich (can't remember it's name at the moment either), and made our way up to the surface. We then followed a walkway towards where we thought the Museum would be. We then found some signs indicating that we were going in the right direction. It wasn't too far away from the station and, Mike was right, it was one of the largest buildings in the area so you really couldn't miss it.
We walked up to the front and took a few pictures. Then we walked over to the left to go behind the building and make our way up the steep hill a little ways off to the Royal Observatory. We noticed that there were a lot of school groups here with elementary age children and figured that this must be a great field trip for them as the museum is free and there is plenty of green grass all around to play on.
Before we had gotten anywhere near the hill to go up to the observatory, I heard this little girl say to her teacher and classmates that "I would rather be in school than have to walk up that hill!" It was pretty funny.
We then made our way down a path and to "the hill". It was rather steep and I was glad to be done with it by the time we reached the top. We went into the building there and made our way down some stairs as Jeremiah had read online that they had some shows on space from 11:00am to 4:00pm and we thought we would try to make it for the first showing.
When we got down there, there wasn't any show on nor did it look like there would be one any time soon. We sat down and watched the TV screen in front of us that had a slideshow on it showing what shows they were going to have throughout the day. The first one didn't actually start until 1:00pm. I found a flyer with all the shows and times on it and then we headed back up the stairs.
We watched a short looping video they had playing in one room about the stars and planets (it was interesting, but, honestly, I was more interested by the woman on the side of the screen that was signing the whole presentation for the deaf kids/adults in the audience; I've always been fascinated by sign language).
Then we moved on to another room and quickly walked through it. We walked out of this building as there wasn't much left to do (we skipped one room that was interactive as there were a ton of school kids in it playing around).
We walked outside and followed the signs for the Meridian Line. But first we made a slight detour to a little room where they had all different clocks on display that were used on ships up until the 1950s. They were pretty neat to look at.
Then we went around the corner and saw people hovering over the Meridian Line so we continued on to the next building which used to house one of the Royal Astronomers and his two assistants. They set up his old rooms as they would have looked and we walked through all of them. Then you entered this one room with a lot of clocks and time pieces in it and in here were on display Harrison's 4 clocks he made trying to win the £20,000 Longitude prize back in the early 1700s. We had no idea that his actual clocks would be here!
These clocks were made to solve the problem of ships at sea not being able to clearing know their Longitude and thus many ships crashed and many sailors died. So after much uproar from the people and from professionals, Parliament set out a competition with the above mentioned reward to solve the problem of Longitude while at sea. Harrison was the one to solve it but it took him 4 trys and many many years.
These clocks were pretty amazing as you looked at each of them and tried to see how they worked. It's hard for me to comprehend just how someone could think of all the little details to something like this. You weren't supposed to take pictures of anything in any of these museums and had "guards" walking around everywhere to make sure you didn't do anything you weren't supposed to. But I ended up getting a picture of each model before I was told that I couldn't do that. :)
After this museum, we went back outside and I got my picture on the Meridian Line. For £1 you could have your name written on a certificate (just a piece of paper) with the exact time to the one thousandth second stating that at that exact time you were straddling the Meridian Line. Funny thing is, that in order to put your coin in the machine you can't be straddling the line so you really weren't straddling it at the exact time stated on the certificate.
We then walked through the exit and took a few pictures of the Meridian Clock whose time never changes with daylight savings time (not sure if that is the exact name of the clock or if it is something different; I will have to ask Jeremiah).
We then headed back down the hill and to a little cafe outside the Maritime museum. We ate some lunch as I was starving and then headed back to the front of the museum to finally enter it.
The main reason we wanted to go here was because we thought it may be where there were naval uniforms on display which we had used as a basis for the 1800s Naval Uniform that I recently made for Jeremiah (if you didn't know I did this and that he wore it to a Jane Austen Evening back in January, you will have to wait for the blog post about it which I have yet to write; but it will come soon and then you can see pictures about the event).
I really wanted to see those uniforms close up to see if there were any tricks to making them that I couldn't see through the pictures online.
We walked inside and were about to go around the front counter when we were told we had to get a ticket at the counter. Not sure exactly why you needed a ticket that said "Free Admission" on it, but we followed their rules.
We then walked about and saw some really neat things. They had the whole back panel of a ship that they ended up destroying at some point and that was really neat. Jeremiah got my picture next to it. The name of the ship was Implacable, I believe.
We walked throughout the various rooms and enjoyed what they had on display. They had one exhibit devoted to Admiral Nelson and had some of his uniforms on display; they even had the last one he wore when he was shot and killed in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
We walked around a bit more but it wasn't quite what we were expecting. It was interesting and they had some really neat things on display, I was just hoping for some more uniforms. Oh well.
Around 3:00pm, we left and walked back to the station to head north and then transfer to the Jubilee line to head over to London Bridge. We thought it would be nice to look around Central London one last time before we had to leave.
I remembered seeing the "Wobbly Bridge" (a pedestrian foot path alongside a bridge that used to wobble a lot when it was first made) on our trip down the River Thames and I thought that might be fun to cross. We got out of the station and walked up to the surface and found our way to the river. The London Bridge wasn't too far away but I didn't see the Wobbly Bridge. We walked to the middle of the London Bridge and took some pictures. Then we decided what to do next. I wasn't in the mood for walking too much more and I thought it would be fun to walk across Tower Bridge which was to the east of us. Jeremiah thought that we were getting out at this station to try to find The Globe Theatre, which was somewhere to the west of us.
At first I decided to just go to Tower Bridge, which holds a similar fascination to me as Brooklyn Bridge, so we wouldn't be back-tracking in any of our walking. But as we started, I thought I might regret not doing as much as we could before we left for the day so I changed my mind and our walking direction and started off to where we thought the theatre was.
I did ask someone if they knew how far way it was and he said it wasn't too far and to just follow this certain path (but I couldn't quite understand what path he said). So we found the path that walked mainly along the River Thames. Since you can see the theatre from the river, we thought this was a good plan. Not too long later, we found signs to point us in the right direction.
We came across a pirate looking ship that actually had been around since Queen Elizabeth I's reign. They do living history events on it now and it is permanently docked at the harbor.
We continued walking and then came up to what we believed was the theatre but it was rather disappointing and not what I thought it would be: it was a brick rounded building. It didn't seem quite right so we walked a little further and then the real theatre came into sight. Now that was what I was expecting.
We took a few pictures and then found a place to sit. I bought my last 99 cone of the trip and we enjoyed it. After a little bit we headed back the way we had come as we needed to get moving to make it back in time for dinner with Mike and Gillian.
On the way back we stopped to read a sign that we had missed on the way in. I had noticed the interestesting wall with scaffolding surrounding it but hadn't really thought too much about it. When we read the sign associated with it, we learned that it was a wall to what used to be a great hall from hundreds of years ago and this is all that remains of it. Kings used to use this house with the hall; I can't quite remember what year it was though. So I took some pictures. The scaffolding was all around because it was right next to a more modern building from the 1960s which was going to be demolished soon and they are trying to stabilize the wall to avoid any damage to it during the demolition. It was a pretty neat find.
We then continued down, passed the way we had come, and walked to Tower Bridge, taking pictures along the way.
The bridge was fun to walk on and I was able to get some different shots of London Tower and Tower hill.
Once over the bridge, we walked the sidewalk around Tower hill to the nearest Tube station. We got to see some ruins of the Tower that we hadn't seen before on our previous trip so that was really neat.
We then made our way into the crowded tube station and got on a District Line train. After a few stops, we got off (at Mile End) and changed to a Central Line train. At Leytonstone stop (just 2 or 3 stops before our stop), we exited the train to wait for another one as there is a split in the tracks and we needed a train that would go on the other split.
We only had to wait a minute or two and then we got our train. We exited at Woodford Station and headed out to the street and to our bus stop. We only had to wait 3 minutes for the bus to arrive and then we boarded and headed up to the top level. Others had already taken the front seats so we sat one row behind. But as soon as one row in the front was clear, we headed up to it as this was definitely the last time we would be sitting up there.
We got off at our stop and headed up to the house. Mike and Gillian were already home and it was just about 7:00pm. We had reservations at the Indian restaurant at 7:30pm. We chatted with Mike a bit while Gillian fed her mother upstairs. Just before 7:30pm, we headed out the door to walk up the street to the restaurant.
I have never had Indian food before and Jeremiah hasn't had it too much, so we let Mike and Gillian pick out most of the dishes and luckily for us, they prefer chicken dishes over others. We had a special where it was an "all you can eat" so we order a bunch of different dishes to try.
I wasn't sure how they would taste but I wasn't sacred of them either. They ended up being really good. The flavors were really nice and everything went so well together. We finished off all the dishes we had ordered and were stuffed by the end. It was a very good first experience with Indian food. It was also a really nice time to spend with Mike and Gillian.
We walked back to the house and I got on the computer to check in for our flights. Jeremiah chatted with Mike and Gillian while I did this and they got the evening tea ready. After I had finished, I went in to the front room to join them.
Gillian had gotten out her Capernwray albums and sat down with us to show the pictures to us. It was really fun looking at those and hearing some of the stories. It was also really neat to see Peter, Debbie, Uncle Bill, and Gillian all so young. I'm not sure if I had ever seen pictures of them so young before. We really enjoyed this.
Then we shared our pictures from the trip with them so they could see where we had been. By the time we finished, it was 11:00pm and Mike had to get up early the next morning and we were tired as well. We were going to look at some of their pictures from their recent trip to China but Mike promised to put them up on a website to look at later (we're holding you to that Mike :) ).
We all then headed up to bed for the night. It was a really good last day in London.
Love,
S&J
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Day 20 - Oxford, Windsor, and "Home"
May 21, 2008
Well, after many days away, we made it back "home" safely to Highams Park, London. We arrive just after 8:00pm to the smiling faces of Gillian and Charlotte (it really did feel like we were coming home after being away for 2 weeks; Mike is away at church helping with some technical things so we haven't seen him yet).
It's been a little while since my last post, as you may have noticed, so I do have a lot of catching up to do and it may take me a little while but I will do my best with the time I have. Just make sure to look back for "older" posts as I will postdate them to keep everything in order (it will appear as if I wrote them on the day it was written about even though I will be actually writing the post now or in the near future - hope that isn't too confusing).
Today we woke up just outside of Oxford at our last B&B. We woke and and went downstairs for our 8:30am breakfast. The breakfast room overlooked the back garden which was very lovely. There were already other guests in there (and others who had already finished so we never saw them) as we took our seats.
The breakfast was wonderful and one of the best we had had the whole trip. It was anything extraordinary but it tasted really good and was just what we needed to last us through until dinner time (we discovered we could save some money and time if we just waited until dinner to eat our next meal and for the most part that worked well for us).
As our meal was winding down, there was a family of 4 at a table nearby that were also from America (could tell by the accent). After a bit, the husband and younger daughter left the table and the mother and older daughter remained. I decided to ask them where they were from and they said Cincinatti. We told them where we were from and started chatting.
They were very lovely people and it was fun to talk with them (Mike just walked in so I'm going to say Hi...okay, I'm back now). We shared some of our experiences about the activities we did the day before as they were thinking about doing them as well. We had a great time talking and before we knew it, it was already 10:15am and checkout was at 10:30, plus we had plenty we wanted to do during the day.
We got back in to the room and finished getting ready as well as finished packing (can you see a trend yet with our morning routine? :) ). I went downstairs to pay our bill and the owner helped me find a good park and ride station for going into Oxford.
We got in the car after saying our goodbyes and headed off to the City Centre. On our way, we stopped to get gas and asked where a car wash with a vacuum cleaner was as we wanted to make sure we brought back a clean car to the Hambletons (and boy did it need it as the car was the last thing many bugs saw in the last moments of their life). Just a 100 yards away or so there was another gas station with one so we stopped there. We got the car washed through the machine thing, then vacuumed it and wiped off the bugs that didn't come off in the wash, and then sent it through again for a final cleaning. It defintely looked a lot better than it did.
We got back on the road and by this time it was 12:00pm. We decided that we would park at the same car park as we did the night before as the park and ride would take us 15 minutes each way to get in to the city plus it would cost more and we were running out of time as we were also trying to squeeze in Windsor Castle.
As we were driving in towards the car park, we then made the decision, since it was getting so late, to just drive through the city and see it that way instead of getting out and walking around. It took a few turns, but we finally made it to a pretty central spot and I took lots of pictures while Jeremiah drove. It was a good quick way to see more of the city but when we come back and have more time, we will definitely get out and walk around to see more.
Then we headed off to Windsor Castle. It took just under an hour to get there. As we drove up to it it was amazing! I can see why the Queen still uses this place as one of her homes. I would if I could! The outside is so magnificent and looks so strong and beautiful.
We found a car park but quickly left it as they want over £7 for 3 hours and we wanted to stay for around 4 and there was no way we were going to pay that much for it. So we drove just down the street and found another car park that wanted around £2.90 for 4 hours and we parked there instead. It was actually nicer parking here as we were able to see more of the castle on our walk up to the entrance.
We took some pictures of the outside and then found the place to buy tickets (around £14 each). I also bought a guide with our tickets because I knew you couldn't take pictures of the inside and I was pretty sure that was something I was going to want to look at again later on.
We walked inside and got our free audio sets for the audio tour and listened to the first track. I then saw that a tour was going to start soon with a warden so we stuck around for 5 minutes until that started. A warden came up and after waiting a little bit she introduced herself (Lorna) and started our private tour (no one else came for the tour so it was just Jeremiah and me - very cool!)
She took us through different areas and told us the history or the uniqueness of that area or part of a building. And, although you could probably hear much of what she said on the first few tracks of the audio guide, we really enjoyed this tour and were able to ask lots of questions. She showed us where as the restoration of pieces for all the palaces and castles takes place and told us that in there is a sleigh that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would take with them on Holiday in the mountains to go sledding. It's unfortunate that it's not on display as well.
There was a moat dug around the round tower but instead of water being in it, there was a beautiful garden. And apparently, there had never been water in this moat as it leaked! Rather interesting. The castle had been under attack twice in its life, once by Prince John and once by the French - neither did much damage to it. Lorna took us to the entrance to the State Apartments (the part where you actually get to walk in to the Castle rooms) and then said goodbye.
We walked inside and you first get to see a minature doll house presented to Queen Anne by Queen Victoria's great granddaughter. Although it was minature, it was rather large. Everything was done to scale and there were real electrical lights in it as well as functioning plumbing! It was pretty amazing.
Then we walked into the area where many guests of the castle first enter when they come for a visit or an event. You go up some stairs into a room that is filled with armor, weaponry, and crowns that have been collected over the years. It was pretty spectacular. There was a 4 barrel shotgun; a rifle with a heart-shaped barrel; the lock to one of the kings traveling cases that, if you put the key in the wrong hole, you would get shot with two small consealed pistols - when the maker of this lock tested it out, he forgot he had loaded the guns and ended up killing himself; and a gun from the Revolutionary War captured by the English - it was from Kentucky I believe. In this room there was also a statue of Queen Victoria and on the fireplace in the room, here initials where on it and that is actually the only place in the whole castle with her initials.
Then you walk into the Waterloo Room which is actually a dining room - very magnificient as well - with paintings all over the walls of all the men who helped in that battle. After this you go through a series of rooms that are for the King and Queen (their drawing rooms, bedroom, dressing room, ballroom, reception rooms, and guard room). They were all very beautiful and covered in great paintings and portraits. We took our time looking through all these rooms.
Then you were led into St. George's Hall where they took five years in the '90s to restore this room among others after a fire in the castle in 1992. We saw pictures of the room immediately after the fire had happened and it was amazing to see how they had restored the room after so much damage. This room was also very amazing and they showed on a TV what the room looked like with the dining table that seats 160 guests looks like in that room when they use it for events. Then you walk into an octagonal room that connects the public state rooms with the private state rooms. In this room, the fire orginated and I believe it was completely destroyed. But they restored it as well but with some modern aspects and added the connection to the private state rooms.
Oh, I should mention that although the fire destroyed a lot, they wre able to save just about everything that was in there (everything that wasn't too heavy to move) and the busts and armor that is on display in that room had already been taken out as they were being cleaned or refurbished. This is a very good thing as one of the busts was the death mask (that's what I think it was called) of Queen Victoria (they took the mold of her right after she had died and made this bust out of it). Through the fire and the restoration, they undercover on a sofa an enscription that stated that "on this sofa died the Duchess of Kent" (Queen Victoria's mother). So that was a really neat discovery.
Then you walked into another room that I believe was a sort of reception room. Then you walk into a room specifically for things relating to the Order of the Garter. It was beautiful as well. The next room over was the Waterloo Room again and then you start to exit. Everything was so beautiful and I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been a monarch way back when and to have lived in those rooms.
We then left the building and only had about 1/2 hour before the grounds closed so we hurried over to St. George's Chapel only to find out that it had closed at 4:00pm. We found a place to sit and we listened to some of the audio we had not yet heard. As we were listening to the part about the guards that were guarding the castle, they happened to be changing the guards right then. We took more pictures and then I saw that the doors to the chapel had opened and that people were going inside. As I got to the door, there was a sign that said it was only open to those coming for the evening prayers so I stood at the door and just tried to peak a little (it was a little hard as one of the Brothers kept saying that I could not enter unless I was coming for the prayers and I was just trying to tell him that I knew that but that I was just trying to take a little peak - he didn't seem to understand). Miah came over and we each got to see a little of the stained glass windows on the inside.
Then I filled out a form for each of us that would give us unlimited access to the Castle for one year. (Thought it would be better to do it than not as a just in case...who knows when we will next be here.) We turned in our guides and got our forms officiated and then left.
I then went in to a souveneer shop and bought a postcard of the castle so that I could get change. We walked back to the car park and put in enough money for one more hour. Then we walked back towards the castle and went inside a Pizza Hut for dinner.
We had a good dinner and then stopped on the way back to our car for a little ice cream. This was some of the best soft serve ice cream I've ever had! It tasted like cream and was so smooth. We both enjoyed it a lot.
We then headed in our car to the Hambletons. After a little bit, I soon discovered that instead of the GPS taking us on the main Motorway around London (the M25) it was taking us closer to the heart of London on a smaller highway that also circled London. We decided to trust it instead of back-tracking and it actually worked out pretty well. There were some spots with traffic and you couldn't drive as fast as the motorway, but I think it got us there pretty quickly and Mike had told us that the Motorway could be pretty backed up until after 8pm.
We stopped at a nearby gas station for one last top off and then drove a mile back "home." It feels good to be back but also kind of sad as this is signaling the end of our trip, but we still do have another full day left and we will make the most of it!
Well, it's getting late...almost 11:15pm so I had better get to bed to get some rest so we can get an early start tomorrow.
I will try to write again and to make some posts on the last week's adventures but I'm not sure exactly when that will be.
Until later and with love,
S&J
Well, after many days away, we made it back "home" safely to Highams Park, London. We arrive just after 8:00pm to the smiling faces of Gillian and Charlotte (it really did feel like we were coming home after being away for 2 weeks; Mike is away at church helping with some technical things so we haven't seen him yet).
It's been a little while since my last post, as you may have noticed, so I do have a lot of catching up to do and it may take me a little while but I will do my best with the time I have. Just make sure to look back for "older" posts as I will postdate them to keep everything in order (it will appear as if I wrote them on the day it was written about even though I will be actually writing the post now or in the near future - hope that isn't too confusing).
Today we woke up just outside of Oxford at our last B&B. We woke and and went downstairs for our 8:30am breakfast. The breakfast room overlooked the back garden which was very lovely. There were already other guests in there (and others who had already finished so we never saw them) as we took our seats.
The breakfast was wonderful and one of the best we had had the whole trip. It was anything extraordinary but it tasted really good and was just what we needed to last us through until dinner time (we discovered we could save some money and time if we just waited until dinner to eat our next meal and for the most part that worked well for us).
As our meal was winding down, there was a family of 4 at a table nearby that were also from America (could tell by the accent). After a bit, the husband and younger daughter left the table and the mother and older daughter remained. I decided to ask them where they were from and they said Cincinatti. We told them where we were from and started chatting.
They were very lovely people and it was fun to talk with them (Mike just walked in so I'm going to say Hi...okay, I'm back now). We shared some of our experiences about the activities we did the day before as they were thinking about doing them as well. We had a great time talking and before we knew it, it was already 10:15am and checkout was at 10:30, plus we had plenty we wanted to do during the day.
We got back in to the room and finished getting ready as well as finished packing (can you see a trend yet with our morning routine? :) ). I went downstairs to pay our bill and the owner helped me find a good park and ride station for going into Oxford.
We got in the car after saying our goodbyes and headed off to the City Centre. On our way, we stopped to get gas and asked where a car wash with a vacuum cleaner was as we wanted to make sure we brought back a clean car to the Hambletons (and boy did it need it as the car was the last thing many bugs saw in the last moments of their life). Just a 100 yards away or so there was another gas station with one so we stopped there. We got the car washed through the machine thing, then vacuumed it and wiped off the bugs that didn't come off in the wash, and then sent it through again for a final cleaning. It defintely looked a lot better than it did.
We got back on the road and by this time it was 12:00pm. We decided that we would park at the same car park as we did the night before as the park and ride would take us 15 minutes each way to get in to the city plus it would cost more and we were running out of time as we were also trying to squeeze in Windsor Castle.
As we were driving in towards the car park, we then made the decision, since it was getting so late, to just drive through the city and see it that way instead of getting out and walking around. It took a few turns, but we finally made it to a pretty central spot and I took lots of pictures while Jeremiah drove. It was a good quick way to see more of the city but when we come back and have more time, we will definitely get out and walk around to see more.
Then we headed off to Windsor Castle. It took just under an hour to get there. As we drove up to it it was amazing! I can see why the Queen still uses this place as one of her homes. I would if I could! The outside is so magnificent and looks so strong and beautiful.
We found a car park but quickly left it as they want over £7 for 3 hours and we wanted to stay for around 4 and there was no way we were going to pay that much for it. So we drove just down the street and found another car park that wanted around £2.90 for 4 hours and we parked there instead. It was actually nicer parking here as we were able to see more of the castle on our walk up to the entrance.
We took some pictures of the outside and then found the place to buy tickets (around £14 each). I also bought a guide with our tickets because I knew you couldn't take pictures of the inside and I was pretty sure that was something I was going to want to look at again later on.
We walked inside and got our free audio sets for the audio tour and listened to the first track. I then saw that a tour was going to start soon with a warden so we stuck around for 5 minutes until that started. A warden came up and after waiting a little bit she introduced herself (Lorna) and started our private tour (no one else came for the tour so it was just Jeremiah and me - very cool!)
She took us through different areas and told us the history or the uniqueness of that area or part of a building. And, although you could probably hear much of what she said on the first few tracks of the audio guide, we really enjoyed this tour and were able to ask lots of questions. She showed us where as the restoration of pieces for all the palaces and castles takes place and told us that in there is a sleigh that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would take with them on Holiday in the mountains to go sledding. It's unfortunate that it's not on display as well.
There was a moat dug around the round tower but instead of water being in it, there was a beautiful garden. And apparently, there had never been water in this moat as it leaked! Rather interesting. The castle had been under attack twice in its life, once by Prince John and once by the French - neither did much damage to it. Lorna took us to the entrance to the State Apartments (the part where you actually get to walk in to the Castle rooms) and then said goodbye.
We walked inside and you first get to see a minature doll house presented to Queen Anne by Queen Victoria's great granddaughter. Although it was minature, it was rather large. Everything was done to scale and there were real electrical lights in it as well as functioning plumbing! It was pretty amazing.
Then we walked into the area where many guests of the castle first enter when they come for a visit or an event. You go up some stairs into a room that is filled with armor, weaponry, and crowns that have been collected over the years. It was pretty spectacular. There was a 4 barrel shotgun; a rifle with a heart-shaped barrel; the lock to one of the kings traveling cases that, if you put the key in the wrong hole, you would get shot with two small consealed pistols - when the maker of this lock tested it out, he forgot he had loaded the guns and ended up killing himself; and a gun from the Revolutionary War captured by the English - it was from Kentucky I believe. In this room there was also a statue of Queen Victoria and on the fireplace in the room, here initials where on it and that is actually the only place in the whole castle with her initials.
Then you walk into the Waterloo Room which is actually a dining room - very magnificient as well - with paintings all over the walls of all the men who helped in that battle. After this you go through a series of rooms that are for the King and Queen (their drawing rooms, bedroom, dressing room, ballroom, reception rooms, and guard room). They were all very beautiful and covered in great paintings and portraits. We took our time looking through all these rooms.
Then you were led into St. George's Hall where they took five years in the '90s to restore this room among others after a fire in the castle in 1992. We saw pictures of the room immediately after the fire had happened and it was amazing to see how they had restored the room after so much damage. This room was also very amazing and they showed on a TV what the room looked like with the dining table that seats 160 guests looks like in that room when they use it for events. Then you walk into an octagonal room that connects the public state rooms with the private state rooms. In this room, the fire orginated and I believe it was completely destroyed. But they restored it as well but with some modern aspects and added the connection to the private state rooms.
Oh, I should mention that although the fire destroyed a lot, they wre able to save just about everything that was in there (everything that wasn't too heavy to move) and the busts and armor that is on display in that room had already been taken out as they were being cleaned or refurbished. This is a very good thing as one of the busts was the death mask (that's what I think it was called) of Queen Victoria (they took the mold of her right after she had died and made this bust out of it). Through the fire and the restoration, they undercover on a sofa an enscription that stated that "on this sofa died the Duchess of Kent" (Queen Victoria's mother). So that was a really neat discovery.
Then you walked into another room that I believe was a sort of reception room. Then you walk into a room specifically for things relating to the Order of the Garter. It was beautiful as well. The next room over was the Waterloo Room again and then you start to exit. Everything was so beautiful and I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been a monarch way back when and to have lived in those rooms.
We then left the building and only had about 1/2 hour before the grounds closed so we hurried over to St. George's Chapel only to find out that it had closed at 4:00pm. We found a place to sit and we listened to some of the audio we had not yet heard. As we were listening to the part about the guards that were guarding the castle, they happened to be changing the guards right then. We took more pictures and then I saw that the doors to the chapel had opened and that people were going inside. As I got to the door, there was a sign that said it was only open to those coming for the evening prayers so I stood at the door and just tried to peak a little (it was a little hard as one of the Brothers kept saying that I could not enter unless I was coming for the prayers and I was just trying to tell him that I knew that but that I was just trying to take a little peak - he didn't seem to understand). Miah came over and we each got to see a little of the stained glass windows on the inside.
Then I filled out a form for each of us that would give us unlimited access to the Castle for one year. (Thought it would be better to do it than not as a just in case...who knows when we will next be here.) We turned in our guides and got our forms officiated and then left.
I then went in to a souveneer shop and bought a postcard of the castle so that I could get change. We walked back to the car park and put in enough money for one more hour. Then we walked back towards the castle and went inside a Pizza Hut for dinner.
We had a good dinner and then stopped on the way back to our car for a little ice cream. This was some of the best soft serve ice cream I've ever had! It tasted like cream and was so smooth. We both enjoyed it a lot.
We then headed in our car to the Hambletons. After a little bit, I soon discovered that instead of the GPS taking us on the main Motorway around London (the M25) it was taking us closer to the heart of London on a smaller highway that also circled London. We decided to trust it instead of back-tracking and it actually worked out pretty well. There were some spots with traffic and you couldn't drive as fast as the motorway, but I think it got us there pretty quickly and Mike had told us that the Motorway could be pretty backed up until after 8pm.
We stopped at a nearby gas station for one last top off and then drove a mile back "home." It feels good to be back but also kind of sad as this is signaling the end of our trip, but we still do have another full day left and we will make the most of it!
Well, it's getting late...almost 11:15pm so I had better get to bed to get some rest so we can get an early start tomorrow.
I will try to write again and to make some posts on the last week's adventures but I'm not sure exactly when that will be.
Until later and with love,
S&J
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Day 19 - Oxford and Blenheim Palace
May 20, 2008
This morning we slept in a bit in our luxurious Travelodge room; didn't want to waste it! We then got ready and packed our things. Around 9:30am we were out the door and on the road.
Today was another big driving day for us, although not as bad as yesterday. Only 4 hours instead of 6. I was hungry so we stop at a service station pretty quickly to grab some breakfast. We got 2 raspberry muffins, yogurt, and a banana and we ate it inside.
Then we got back on the road. The drive was nice although not nearly as scenic as some of our other drives as we were mainly on the M6 (a big motorway). I slept as usual for a good part of it as well.
We decided we would try to squeze in Blenheim Palace before it closed at 5:30pm so that we wouldn't have to do it the next day with Windsor Castle. We made it to the Palace around 2:15pm so we had about 3 hours to enjoy it.
We entered the grounds and we couldn't believe how big they were. It didn't even feel like you were right next to a town once you entered the gates. It had its own man-made river and island plus lots of green grass, trees, and flowers. It was enormous.
We found a place to park and walked up to buy our tickets to go inside. (They cost £16.50 per person - kind of expensive.) We walked through the front gate and couldn't believe how big this house is - no wonder it's called a Palace!
We found our way to the front door and then realized that they let all the visitors come through the side entrance and leave the grand entrance directly in front of the front door for the occupants of the house.
We went inside and were instructed on where to go. A tour was starting in about 15 minutes and we could tour the section about Winston Churchill in the rooms to our right before our tour began (for those who didn't already know, Churchill is a decendant of the Duke of Marlborourgh - the family who owns the Palace - and was born in that house).
We walked through the rooms and saw pictures of Winston and his family, letters, trinkets, and information about him. We also saw the room he was born in and one of his baby night gowns. Then we waited in a little side room for the tour to begin. In this room there were portraits of the different Dukes of Marlborourgh and one large portrait of the first Duke and his family. They were all pretty big and I really liked looking at these and trying to envision what each person was like.
After a bit, our tour guide came and started telling us about the different Dukes and their families. He then took us around to all the public state apartments and explained various things in each room. Each room was also filled with portraits all over the walls and I liked looking at these a lot. There were also beautiful tapestries on the walls that were made specifically for a certain spot on a wall in each room. To me, the tapestries were inplace of wall paper and were really neat. The 1st Duke had these commissioned and were of different important battles he had led in the early 1700s.
When we were done with this part of the tour, we were led outside and had to go around to the front of the house to start a second audio tour if we wanted to. So we did. We had to wait a little bit because the audio was on a timer.
They then let us go up the stairs and start this tour. This tour was quite different and, honestly, a little weird. They had reconstructed scenes from the different time periods with the different Dukes to teach you a little more about each. They used anamatronics for part of it and the "ghost" of the lady in waiting to the first Duchess to help tell the story. She was a hollogram type thing that they projected onto the walls on the different rooms you entered. Eventually you were brought to the present day and there was a short video from the present Duke. We kind of chuckled under our breath when he was done welcoming us to his house as the way he spoke was just so stuffy and you could tell that he had been raised to speak in that tone and in that way.
Gretchen had told us that there was a hedge maze on the grounds at this place so we wanted to make sure we had time to do that. It was nearing 5:00pm so we walked as quickly as we could to the area with the maze. We got to it and it wasn't as big as others I've been in but we both love mazes and had to do it.
When we started it, it wasn't very challenging. The only way you could go was the right way - there were no deadends or ways that took you far away from the direction you were supposed to be going so we were afraid that this wasn't going to be a very exciting maze.
There was a staircase that you had to climb to a platform that overlooked the maze and we went up there. We we came down the other side there were two ways we could go so we thought we would each take a different path to see where each led. Well, even though it wasn't a very big maze, the furthur I could tell I was away from Miah as the maze ended up being a bit more challenging with multiple paths than originally thought, the more scared I got so I was very happy when we finally bumped into each other. We then decided to stay together the rest of the time to find the center, the goal.
We decided to do take turns leading the other through the maze as we both like to find the right way to go (we did this in the Dole Pineapple maze in Hawaii and this worked out well for us as one person leads until they hit a deadend and then we turn around and let the other person lead until they hit a deadend). Miah started and then not too long later it was my turn. I got us to the other side where the second set of stairs and platform were.
We got up on top and saw that we weren't too far away from the center (you could reach the exit from the center of the maze). I let Miah lead us the rest of the way and it was actually a good thing too because I would have gone a different way once we got back down into the maze and he was able to find the path to the center with the way he chose.
We then completed the maze and walked out. Directly next to the maze was a little put put area. So we picked up some clubs and balls and played the 9 hole course. Miah beat me by 2 strokes but then he let me do one bonus hole and I ended up beating him by one or two strokes so we both won!
By that time it was 5:30pm and the maze area was closing so we headed back the long path to our car. Once back in the car, we put in Oxford as our next destination and started heading there. As we were entering the city, I checked to see what time we told our next B&B what time we would be arriving and I had told them between 6:00pm and 6:30pm and it was now around 6:15pm so I called to tell them we would be a little later.
(That was one hard thing to figure out was what time to tell the B&Bs to expect our arrival. We had no clue how late we would be out and didn't want to say too late of a time to keep them up late but not too early either to miss out on doing things. It was especially hard as it stayed light out so late so we were able to do things later than we had anticipated. Gennerally, telling them between 7 and 8 in the evening was a safe bet and it allowed us to settle in and get to bed at a reasonable hour.)
We then found some close parking to walk to our dinner destination: Pizza Hut. We decided to go their as we knew the prices and what we would get for the prices, especially after Jeremiah's experience the night before with his Chili Con Carne slop we weren't really in the mood to take chances again.
We ordered a pepperoni and black olive medium pizza and a chicken caesar side salad. The food was good and filling and the service was okay. We then walked around the area we were in for a little bit. We found a telephone booth and had been meaning to call my parents and Jeremiah's grandparents for the last few days but every time we had thought about it, it was too early in the morning for them and when it would have been a good time for them, we forgot to do it. So since we had remembered at last, we thought this would be a good opportunity (plus the booth was relatively clean and it even had an automatic air freshener in it!)
Jeremiah first called his grandparents and they were tickled to get the call. Then I called my dad at work and my mom on her cell. It was nice being able to talk to all of them.
Then we walked around a bit more, found some interesting gargolye-looking things, and took some pictures. It was starting to get late and we didn't want to arrive too late at the B&B so we headed back to the car to leave for the night.
The B&B wasn't too far away and we found it pretty easily, with the GPS of course. We were surprised that this guesthouse was bigger than we had remembered from the pictures online. It was a very nice looking place.
We were shown to our room which was very comfortable and clean and it had the biggest bathroom of our trip thus far. We felt really good in their and thought it was a great end to our B&Bs for the trip. The guesthouse had a common area for the guests and even had a pool/snooker table in it. We thought about playing but there were some others already on it.
So we turned on the TV and Jeremiah reminded me that there was a show on that I wanted to watch that started at 9:00pm and it was now almost 9:30pm. It was a show about a couple who spends a week in a different time period eating food, wearing clothes, and doing activities of that time period. This week was the 1940s.
The couple had to go through physical tests before and after the week to see how the food of that day affected their bodies. Overall, they eat were healthier, I believe. Mainly, I think, because there were not the little luxuries of candy and sweets around for you to get fat on. It was an interesting show and I would like to watch more of it.
We then got ready for bed and fell asleep in a very comfortable bed.
Until tomorrow!
S&J
This morning we slept in a bit in our luxurious Travelodge room; didn't want to waste it! We then got ready and packed our things. Around 9:30am we were out the door and on the road.
Today was another big driving day for us, although not as bad as yesterday. Only 4 hours instead of 6. I was hungry so we stop at a service station pretty quickly to grab some breakfast. We got 2 raspberry muffins, yogurt, and a banana and we ate it inside.
Then we got back on the road. The drive was nice although not nearly as scenic as some of our other drives as we were mainly on the M6 (a big motorway). I slept as usual for a good part of it as well.
We decided we would try to squeze in Blenheim Palace before it closed at 5:30pm so that we wouldn't have to do it the next day with Windsor Castle. We made it to the Palace around 2:15pm so we had about 3 hours to enjoy it.
We entered the grounds and we couldn't believe how big they were. It didn't even feel like you were right next to a town once you entered the gates. It had its own man-made river and island plus lots of green grass, trees, and flowers. It was enormous.
We found a place to park and walked up to buy our tickets to go inside. (They cost £16.50 per person - kind of expensive.) We walked through the front gate and couldn't believe how big this house is - no wonder it's called a Palace!
We found our way to the front door and then realized that they let all the visitors come through the side entrance and leave the grand entrance directly in front of the front door for the occupants of the house.
We went inside and were instructed on where to go. A tour was starting in about 15 minutes and we could tour the section about Winston Churchill in the rooms to our right before our tour began (for those who didn't already know, Churchill is a decendant of the Duke of Marlborourgh - the family who owns the Palace - and was born in that house).
We walked through the rooms and saw pictures of Winston and his family, letters, trinkets, and information about him. We also saw the room he was born in and one of his baby night gowns. Then we waited in a little side room for the tour to begin. In this room there were portraits of the different Dukes of Marlborourgh and one large portrait of the first Duke and his family. They were all pretty big and I really liked looking at these and trying to envision what each person was like.
After a bit, our tour guide came and started telling us about the different Dukes and their families. He then took us around to all the public state apartments and explained various things in each room. Each room was also filled with portraits all over the walls and I liked looking at these a lot. There were also beautiful tapestries on the walls that were made specifically for a certain spot on a wall in each room. To me, the tapestries were inplace of wall paper and were really neat. The 1st Duke had these commissioned and were of different important battles he had led in the early 1700s.
When we were done with this part of the tour, we were led outside and had to go around to the front of the house to start a second audio tour if we wanted to. So we did. We had to wait a little bit because the audio was on a timer.
They then let us go up the stairs and start this tour. This tour was quite different and, honestly, a little weird. They had reconstructed scenes from the different time periods with the different Dukes to teach you a little more about each. They used anamatronics for part of it and the "ghost" of the lady in waiting to the first Duchess to help tell the story. She was a hollogram type thing that they projected onto the walls on the different rooms you entered. Eventually you were brought to the present day and there was a short video from the present Duke. We kind of chuckled under our breath when he was done welcoming us to his house as the way he spoke was just so stuffy and you could tell that he had been raised to speak in that tone and in that way.
Gretchen had told us that there was a hedge maze on the grounds at this place so we wanted to make sure we had time to do that. It was nearing 5:00pm so we walked as quickly as we could to the area with the maze. We got to it and it wasn't as big as others I've been in but we both love mazes and had to do it.
When we started it, it wasn't very challenging. The only way you could go was the right way - there were no deadends or ways that took you far away from the direction you were supposed to be going so we were afraid that this wasn't going to be a very exciting maze.
There was a staircase that you had to climb to a platform that overlooked the maze and we went up there. We we came down the other side there were two ways we could go so we thought we would each take a different path to see where each led. Well, even though it wasn't a very big maze, the furthur I could tell I was away from Miah as the maze ended up being a bit more challenging with multiple paths than originally thought, the more scared I got so I was very happy when we finally bumped into each other. We then decided to stay together the rest of the time to find the center, the goal.
We decided to do take turns leading the other through the maze as we both like to find the right way to go (we did this in the Dole Pineapple maze in Hawaii and this worked out well for us as one person leads until they hit a deadend and then we turn around and let the other person lead until they hit a deadend). Miah started and then not too long later it was my turn. I got us to the other side where the second set of stairs and platform were.
We got up on top and saw that we weren't too far away from the center (you could reach the exit from the center of the maze). I let Miah lead us the rest of the way and it was actually a good thing too because I would have gone a different way once we got back down into the maze and he was able to find the path to the center with the way he chose.
We then completed the maze and walked out. Directly next to the maze was a little put put area. So we picked up some clubs and balls and played the 9 hole course. Miah beat me by 2 strokes but then he let me do one bonus hole and I ended up beating him by one or two strokes so we both won!
By that time it was 5:30pm and the maze area was closing so we headed back the long path to our car. Once back in the car, we put in Oxford as our next destination and started heading there. As we were entering the city, I checked to see what time we told our next B&B what time we would be arriving and I had told them between 6:00pm and 6:30pm and it was now around 6:15pm so I called to tell them we would be a little later.
(That was one hard thing to figure out was what time to tell the B&Bs to expect our arrival. We had no clue how late we would be out and didn't want to say too late of a time to keep them up late but not too early either to miss out on doing things. It was especially hard as it stayed light out so late so we were able to do things later than we had anticipated. Gennerally, telling them between 7 and 8 in the evening was a safe bet and it allowed us to settle in and get to bed at a reasonable hour.)
We then found some close parking to walk to our dinner destination: Pizza Hut. We decided to go their as we knew the prices and what we would get for the prices, especially after Jeremiah's experience the night before with his Chili Con Carne slop we weren't really in the mood to take chances again.
We ordered a pepperoni and black olive medium pizza and a chicken caesar side salad. The food was good and filling and the service was okay. We then walked around the area we were in for a little bit. We found a telephone booth and had been meaning to call my parents and Jeremiah's grandparents for the last few days but every time we had thought about it, it was too early in the morning for them and when it would have been a good time for them, we forgot to do it. So since we had remembered at last, we thought this would be a good opportunity (plus the booth was relatively clean and it even had an automatic air freshener in it!)
Jeremiah first called his grandparents and they were tickled to get the call. Then I called my dad at work and my mom on her cell. It was nice being able to talk to all of them.
Then we walked around a bit more, found some interesting gargolye-looking things, and took some pictures. It was starting to get late and we didn't want to arrive too late at the B&B so we headed back to the car to leave for the night.
The B&B wasn't too far away and we found it pretty easily, with the GPS of course. We were surprised that this guesthouse was bigger than we had remembered from the pictures online. It was a very nice looking place.
We were shown to our room which was very comfortable and clean and it had the biggest bathroom of our trip thus far. We felt really good in their and thought it was a great end to our B&Bs for the trip. The guesthouse had a common area for the guests and even had a pool/snooker table in it. We thought about playing but there were some others already on it.
So we turned on the TV and Jeremiah reminded me that there was a show on that I wanted to watch that started at 9:00pm and it was now almost 9:30pm. It was a show about a couple who spends a week in a different time period eating food, wearing clothes, and doing activities of that time period. This week was the 1940s.
The couple had to go through physical tests before and after the week to see how the food of that day affected their bodies. Overall, they eat were healthier, I believe. Mainly, I think, because there were not the little luxuries of candy and sweets around for you to get fat on. It was an interesting show and I would like to watch more of it.
We then got ready for bed and fell asleep in a very comfortable bed.
Until tomorrow!
S&J
Monday, May 19, 2008
Day 18 - Leaving Scotland, Entering Keswick
May 19, 2008
We woke up for our last morning in Scotland and started getting ready. We scheduled the earliest breakfast we could with our hostess at 8:00am and wanted to be there right on time as we needed to get out quickly to start the 6 hour drive that was ahead of us.
We had another wonderful breakfast and enjoyed talking more with our hostess, Caroline. She was very friendly and if you are ever in the Drumnadrochit area, make sure to stay at this B&B (http://www.loch-ness-farm.co.uk/); you won't regret it and the prices are very reasonable.
We finished packing as quickly as possible and I took a few more pictures. We got back in the car and said goodbye to the farm and all the hairy cows.
Then we started off towards Inverness to head on down to the Lake District. We got a really good view of the Loch on this route and stopped to take a few more pictures and to say goodbye to Nessie.
We went through Inverness and started our way down between Edinburgh and Glasgow. We made one toilet stop but otherwise drove straight through. I would say more about the drive except that we were on major motorways/highways so there wasn't as much pretty stuff to see, although you do get a good view of the rolling hills and some mountains as you leave Inverness, but I was also asleep for a lot of the drive.
We arrived in Keswick around 3:00pm and found the street with my sister's B&B. Parking was a little tricky as the B&B was on a street really close to the city centre so there was much street parking available. But we did manage to find a spot a little ways down.
We then walked back down the street and I could not find a sign for the B&B and was looking for the number on the door (12). Well, luckily Becky had a window view room out to the street and she poked her head out to signal me where to go. Apparently the house number was 22, not 12 (not sure where I got 12 from).
She let us in and we walked upstairs to her room. It was a very pretty place and they had a nice room. We sat down in some chairs and started sharing our different experiences thus far and our pictures. Gretchen, my sister's friend whom she was travelling with, was currently at the laundromat.
We just chatted for a bit and then Gretchen came back. We then decided to take a little walk to the lake before getting some dinner.
We walked through the town and it was a really cute town with shops, pubs, and cobble stone streets. We found the path that lead down to the lake and we followed it. We made our way down and found beautiful views to take pictures of (Becky ran out of memory on her camera and forgot to bring another memory stick with her). There were some geese around and after a little bit, Jeremiah and Gretchen decided to try to chase/capture a geese. It was pretty funny.
We then walked a bit further down alongside the lake and smelled a campfire not too far off. It smelt just like Hume and made us what to get there even more. Near the shore we found a really neat looking tree with many of its roots exposed. We also found lots of rocks and after a little bit of trying to skip rocks, Jeremiah started throwing rocks at a larger rock a little ways off to see how many times he could hit it. To this, Gretchen made the comment, "See Sara, you don't need kids, you have Jeremiah." :) He had fun and I took some pictures.
After a bit, we headed back into town to find a place to eat and we finally settled on The Kings Arms. Jeremiah and me were a little iffy on doing a pub as we aren't quite pub food people, but we thought we would give it a try.
I got a Cottage Pie, which was just like a Sheppard's pie, with new potatoes and vegetables. Jeremiah got Chili Con Carne with Nachos. My food was very good and I was pleasantly surprised. Jeremiah's on the other hand...well, let's just say that it didn't have much flavor and what they consider to be nachos is not what they consider to be nachos - they stuck 5 tortilla chip in his chili dish and without any cheese! Not quite what he was expecting especially as Gretchen got a side of Nachos and that looked a lot more like what nachos are supposed to look like. Oh, well. It just made him look forward to coming home to some "real" nachos.
We had a good time and some good laughs. I asked Becky what she wanted for her big birthday party coming up in September and we chatted a bit about this. Then at some point, I leaned across the table, put my hand on the side of my mouth to cover it a bit, and asked in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear but in the tone of a whisper, "You are inviting Gretchen, aren't you?" We all got a good laugh out of this as I already knew she had invited Gretchen but it was just too tempting to let the jest slide.
We then walked back to their B&B and got a few things out of the car before going to their room. We sat around and talked for a little bit more while eating some biscuits for dessert. The biscuits were rather hard to pull apart as the caramel had stuck them really good together (being in the car the last few weeks probably didn't help as well). So I ended up with 3 stuck together and ate them like a sandwich. It was a bit much and I still shiver a bit when thinking about eating one again right now.
Around 9:00pm, we said our goodbyes as we had a little bit of a drive to get to our Travelodge in Carlisle that night. We were pretty short on gas and needed to fill up before we left, but the gas stations in the area closed at 9:00pm and by the time we got there it was 9:07pm. The mileage gage on the car said we had 12 miles left and we needed about 37 to get to our Travelodge so we needed to find gas fast and before they all closed.
We tried finding some other stations on the GPS but it took us to one that didn't exist and another than was closed for construction. We stopped by a pub to asked them, and he gave us directions. We followed them to find ourselves back at the first station that we had gone to.
We didn't know what to do and I was starting to think we might be spending the night in the car that night, just waiting until the station opened in the morning. We parked the car at the station and walked back towards town to see if we could find someone who knew of a station that was open longer.
We walked in the first pub we came to and the guy and girl there were really nice and helpful. They said that none of the stations in town stay open very late, although he said they should, and they talked between themselves as to which direction we should go to get to the next 24 hour station. They were trying to decide between Cockermouth and Penrith. On the GPS, it said that the Cockermouth station was closer (I had seen this before we left the car at the station) but the girl was pretty sure that the Penrith station was closer and that it was definitely a 24 hour station. The only concern the guy had was that the way to Penrith was uphill while the way to Cockermouth was mainly down hill.
We thanked them for all their information and help and headed back to the car. Once there I found the station they were talking about in Penrith and it was 16 miles away. By this point the gage on the car said we had 7 miles left.
We prayed that God would get us there safely and, if not, that we would find a safe place to park the car on the side of the road for the night while we waited until the morning came.
We headed out and found that there were quite a few hills to go over, but it also meant that there were quite a few hills to coast down and not use any gas. We tried to be very careful to not go to fast or have the car in a lower gear for any length of time and just hoped that the gage was wrong.
We counted down the miles on the GPS and although I thought it would be the longest 15 miles of my life, they actually went by pretty quickly and before you knew it, we could see the station in the roundabout!
We made it! We thanked God and filled up the tank.
We then made our way up the M6 to Carlisle to our Travelodge. It was such a nicer trip knowing that we weren't going to run out of gas any time soon.
Once at the Travelodge, we found some street parking. We thought we were going to have to pay for parking but it ended up being free. We got inside and had a very warm welcome by the staff at the counter, even though it was near 11:00pm by this time.
We headed up to our room and were very pleasantly surprised by the space, cleanliness, and moderness of it all. It was great and we could have seen ourselves staying here for even longer (and at £30 per night, it was a great price). They even had a flat screen TV on the wall with more channels than we had gotten at any other place. We would highly recommend this one to anyone travelling in that area.
We settled in a bit and finally headed to bed. It been a very relaxing but also adventurous day for us.
Love,
S&J
We woke up for our last morning in Scotland and started getting ready. We scheduled the earliest breakfast we could with our hostess at 8:00am and wanted to be there right on time as we needed to get out quickly to start the 6 hour drive that was ahead of us.
We had another wonderful breakfast and enjoyed talking more with our hostess, Caroline. She was very friendly and if you are ever in the Drumnadrochit area, make sure to stay at this B&B (http://www.loch-ness-farm.co.uk/); you won't regret it and the prices are very reasonable.
We finished packing as quickly as possible and I took a few more pictures. We got back in the car and said goodbye to the farm and all the hairy cows.
Then we started off towards Inverness to head on down to the Lake District. We got a really good view of the Loch on this route and stopped to take a few more pictures and to say goodbye to Nessie.
We went through Inverness and started our way down between Edinburgh and Glasgow. We made one toilet stop but otherwise drove straight through. I would say more about the drive except that we were on major motorways/highways so there wasn't as much pretty stuff to see, although you do get a good view of the rolling hills and some mountains as you leave Inverness, but I was also asleep for a lot of the drive.
We arrived in Keswick around 3:00pm and found the street with my sister's B&B. Parking was a little tricky as the B&B was on a street really close to the city centre so there was much street parking available. But we did manage to find a spot a little ways down.
We then walked back down the street and I could not find a sign for the B&B and was looking for the number on the door (12). Well, luckily Becky had a window view room out to the street and she poked her head out to signal me where to go. Apparently the house number was 22, not 12 (not sure where I got 12 from).
She let us in and we walked upstairs to her room. It was a very pretty place and they had a nice room. We sat down in some chairs and started sharing our different experiences thus far and our pictures. Gretchen, my sister's friend whom she was travelling with, was currently at the laundromat.
We just chatted for a bit and then Gretchen came back. We then decided to take a little walk to the lake before getting some dinner.
We walked through the town and it was a really cute town with shops, pubs, and cobble stone streets. We found the path that lead down to the lake and we followed it. We made our way down and found beautiful views to take pictures of (Becky ran out of memory on her camera and forgot to bring another memory stick with her). There were some geese around and after a little bit, Jeremiah and Gretchen decided to try to chase/capture a geese. It was pretty funny.
We then walked a bit further down alongside the lake and smelled a campfire not too far off. It smelt just like Hume and made us what to get there even more. Near the shore we found a really neat looking tree with many of its roots exposed. We also found lots of rocks and after a little bit of trying to skip rocks, Jeremiah started throwing rocks at a larger rock a little ways off to see how many times he could hit it. To this, Gretchen made the comment, "See Sara, you don't need kids, you have Jeremiah." :) He had fun and I took some pictures.
After a bit, we headed back into town to find a place to eat and we finally settled on The Kings Arms. Jeremiah and me were a little iffy on doing a pub as we aren't quite pub food people, but we thought we would give it a try.
I got a Cottage Pie, which was just like a Sheppard's pie, with new potatoes and vegetables. Jeremiah got Chili Con Carne with Nachos. My food was very good and I was pleasantly surprised. Jeremiah's on the other hand...well, let's just say that it didn't have much flavor and what they consider to be nachos is not what they consider to be nachos - they stuck 5 tortilla chip in his chili dish and without any cheese! Not quite what he was expecting especially as Gretchen got a side of Nachos and that looked a lot more like what nachos are supposed to look like. Oh, well. It just made him look forward to coming home to some "real" nachos.
We had a good time and some good laughs. I asked Becky what she wanted for her big birthday party coming up in September and we chatted a bit about this. Then at some point, I leaned across the table, put my hand on the side of my mouth to cover it a bit, and asked in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear but in the tone of a whisper, "You are inviting Gretchen, aren't you?" We all got a good laugh out of this as I already knew she had invited Gretchen but it was just too tempting to let the jest slide.
We then walked back to their B&B and got a few things out of the car before going to their room. We sat around and talked for a little bit more while eating some biscuits for dessert. The biscuits were rather hard to pull apart as the caramel had stuck them really good together (being in the car the last few weeks probably didn't help as well). So I ended up with 3 stuck together and ate them like a sandwich. It was a bit much and I still shiver a bit when thinking about eating one again right now.
Around 9:00pm, we said our goodbyes as we had a little bit of a drive to get to our Travelodge in Carlisle that night. We were pretty short on gas and needed to fill up before we left, but the gas stations in the area closed at 9:00pm and by the time we got there it was 9:07pm. The mileage gage on the car said we had 12 miles left and we needed about 37 to get to our Travelodge so we needed to find gas fast and before they all closed.
We tried finding some other stations on the GPS but it took us to one that didn't exist and another than was closed for construction. We stopped by a pub to asked them, and he gave us directions. We followed them to find ourselves back at the first station that we had gone to.
We didn't know what to do and I was starting to think we might be spending the night in the car that night, just waiting until the station opened in the morning. We parked the car at the station and walked back towards town to see if we could find someone who knew of a station that was open longer.
We walked in the first pub we came to and the guy and girl there were really nice and helpful. They said that none of the stations in town stay open very late, although he said they should, and they talked between themselves as to which direction we should go to get to the next 24 hour station. They were trying to decide between Cockermouth and Penrith. On the GPS, it said that the Cockermouth station was closer (I had seen this before we left the car at the station) but the girl was pretty sure that the Penrith station was closer and that it was definitely a 24 hour station. The only concern the guy had was that the way to Penrith was uphill while the way to Cockermouth was mainly down hill.
We thanked them for all their information and help and headed back to the car. Once there I found the station they were talking about in Penrith and it was 16 miles away. By this point the gage on the car said we had 7 miles left.
We prayed that God would get us there safely and, if not, that we would find a safe place to park the car on the side of the road for the night while we waited until the morning came.
We headed out and found that there were quite a few hills to go over, but it also meant that there were quite a few hills to coast down and not use any gas. We tried to be very careful to not go to fast or have the car in a lower gear for any length of time and just hoped that the gage was wrong.
We counted down the miles on the GPS and although I thought it would be the longest 15 miles of my life, they actually went by pretty quickly and before you knew it, we could see the station in the roundabout!
We made it! We thanked God and filled up the tank.
We then made our way up the M6 to Carlisle to our Travelodge. It was such a nicer trip knowing that we weren't going to run out of gas any time soon.
Once at the Travelodge, we found some street parking. We thought we were going to have to pay for parking but it ended up being free. We got inside and had a very warm welcome by the staff at the counter, even though it was near 11:00pm by this time.
We headed up to our room and were very pleasantly surprised by the space, cleanliness, and moderness of it all. It was great and we could have seen ourselves staying here for even longer (and at £30 per night, it was a great price). They even had a flat screen TV on the wall with more channels than we had gotten at any other place. We would highly recommend this one to anyone travelling in that area.
We settled in a bit and finally headed to bed. It been a very relaxing but also adventurous day for us.
Love,
S&J
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Day 17 - Drumnadrochit & Nessie
May 18, 2008
We slept really well the night before and felt really well rested waking up. We got up in time for our scheduled breakfast at 9am. We went to the breakfast room and sat down at the available table. There were already two other couples at the other tables starting on their breakfast.
The view from this room was amazing. It was so beautiful. You saw part of their farm immediately in front and then a little ways off to the left you could see Loch Ness.
The host, Caroline, took our orders. Jeremiah got scrambled eggs and salmon and I go scrambled eggs on toast. The food was really good and Caroline was very friendly and welcoming.
During breakfast we got to chatting with the other guests. The American couple we had seen the night before was from Minnesota (although, they didn't have an accent so you wouldn't have known it) and the other couple was Brittish and from the South West (I can't remember the name).
We had a really nice time talking with both couples; they were very friendly. We talked about traffic signs in the UK and we helped out the other American couple figure out what a few signs meant.
The American woman admitted that when they were first driving around, she thought that whenever she saw a camera sign, she thought it was like we do it in the States where that tells you that a scenic view is coming up so get out your camera. She later discovered that this actually meant that there was a camera up ahead ready to take your picture if you are speeding. We all got a laugh out of this, especially the Brittish couple. These couples were both leaving that morning but would have stayed another night if the B&B wasn't already booked - good thing we had booked both our nights in advance for this place.
After breakfast, we said goodbye to the other couples and got ready for the day. We decided to try one of the Nessie centers first. We chose the Loch Ness Monster Visitor Center instead of the Loch Ness Exhibition. Outside the Visitor Center, there was a statue of the monster so I got my picture on it. We then looked inside the gift shop a bit and bought a few postcards and our admission to the center (£5 each).
We walked through the doors and down the hallway like the guy told us to. Along the walls there were pictures of different "monster sightings" including Nessie with little captions next to the pictures. At the end of the hall, we turned right up a few steps and in to the little movie theatre they had. We found some seats and waited for the movie to begin.
The movie was about Loch Ness and about the different sightings people have had. They also talked about scientific expiditions that have been done to try and find Nessie but they didn't find anything. The movie lasted around 15 minutes. We then went out the door and were back in the hallway we had started in.
We went to our left down another hallway and looked at the pictures and captions on the wall. Then we turned left again down another hallway to see more of the same things. There was a door at the end and we opened it to find ourselves outside. Apparently that was the whole Visitor Center. Not really worth the money - wouldn't really recommend it.
We were slightly disappointed and got in our car. We then decided to go to Urquhart Castle which is at the entrance to the town (side note: Caroline's husband is from the Urquhart clan and it was his ancestors that used to live there hundreds of years ago).
We drove to the parking lot and found a spot. Jeremiah was here back in 1992 and he does not recall having to pay to get in nor does he remember there being a wall with tons of trees next to the wall that obstruct your view of the castle. He remembers being able to look at the castle without anything in his view. Well, that kind of ticked us off plus were tired of paying money for every little thing we wanted to see so we decided not to pay to walk down to and through the castle.
Instead, we climbed up on the wall to hold our camera over the trees to take pictures of it. The castle is all ruins and there isn't much left of it. We had already seen quite a few castles on our trip already so it really wasn't a big deal not to see the "insides" of this one.
There were two levels to the parking area and we had parked on the lower one. We walked up a path that went behind the circular visitor center. Between this path and the upper parking lot, there was some grass on the hill. So we climbed up on this to get a better view of the castle. The top of the visitor center had grass on it and a square piece of cement.
There was a railing along the platform we had walked to from the path that continued down the stairs to the entrance of the visitor center. On the platform, there was some space between where the railing was located and the side of the visitor center. In this railing was a section of "missing" railing (it wasn't really missing, but it was large enough to go under to stand on the other side the other side).
I had a sudden urge to go under the railing and climb on top of the visitor center to get a better look at the castle (and to show my definance :) ). I walked over to the railing and stared at it for a while debating if I should do it or not - I didn't want to get yelled at for doing it but I also really wanted to do something "dangerous." Jeremiah just stayed on the top of the grassy hill being amused by my indecision.
I decided to walk down to the entrance of the visitor center to see if you could see me climbing on top as I would be doing it right next to windows. I walked in and was a little startled to see a desk immediately at the entrance with a worker there. He looked at me a little funny as I told him I was just looking (even though there wasn't anything really to look at). I picked up the Guide Book on the table and thumbed through it a bit while I tried to see if I could be seen through the windows above. (The visitor center was the height of a two story building but there was only one floor inside. There was also a column in the center of the room and it appeared that the worker at the desk was the only one in there.)
I smiled at the worker and left the way I had come in. I walked back up the stairs to my post and told Jeremiah of my discovery. I felt that I wouldnt' be seen so I thought about just doing it until I saw on the side of the building an ADT box (security alarm company). That made me nervous. I was pretty sure they only detected when a window or door was opened when it was turned on but I wasn't sure if it could detect movement on the building or not.
Well, after a few more minutes of thinking about it I decided to take the plunge and just do it. I walked up to where Jeremiah was and gave him the camera so he could document me up there. I walked back down to the railing and went under it. Then I put my hands on the top of the building and my right foot on the railing to give me a boost. Then before I knew it, I was on the top.
I walked over to the cement square and posed for the pictures. I didn't stay up there too long before I got back down again. Then I got the camera from Jeremiah and did it again so that this time I could take pictures of the castle. I snapped a few and then climbed back down. It was so much fun.
There was a biker who watched me do some of it and he started walking back and forth on the platform with his camera in hand. I think he wanted to do the same thing but he ended up not doing it; by that time there were more people around. We then went back to the car and I was very proud of myself.
We got in the car and drove back in to town. We found the Information Center and parking in their parking lot. We walked inside and talked to the worker there. We asked about good walking/hiking areas nearby. She gave us a map and told us how to get there (you just leave your car there and walk up the street a bit to another street where you turn to the right and then walk up that one a little ways until you get to the start of the path through the woodlands).
We decided to grab some lunch first before we headed out. We walked across the street to a little cafe that served pizza. We ordered a pepperoni and black olive pizza and some garlic bread. As I was ordering the food (you were at a window outside), the waitress inside made a noise of disgust and said under her breath to the other waitress who was taking my order "The Highlander."
I turned around and saw a man on a electric wheelchair completely decked out in authentic Scottish garb, staff and sword included. I asked if he comes here often and they said no but that he is just really rude to them so they aren't thrilled when he does come.
I went to our table and told Jeremiah what I had heard. We wanted to get a better look at him but without staring or looking like we were looking at him but our backs were to him. We also wanted to get a picture of him to show to others. So I took the camera and turned to my right a bit and snapped a picture hoping he didn't see. I wanted a better one. So I lfted my left arm a bit and put the camera under it while I slouched over to see through the viewer if it would be a good one. While I was doing this I realized how stupid I must look in this pose and I started laughing uncontrolably. I quickly took the picture before I lost all control and then explained to Jeremiah why I was laughing. He then proceeded to laugh at me.
Our lunch was very good, especially the garlic bread. I noticed that they sold ice cream so I went up to order my very first offical 99 Cone (vanilla ice cream with a stick of Flake in it). It was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
When we finished, we walked back across the street to our car to change into our running shoes for the hike. Then we headed off up the street to the other street and then to the path.
We made a slight wrong turn as the map we were given didn't have enough land marks on it to show us exactly what fork in the road we were supposed to go left at to get to the path, but we soon found out, back-tracked, and made our way up the right road to the path.
All of the trails through the woodlands (there were 4) were loops and they intersected with at least one other at some point. We decided to take the one that was supposed to have the best view of Drumnadrochit and Loch Ness first; it was also supposed to be the most strenuous (the red trail).
The hike was pretty steep and it did make us breath pretty deeply going up it, but it wasn't that long of a hike. We made it to the top and were a little surprised to find some other people up there. We took a few pictures of the view and one of the other people there was nice enough to take a picture of us.
Then a huge group of loud women came up and that was our cue to get out of there. We walked down the other side of the loop and when we came to the part where it intersected with another trail (the green trail), we took the green trail. This trail was supposed to give you a view of another small city and take you more through the woodlands.
This trail was very nice and quiet. We stopped to read little plaques along the way about the different trees that were in the area. One plaque was about the Douglas Fir. I was a little surprised to see a Christmas tree standing there but then I read why. Apparently, years ago, a Mr. Douglas from Scotland went to America, found this tree, and brought back seeds to plant it in Scotland. The tree was then named after him. Interesting.
Jeremiah had fun on this trail finding good rock souveniers to take home. He found a good one for his mom as well (it looked layered and was pretty interesting).
When we finished this trail, we were back at the beginning where we had originally started. We then looked at the map and decided to go on the Blue trail which started up the road a bit. So we walked and found another road we were supposed to turn on. But, as we discovered later, we didn't find the trail head. Instead we continued up this road until we finally found a piece of wood in the ground with blue on it (these are their trail markers that are sporadically placed along the trail to let you know which one you are on). We then started on the trail but were confused a little way in and felt like we were turned around from where we thought we were going (which it turns out we were).
On the map, there was supposed to be a duck pond which is part of the reason we were taking this trail. But all we ever found was a little muddy thing without any ducks in the place we figured was supposed to be the location of the duck pond. Oh well.
We hiked along this trail which was acutally both the blue and white trails (the white trail takes you along the loop that goes around the duck pond and the blue one does this and then goes off in another direction back towards the red trail).
We continued on the blue trail to take us back. The hike was very pretty. We saw lots of beautiful flowers and foiliage and it was very quiet except for the wind and the birds. We really enjoyed it.
We apparently missed another turn as we eventually found ourselves back on the red trail (the section we had originally climbed first that day) and the blue trail was supposed to go parallel to the red trail at the end but not overlap it. Well, as I said earlier, their sign posts were sporadic and we either missed the one we needed or it didn't exist. But I didn't mind. As we were walking up to the blue trail head on the road, we saw the end of the blue trail and it was very very muddy. I was kind of glad we wouldn't have to deal with that section after all.
We made it back to the very beginning and had completed every trail. It took us a few hours and wasn't very difficult but it was very nice for our afternoon activities.
It was getting closer to dinner time (around 7pm) and we didn't really want pub food which was practically your only choice in town. We decided we would get back to the car and drive to Inverness, only 12 miles away.
It was a nice drive along Loch Ness to the town.
We found some free parking in the middle of the city (it was only free because it was Sunday and it was after a certain time). We actually parked there because we saw a sign for an Internet Cafe. We walked up to the Cafe and read that they wanted £3 per hour (translation: ~$6/hour) and there was no way we were going to pay that. So we walked on. We were at the city centre but everything was basically already closed, except for the McDonalds on the corner and there was no way we were going to eat that again.
We found another Internet Cafe, but they too were already closed. There wasn't much to see with everyting closed (and it did just look like another city) so we went back to the car. We really didn't want much for dinner other than some fruit and veggis. I had seen a grocery store on the way in to the city so we went back there. It too was already closed.
We couldn't really find anything else as we drove around some radom streets. But we did find something else I had been looking for this whole trip. The Elderly People Crossing sign!!! We were on a side street somewhere and we saw it. So we stopped the car, I got out, and I took the picture. I was so excited that I finally got it!
We went back to the main street and decided to just go back to Drumnadrochit. As we were just about to leave the city, I saw a store that I had actually seen on our way in called Morning, Noon, & Night. From the outside it looked like a 7-Eleven or AM PM but it did say on the outside (which I hadn't seen the first time through) that they sold fresh fruit and vegetables. So we thought we would at least look.
We were pleasantly surprised and they had everything we wanted. We grabbed some apples, yogurt, a mixed veggi bag, salt & vinegar crisps, water, milk, and shortbread cookies. Now that may not sound like the most balanced of dinners, but it was perfect for us.
We got back in the car and drove to the B&B after stopping along the Loch to take a quick look.
After arriving at the B&B, we went inside, took quick showers, and then ate our dinner in bed. While we ate dinner, Indiana Jones and the Ark of the Covenant was on so we had dinner and a movie. It was really fun and a good way to finish off our fun day.
When Indiana Jones was over, the news came on and then another movie (6 Days & 7 Nights - Harrison Ford marathon, I guess). I wrote in the journal for a bit and then we hit the sack.
Another fun adventure day for us.
Tomorrow, we meet up with my sister in Keswick.
Until later...
Love,
S&J
We slept really well the night before and felt really well rested waking up. We got up in time for our scheduled breakfast at 9am. We went to the breakfast room and sat down at the available table. There were already two other couples at the other tables starting on their breakfast.
The view from this room was amazing. It was so beautiful. You saw part of their farm immediately in front and then a little ways off to the left you could see Loch Ness.
The host, Caroline, took our orders. Jeremiah got scrambled eggs and salmon and I go scrambled eggs on toast. The food was really good and Caroline was very friendly and welcoming.
During breakfast we got to chatting with the other guests. The American couple we had seen the night before was from Minnesota (although, they didn't have an accent so you wouldn't have known it) and the other couple was Brittish and from the South West (I can't remember the name).
We had a really nice time talking with both couples; they were very friendly. We talked about traffic signs in the UK and we helped out the other American couple figure out what a few signs meant.
The American woman admitted that when they were first driving around, she thought that whenever she saw a camera sign, she thought it was like we do it in the States where that tells you that a scenic view is coming up so get out your camera. She later discovered that this actually meant that there was a camera up ahead ready to take your picture if you are speeding. We all got a laugh out of this, especially the Brittish couple. These couples were both leaving that morning but would have stayed another night if the B&B wasn't already booked - good thing we had booked both our nights in advance for this place.
After breakfast, we said goodbye to the other couples and got ready for the day. We decided to try one of the Nessie centers first. We chose the Loch Ness Monster Visitor Center instead of the Loch Ness Exhibition. Outside the Visitor Center, there was a statue of the monster so I got my picture on it. We then looked inside the gift shop a bit and bought a few postcards and our admission to the center (£5 each).
We walked through the doors and down the hallway like the guy told us to. Along the walls there were pictures of different "monster sightings" including Nessie with little captions next to the pictures. At the end of the hall, we turned right up a few steps and in to the little movie theatre they had. We found some seats and waited for the movie to begin.
The movie was about Loch Ness and about the different sightings people have had. They also talked about scientific expiditions that have been done to try and find Nessie but they didn't find anything. The movie lasted around 15 minutes. We then went out the door and were back in the hallway we had started in.
We went to our left down another hallway and looked at the pictures and captions on the wall. Then we turned left again down another hallway to see more of the same things. There was a door at the end and we opened it to find ourselves outside. Apparently that was the whole Visitor Center. Not really worth the money - wouldn't really recommend it.
We were slightly disappointed and got in our car. We then decided to go to Urquhart Castle which is at the entrance to the town (side note: Caroline's husband is from the Urquhart clan and it was his ancestors that used to live there hundreds of years ago).
We drove to the parking lot and found a spot. Jeremiah was here back in 1992 and he does not recall having to pay to get in nor does he remember there being a wall with tons of trees next to the wall that obstruct your view of the castle. He remembers being able to look at the castle without anything in his view. Well, that kind of ticked us off plus were tired of paying money for every little thing we wanted to see so we decided not to pay to walk down to and through the castle.
Instead, we climbed up on the wall to hold our camera over the trees to take pictures of it. The castle is all ruins and there isn't much left of it. We had already seen quite a few castles on our trip already so it really wasn't a big deal not to see the "insides" of this one.
There were two levels to the parking area and we had parked on the lower one. We walked up a path that went behind the circular visitor center. Between this path and the upper parking lot, there was some grass on the hill. So we climbed up on this to get a better view of the castle. The top of the visitor center had grass on it and a square piece of cement.
There was a railing along the platform we had walked to from the path that continued down the stairs to the entrance of the visitor center. On the platform, there was some space between where the railing was located and the side of the visitor center. In this railing was a section of "missing" railing (it wasn't really missing, but it was large enough to go under to stand on the other side the other side).
I had a sudden urge to go under the railing and climb on top of the visitor center to get a better look at the castle (and to show my definance :) ). I walked over to the railing and stared at it for a while debating if I should do it or not - I didn't want to get yelled at for doing it but I also really wanted to do something "dangerous." Jeremiah just stayed on the top of the grassy hill being amused by my indecision.
I decided to walk down to the entrance of the visitor center to see if you could see me climbing on top as I would be doing it right next to windows. I walked in and was a little startled to see a desk immediately at the entrance with a worker there. He looked at me a little funny as I told him I was just looking (even though there wasn't anything really to look at). I picked up the Guide Book on the table and thumbed through it a bit while I tried to see if I could be seen through the windows above. (The visitor center was the height of a two story building but there was only one floor inside. There was also a column in the center of the room and it appeared that the worker at the desk was the only one in there.)
I smiled at the worker and left the way I had come in. I walked back up the stairs to my post and told Jeremiah of my discovery. I felt that I wouldnt' be seen so I thought about just doing it until I saw on the side of the building an ADT box (security alarm company). That made me nervous. I was pretty sure they only detected when a window or door was opened when it was turned on but I wasn't sure if it could detect movement on the building or not.
Well, after a few more minutes of thinking about it I decided to take the plunge and just do it. I walked up to where Jeremiah was and gave him the camera so he could document me up there. I walked back down to the railing and went under it. Then I put my hands on the top of the building and my right foot on the railing to give me a boost. Then before I knew it, I was on the top.
I walked over to the cement square and posed for the pictures. I didn't stay up there too long before I got back down again. Then I got the camera from Jeremiah and did it again so that this time I could take pictures of the castle. I snapped a few and then climbed back down. It was so much fun.
There was a biker who watched me do some of it and he started walking back and forth on the platform with his camera in hand. I think he wanted to do the same thing but he ended up not doing it; by that time there were more people around. We then went back to the car and I was very proud of myself.
We got in the car and drove back in to town. We found the Information Center and parking in their parking lot. We walked inside and talked to the worker there. We asked about good walking/hiking areas nearby. She gave us a map and told us how to get there (you just leave your car there and walk up the street a bit to another street where you turn to the right and then walk up that one a little ways until you get to the start of the path through the woodlands).
We decided to grab some lunch first before we headed out. We walked across the street to a little cafe that served pizza. We ordered a pepperoni and black olive pizza and some garlic bread. As I was ordering the food (you were at a window outside), the waitress inside made a noise of disgust and said under her breath to the other waitress who was taking my order "The Highlander."
I turned around and saw a man on a electric wheelchair completely decked out in authentic Scottish garb, staff and sword included. I asked if he comes here often and they said no but that he is just really rude to them so they aren't thrilled when he does come.
I went to our table and told Jeremiah what I had heard. We wanted to get a better look at him but without staring or looking like we were looking at him but our backs were to him. We also wanted to get a picture of him to show to others. So I took the camera and turned to my right a bit and snapped a picture hoping he didn't see. I wanted a better one. So I lfted my left arm a bit and put the camera under it while I slouched over to see through the viewer if it would be a good one. While I was doing this I realized how stupid I must look in this pose and I started laughing uncontrolably. I quickly took the picture before I lost all control and then explained to Jeremiah why I was laughing. He then proceeded to laugh at me.
Our lunch was very good, especially the garlic bread. I noticed that they sold ice cream so I went up to order my very first offical 99 Cone (vanilla ice cream with a stick of Flake in it). It was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
When we finished, we walked back across the street to our car to change into our running shoes for the hike. Then we headed off up the street to the other street and then to the path.
We made a slight wrong turn as the map we were given didn't have enough land marks on it to show us exactly what fork in the road we were supposed to go left at to get to the path, but we soon found out, back-tracked, and made our way up the right road to the path.
All of the trails through the woodlands (there were 4) were loops and they intersected with at least one other at some point. We decided to take the one that was supposed to have the best view of Drumnadrochit and Loch Ness first; it was also supposed to be the most strenuous (the red trail).
The hike was pretty steep and it did make us breath pretty deeply going up it, but it wasn't that long of a hike. We made it to the top and were a little surprised to find some other people up there. We took a few pictures of the view and one of the other people there was nice enough to take a picture of us.
Then a huge group of loud women came up and that was our cue to get out of there. We walked down the other side of the loop and when we came to the part where it intersected with another trail (the green trail), we took the green trail. This trail was supposed to give you a view of another small city and take you more through the woodlands.
This trail was very nice and quiet. We stopped to read little plaques along the way about the different trees that were in the area. One plaque was about the Douglas Fir. I was a little surprised to see a Christmas tree standing there but then I read why. Apparently, years ago, a Mr. Douglas from Scotland went to America, found this tree, and brought back seeds to plant it in Scotland. The tree was then named after him. Interesting.
Jeremiah had fun on this trail finding good rock souveniers to take home. He found a good one for his mom as well (it looked layered and was pretty interesting).
When we finished this trail, we were back at the beginning where we had originally started. We then looked at the map and decided to go on the Blue trail which started up the road a bit. So we walked and found another road we were supposed to turn on. But, as we discovered later, we didn't find the trail head. Instead we continued up this road until we finally found a piece of wood in the ground with blue on it (these are their trail markers that are sporadically placed along the trail to let you know which one you are on). We then started on the trail but were confused a little way in and felt like we were turned around from where we thought we were going (which it turns out we were).
On the map, there was supposed to be a duck pond which is part of the reason we were taking this trail. But all we ever found was a little muddy thing without any ducks in the place we figured was supposed to be the location of the duck pond. Oh well.
We hiked along this trail which was acutally both the blue and white trails (the white trail takes you along the loop that goes around the duck pond and the blue one does this and then goes off in another direction back towards the red trail).
We continued on the blue trail to take us back. The hike was very pretty. We saw lots of beautiful flowers and foiliage and it was very quiet except for the wind and the birds. We really enjoyed it.
We apparently missed another turn as we eventually found ourselves back on the red trail (the section we had originally climbed first that day) and the blue trail was supposed to go parallel to the red trail at the end but not overlap it. Well, as I said earlier, their sign posts were sporadic and we either missed the one we needed or it didn't exist. But I didn't mind. As we were walking up to the blue trail head on the road, we saw the end of the blue trail and it was very very muddy. I was kind of glad we wouldn't have to deal with that section after all.
We made it back to the very beginning and had completed every trail. It took us a few hours and wasn't very difficult but it was very nice for our afternoon activities.
It was getting closer to dinner time (around 7pm) and we didn't really want pub food which was practically your only choice in town. We decided we would get back to the car and drive to Inverness, only 12 miles away.
It was a nice drive along Loch Ness to the town.
We found some free parking in the middle of the city (it was only free because it was Sunday and it was after a certain time). We actually parked there because we saw a sign for an Internet Cafe. We walked up to the Cafe and read that they wanted £3 per hour (translation: ~$6/hour) and there was no way we were going to pay that. So we walked on. We were at the city centre but everything was basically already closed, except for the McDonalds on the corner and there was no way we were going to eat that again.
We found another Internet Cafe, but they too were already closed. There wasn't much to see with everyting closed (and it did just look like another city) so we went back to the car. We really didn't want much for dinner other than some fruit and veggis. I had seen a grocery store on the way in to the city so we went back there. It too was already closed.
We couldn't really find anything else as we drove around some radom streets. But we did find something else I had been looking for this whole trip. The Elderly People Crossing sign!!! We were on a side street somewhere and we saw it. So we stopped the car, I got out, and I took the picture. I was so excited that I finally got it!
We went back to the main street and decided to just go back to Drumnadrochit. As we were just about to leave the city, I saw a store that I had actually seen on our way in called Morning, Noon, & Night. From the outside it looked like a 7-Eleven or AM PM but it did say on the outside (which I hadn't seen the first time through) that they sold fresh fruit and vegetables. So we thought we would at least look.
We were pleasantly surprised and they had everything we wanted. We grabbed some apples, yogurt, a mixed veggi bag, salt & vinegar crisps, water, milk, and shortbread cookies. Now that may not sound like the most balanced of dinners, but it was perfect for us.
We got back in the car and drove to the B&B after stopping along the Loch to take a quick look.
After arriving at the B&B, we went inside, took quick showers, and then ate our dinner in bed. While we ate dinner, Indiana Jones and the Ark of the Covenant was on so we had dinner and a movie. It was really fun and a good way to finish off our fun day.
When Indiana Jones was over, the news came on and then another movie (6 Days & 7 Nights - Harrison Ford marathon, I guess). I wrote in the journal for a bit and then we hit the sack.
Another fun adventure day for us.
Tomorrow, we meet up with my sister in Keswick.
Until later...
Love,
S&J
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Day 16 - Loch Ness & Drumnadrochit
May 17, 2008
We woke up, got ready, and went to the Little Chef next door for breakfast. This was our first time eating at a Little Chef (they seemed to be equivalent to our Denny's as they are everywhere along the freeways).
I ordered an American Breakfast which came with scrambeled egges, bacon, and pancakes. Jeremiah ordered a side of pancakes. Now, keep in mind, we were thinking our food would be similar to what you would get in America since they called it an American breakfast. Well, we were right in two aspects - you got American bacon, although we would have preferred English bacon, and we got scrambeled eggs, which I think would be pretty hard to mess up but I think I did see the cook make them in the microwave instead of on the stove. But with regards to the pancakes, we were way off.
You got three with the breakfast and 3 if you ordered a side. But they were literally half the size of a CD and very thin. We were expecting fluffy, thick buttermild pancakes that would fill us up but that was far from what we got. They were tiny and they were still cold!
Now, I'm not sure how you could have cold pancakes when they are supposed to be cooked on a griddle unless they were frozen and then heated up but not completely, which is exactly what we think they did.
Needlesstosay, we did not enjoy this breakfast very much and could not believe how much money we had to spend on it. We went up to the cash register to pay and after we left the restaurant, I realized that we didn't leave a tip on the table. Well, they didn't really serve us that great and the food really wasn't that good, so we quickly forgot that oversight.
We got our things packed and put them in the car. Then we headed back in to Edinburgh. We weren't sure exactly how to get back to the parking place we had found the previous night but we tried. We were quicly running out of time and didn't know how to get there. So we found a place on the side of the road and parked the car behind another car. There weren't any meters to put in money so we thought it must be for free in that area, plus it was a Saturday and many metered places are free on the weekends.
As we walked away from the car, I prayed that God would protect it and that nothing bad would happen while we were gone for the next hour. We found Mary King's Close once again and waited for a minute inside before the tour began. Then they opened a door for us all to go through and listen to our guide.
He then took us down the stairs to go below the building and enter the Close. Honestly, as we went on this tour it was very hard for me to imagine what this street was like when there weren't any buildings on top of it. I just couldn't get my bearings. The street was named this as Mary King was a prosperous person and lived at the very top of the street and rented out the houses along the street to tenants. The street was very steeply sloped and her house really was at the top of it as all the others houses went down the slope.
Apparently, back in those days, everyone would just throw out their garabage and bathroom waste on the street as the steep slop would carry it down to the bottom where it would sit and fester (no one there were so many diseases).
I couldnt' comprehend how sloped this street was and exactly how it looked until the very end of the tour when we were actually standing in the middle of the street and looking back up towads the top. Then I got the picture.
Throughout the tour, they took us to different buildings that used to house different people and our guide told us stories about those people. They added in props and mannequins to the different rooms to help tell the stories and to give you an idea of what it all looked like.
The top stories of the buildings on this street were demolished and the lower ones remained as they city built a new building on top of the old ones. They figured the lower parts would help to keep the new building level and would help even out the sloping ground before. That's why they are still there.
The tour was interesting but it was not at all what we were expecting. I think we were both expecting to see more of the "underground city" but instead you were just taken into a few rooms and down Mary King's Close and another close next to hers. I'm not sure I recommend going on this tour. Maybe if you don't have anything else you would rather be doing.
When the tour finished, we left and walked back to our car; it was now 11am. I was starting to get a little worried about the car and as we got close to it, there was a police officer looking at it. He was getting out his pad of paper. I went right up to him and asked if we weren't allowed to park there. He said we weren't and I said we were sorry we didn't know. He then said not to worry about it as we were now there to take care of it (Whew! No ticket.).
I asked him a few questions on where we were allowed to park and he let me know that when there is a single yellow line, you are allowed to park there for only 5 minutes and a double yellow means no parking. I asked if this was true for all the UK and he said yes. This answer was odd to me but I didn't say anything of it to him. All over the UK we have seen countless numbers of drivers park on the single yellow line so we thought that must be okay - and they didn't appear to only be there for 5 minutes. We knew that double yellow meant no parking. Well, we were just thankful we had arrived in time before he wrote a ticket.
Looking back on it, I think he may have thought that we had just parked there not that long ago (although it really had already been an hour) and saw that he was looking at the car so we came back to ask him about it. Whatever the case, I'm just glad our prayers were answered and the car was safe.
We got in the car and headed off for our long drive up to Loch Ness. First we headed to Glasgow just so we could see it as we drove through. I tried to take a few pictures from the car. Then we went North to Loch Lomand.
At Loch Lomand, which was very beautiful, we stopped and got out of the car at the only parking area we could find, but there wasn't really a good place to walk down to the water so we left after a few minutes and drove the rest of the way along the loch. It was a pretty drive.
Then we headed up through the Highlands to Drumnadrochit. This was a very beautiful drive and we took lots of pictures. I would tell you more about it, but, as usual, I was asleep most the way. One thing of note, though, was we had never seen so much roadkill in our lives during the few hours we were on this road.
You only had to drive 50 yards or so before you saw more roadkill and it was consistently showing up along the whole drive. It was really weird especially because it didn't seem like there were that many cars around to do that much damage and we certainly didn't see that many animals around that could get hit (although, maybe by the time we had gotten there all the animals that were around were already on the road).
About 1 1/2 hours away from the B&B we were getting really hungry so we found a McDonalds and stopped for dinner. I was really craving vegetables, so I ordered a side salad, which of course they were all out of. We got our food and then I saw that they had packets of carrots and packets of apples for the kid's meals. So I went to see if I could buy one of each and I could. They weren't great but at least it was something. We finished up and got back in the car.
We arrived at the B&B and were very excited about this place. It was the only B&B in the small town that was also a working farm with sheep and Highlander Cows. These cows are so cool and we've never seen any like it before; they have really long hair all over their bodies and hair on their head that hangs down and covers their eyes. I loved looking at them.
The owners had just bought a new mother with a calf and they were in the front of the house - a perfect view from the breakfast room. When we arrived, our hostess was showing around another American couple that had also just arrived.
We were shown our room, which was very comfortable, clean, and perfect (even had a four poster bed, which I had never been in one before). We brought in our things and made ourselves at home. We decided to have a night in and just relax the rest of the evening in bed and watch some TV. We watched a show that was competition to see who would be the next "Nancy" in the Oliver Broadway show in the West End. There were 5 girls competing and they each had to perform songs and then get critiqued before the viewers voted at home. I really enjoyed it and Jeremiah put up with it for me.
We had a good night and it was really nice to take it easy.
Love,
S&J
We woke up, got ready, and went to the Little Chef next door for breakfast. This was our first time eating at a Little Chef (they seemed to be equivalent to our Denny's as they are everywhere along the freeways).
I ordered an American Breakfast which came with scrambeled egges, bacon, and pancakes. Jeremiah ordered a side of pancakes. Now, keep in mind, we were thinking our food would be similar to what you would get in America since they called it an American breakfast. Well, we were right in two aspects - you got American bacon, although we would have preferred English bacon, and we got scrambeled eggs, which I think would be pretty hard to mess up but I think I did see the cook make them in the microwave instead of on the stove. But with regards to the pancakes, we were way off.
You got three with the breakfast and 3 if you ordered a side. But they were literally half the size of a CD and very thin. We were expecting fluffy, thick buttermild pancakes that would fill us up but that was far from what we got. They were tiny and they were still cold!
Now, I'm not sure how you could have cold pancakes when they are supposed to be cooked on a griddle unless they were frozen and then heated up but not completely, which is exactly what we think they did.
Needlesstosay, we did not enjoy this breakfast very much and could not believe how much money we had to spend on it. We went up to the cash register to pay and after we left the restaurant, I realized that we didn't leave a tip on the table. Well, they didn't really serve us that great and the food really wasn't that good, so we quickly forgot that oversight.
We got our things packed and put them in the car. Then we headed back in to Edinburgh. We weren't sure exactly how to get back to the parking place we had found the previous night but we tried. We were quicly running out of time and didn't know how to get there. So we found a place on the side of the road and parked the car behind another car. There weren't any meters to put in money so we thought it must be for free in that area, plus it was a Saturday and many metered places are free on the weekends.
As we walked away from the car, I prayed that God would protect it and that nothing bad would happen while we were gone for the next hour. We found Mary King's Close once again and waited for a minute inside before the tour began. Then they opened a door for us all to go through and listen to our guide.
He then took us down the stairs to go below the building and enter the Close. Honestly, as we went on this tour it was very hard for me to imagine what this street was like when there weren't any buildings on top of it. I just couldn't get my bearings. The street was named this as Mary King was a prosperous person and lived at the very top of the street and rented out the houses along the street to tenants. The street was very steeply sloped and her house really was at the top of it as all the others houses went down the slope.
Apparently, back in those days, everyone would just throw out their garabage and bathroom waste on the street as the steep slop would carry it down to the bottom where it would sit and fester (no one there were so many diseases).
I couldnt' comprehend how sloped this street was and exactly how it looked until the very end of the tour when we were actually standing in the middle of the street and looking back up towads the top. Then I got the picture.
Throughout the tour, they took us to different buildings that used to house different people and our guide told us stories about those people. They added in props and mannequins to the different rooms to help tell the stories and to give you an idea of what it all looked like.
The top stories of the buildings on this street were demolished and the lower ones remained as they city built a new building on top of the old ones. They figured the lower parts would help to keep the new building level and would help even out the sloping ground before. That's why they are still there.
The tour was interesting but it was not at all what we were expecting. I think we were both expecting to see more of the "underground city" but instead you were just taken into a few rooms and down Mary King's Close and another close next to hers. I'm not sure I recommend going on this tour. Maybe if you don't have anything else you would rather be doing.
When the tour finished, we left and walked back to our car; it was now 11am. I was starting to get a little worried about the car and as we got close to it, there was a police officer looking at it. He was getting out his pad of paper. I went right up to him and asked if we weren't allowed to park there. He said we weren't and I said we were sorry we didn't know. He then said not to worry about it as we were now there to take care of it (Whew! No ticket.).
I asked him a few questions on where we were allowed to park and he let me know that when there is a single yellow line, you are allowed to park there for only 5 minutes and a double yellow means no parking. I asked if this was true for all the UK and he said yes. This answer was odd to me but I didn't say anything of it to him. All over the UK we have seen countless numbers of drivers park on the single yellow line so we thought that must be okay - and they didn't appear to only be there for 5 minutes. We knew that double yellow meant no parking. Well, we were just thankful we had arrived in time before he wrote a ticket.
Looking back on it, I think he may have thought that we had just parked there not that long ago (although it really had already been an hour) and saw that he was looking at the car so we came back to ask him about it. Whatever the case, I'm just glad our prayers were answered and the car was safe.
We got in the car and headed off for our long drive up to Loch Ness. First we headed to Glasgow just so we could see it as we drove through. I tried to take a few pictures from the car. Then we went North to Loch Lomand.
At Loch Lomand, which was very beautiful, we stopped and got out of the car at the only parking area we could find, but there wasn't really a good place to walk down to the water so we left after a few minutes and drove the rest of the way along the loch. It was a pretty drive.
Then we headed up through the Highlands to Drumnadrochit. This was a very beautiful drive and we took lots of pictures. I would tell you more about it, but, as usual, I was asleep most the way. One thing of note, though, was we had never seen so much roadkill in our lives during the few hours we were on this road.
You only had to drive 50 yards or so before you saw more roadkill and it was consistently showing up along the whole drive. It was really weird especially because it didn't seem like there were that many cars around to do that much damage and we certainly didn't see that many animals around that could get hit (although, maybe by the time we had gotten there all the animals that were around were already on the road).
About 1 1/2 hours away from the B&B we were getting really hungry so we found a McDonalds and stopped for dinner. I was really craving vegetables, so I ordered a side salad, which of course they were all out of. We got our food and then I saw that they had packets of carrots and packets of apples for the kid's meals. So I went to see if I could buy one of each and I could. They weren't great but at least it was something. We finished up and got back in the car.
We arrived at the B&B and were very excited about this place. It was the only B&B in the small town that was also a working farm with sheep and Highlander Cows. These cows are so cool and we've never seen any like it before; they have really long hair all over their bodies and hair on their head that hangs down and covers their eyes. I loved looking at them.
The owners had just bought a new mother with a calf and they were in the front of the house - a perfect view from the breakfast room. When we arrived, our hostess was showing around another American couple that had also just arrived.
We were shown our room, which was very comfortable, clean, and perfect (even had a four poster bed, which I had never been in one before). We brought in our things and made ourselves at home. We decided to have a night in and just relax the rest of the evening in bed and watch some TV. We watched a show that was competition to see who would be the next "Nancy" in the Oliver Broadway show in the West End. There were 5 girls competing and they each had to perform songs and then get critiqued before the viewers voted at home. I really enjoyed it and Jeremiah put up with it for me.
We had a good night and it was really nice to take it easy.
Love,
S&J
Friday, May 16, 2008
Day 15 - Arthur's Seat & Edinburgh Castle
May 16, 2008
We woke up around 8:15am, got slightly ready for the day, and went down to breakfast around 8:45am (breakfast was served between 8am and 9am).
Our hostess asked us about the hot water and if we ever got it back. We told her "No" and explained that we had to heat up water for ourselves; this didn't phase her one bit that we had to got through so much trouble to finish our showers. She then went on to say that no one has ever complained before about running out of hot water and that the other guest rooms all had electric hot water so it was bascially our fault for running out of it. Somehow I find it very hard to believe that if we were the only ones using the hot water from the tank that the little bit we did use used all of it. It wasn't the most comforting feeling after having gone through that the night before to be practically blamed for it. She never even apologized for the inconvenience of it all.
Nevertheless, we sat down for breakfast. She asked if we wanted a full Scottish breakfast with Haggis and Black Pudding. Jeremiah said no to the Haggis and Black Pudding and I said no to the Haggis. I wasn't sure about the Black Pudding. I had vaguely remembered Jeremiah telling me what it was but with pudding in its name, it couldn't be that bad, right? Well, I ask her if I could just try a little bit of it but she said that wasn't really possible. So then I asked what it was. She then handed me a framed sheet of paper which detailed exactly what black pudding and haggis were.
After reading "congealed blood" in the description of the black pudding, I knew instantly that I would pass on that one as well. I told the hostess this when she came back in the room and she seemed surprised that I didn't want any and asked a few more times just to make sure I didn't.
She then left the room to go fix our breakfast. We got some cereal and fruit to start it off. There was a brother and sister at the table next to us and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. The hostess soon came back with some toast. I picked up a piece after she left and was about to put some jam on it when I noticed that it had mold on it. I put back the toast on the rack and told this to Jeremiah. He then inspected the rest of the rack and they all had mold on them. Jeremiah didn't want me to say anything about it to the hostess, but I thought that something needed to be said as that's just not acceptable any place you go.
When she brought in our hot food, she started talking to the guests at the table next to us and started giving them help on the bus ride in to the city. She then took them out to the hall to give them more information. When the hostess came back into the room I mentioned the toast and politely asked for some new toast and didn't make a big deal out of it. She looked over the toast and was surprised and then set it down on the table next to us. After a few minutes, she brought us some non-moldy toast.
As we were eating our meal, she then started to ask us about our plans. Each of our previous hosts have done this and we thought she was just trying to be friendly like them. We told her we were on our way up to Loch Ness and such but then she interrupted and asked where we were staying that night. We didn't really want to tell her that we were staying in Edinburgh at another place because we didn't want to make her feel weird that we chose not to stay both our nights in the city at her establishment but she was insistent. So we told her we were staying at a Travelodge not too far away (honestly, when we booked this place and the Travelodge, we had no idea until after the fact that they were only a few miles away from each other). Jeremiah tried to play it off that we like to try out new places and not stay at any one place for too long (instead of telling her that it was because they charged so much for the room that we couldn't afford to stay there two nights).
She was kind of shocked at this and asked us how much it cost. We told her that it was £30 for the night. She then insisted that it must be per person as no place could charge that little. We told her that it was for both of us for the night and then she insisted that it must be a hostel, not a Travelodge. I insisted that it was a Travelodge and to make her feel a little better I told her that it was somewhere between £30 and £40 for the night (I really couldn't remember exactly how much it was right then; it ended up being only £30 when I checked my paperwork later).
She then asked if we read reviews of places. She told us that we must not because she has heard that that place is very run-down even though she had never seen it herself. We told her that we did read reviews and we would just see how it went. Finally she dropped the subject and left us alone.
We finished out breakfast and Jeremiah headed upstairs while I waited below for the hostess to come out so I could pay our bill. I waited for a while but she never came out and I felt awkward knocking on the kitchen door to get her attention. I figured I would settle it later and went upstairs myself.
I wasn't feeling too well so I laid down for a bit while Jeremiah went to the bathroom to finish getting ready. I must have fallen asleep for a bit because a little while later someone was knocking on my door. I couldn't think of who it might be other than Jeremiah but I was sure he took the key so I ignored it. A moment later, there was another knock so I answered it with my voice. The host then replied by saying that check-out was at 10:00am; it was now 10:15am. I was surprised at this as we were never informed of a check-out time. So I told him okay and I started to scramble around the room packing our things as quickly as I could. I then grabbed my toothbrush and headed to the bathroom.
On my way, the hostess was coming up the stairs and reminded me again that check-out was at 10am. I told her that we weren't aware of that and that we were just about finished so we could leave. She then went on to say that they needed to be leaving and that they needed to make up our rooms now. I again said we were hurrying. She then asked for me to pay. Now I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was not expecting her to ask for the full payment after all we had to go through. I was at least expecting some type of compensation for the inconveniences but I guess they didn't feel the same way. I gave her the cash and went into the bathroom.
We finished up as quickly as we could and went back to the room to grab our things. The hostess was working on the room across the way from ours and reminded us again that check-out was at 10am. What more did they want from us?!?
We grabbed our things, double-checked the room to make sure we didn't leave anything behind (because, believe me, we did NOT want to have to come back here again), and walked out of the house to our car. We got in and just drove; we didn't even wait for the GPS to register so it could tell us where to go; we just wanted to get as far away from there as possible as quickly as possible.
We drove through the city a bit and then decided on going to Arthur's Seat (for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is a mountain that sits right next to the Holyrood Palace). We found some parking and walked across the street to start climbing the mountain. There was a rocky path to walk up and it was rather steep (steeper than it first appeared).
We continued up, stopping every once in a while to take a look over the city and to catch our breath. Eventually we made it to a paved path and it was leveling off a bit. I figured we must be close to the final ascent to the top. Then the path started to decline and it didn't stop declining. I was really confused because we were not at the top yet and the only path in front of us was one that continued to go down, not up.
We continued to follow it and then came in our view another mountain, decently higher than this one, sitting right beside it. We were about halfway back to street level by now and standing between the two mountains. Jeremiah had been here before with some buddies from Capernwray and they came really late at night. They climbed the side of the mountain to get up it (he didn't remember a path at all) but then standing there, he thought maybe this is what happened before - they got to this point and couldn't find a path to go to the top so they climbed the side of the wall. It was rather disappointing to get this far and up such a steep path to not even reach the top.
Well, we saw that there was a path to go up the second mountain so we walked towards it. Then we turned around a bit and saw that there were smaller paths to go up to the top of Arthur's Seat, from the back-side. We decided to first go up the second mountain and then up Arthur's Seat.
We started our climb but this time there were steps to climb. This was not trivial either. We had layered on our clothes and at this point everything was off except the last layer. We were so thankful that it was a cool day out and that the sun was not shining down on us.
At one point, we stopped for a little break and we could see another couple climbing up behind us. One was a girl and she was in a bright pink jumpsuit. She looked very prissy and they were gaining ground on us. That was the last push for me to keep climbing without stopping. There was no way that prissy pink girl was going to beat me up the mountain!
The steps finally stopped and we started on a path for a little bit. Then it was a really steep path for the final leg to get up to the top. We climbed as quickly as we could but did need to take a short break and I'm glad we did because as we were standing there, a little bunny came out of a hole in the ground and started looking around. Then 3 more bunnies on the other side of the path popped out as well. They were so cute!
I tried to get close to them to see if I could pet any and I was able to get closer than I would have imagined, but eventually they ran back in to their holes. We made it to the top just to see that beyond this top, there was another bump to the mountain that was even higher that you could climb.
We found a rock to rest on for a bit and to take in the wonderful views; we were the only ones there. As we were sitting there facing Arthur's Seat, I saw there was a pretty level path that went along the back of Arthur's Seat. I wondered if this would be an easier way to go around the mountain and back to our car.
We then decided to visit the bunnies one last time and then head up the second bump to the top. We went to the bunnies but the girl in pink was there and I think she scared them so they wouldn't come out. We then walked over to the second bump and started to climb the steep path up.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of people at the top of this mountain. We took some pictures but didn't like the crowd too much and there were a ton of flies so we only stayed a few minutes before we headed down.
We thought about taking a different path down, but couldn't tell if it actually went through or not. So we went back the way we came. This time we saw the bunnies again briefly; still very cute :)
We walked down all the stairs and it was a lot easier going down than coming up; no breaks needed. I then told Jeremiah about my idea of walking that more level path back to the car. We couldn't tell for sure if that's where it led but when we started going up Arthur's Seat, I did see a path going towards this direction so I thought maybe they met up with each other.
We only had about 20 minutes to get back to our car before the time expired so we walked quickly. As we were nearing a curve, I saw a path a little below that went the opposite direction we wanted to go and I started to get afraid that this path was not what I thought it was. So we started to jog a little just to see what was around the bend. That other path was just a branch off this one and this one led right back to the front of the mountain, across the street from our car. Whew!
We got to our car with a few minutes to spare and planned where we wanted to go next. We didn't particularly want to go to the Palace and walking around the streets of Edinburgh wasn't that enticing. Jeremiah had been told years ago that going to Edinburgh Castle wasn't worth the money but we thought that we might take a chance on it anyways.
We found some parking just below the castle on a street (very expensive parking, I might add, but it was a really good spot and we didn't want to waste time trying to find it someplace else that was cheaper). We had to climb some stairs and on one of the platforms there were toilets, so we made a little stop. Then we climbed the remaining stairs and started walking towards the entrance. By this time it was 1:00pm and I wasn't sure I could make it for hours inside the castle without eating anything. We didn't really want to take the time to go get a meal, so I hurried back down the steps to the car to grab a few snacks.
I then went back up the stairs and met up with Jeremiah. We headed towards the gates of the castle. There was scaffolding everywhere in front of the castle as they were setting up bleachers for an upcoming event.
We found our way to the ticket booth and bought our tickets (£11 each) and we added in the audio guide for £2 each. We walked up the path a little ways to the audio booth to pick up our headsets.
We punched in the appropriate numbers, found a bench, and started listening. This was an amazing castle and definitely one of my favorites. They had so much to see, including a museum, and so much good audio to listen to (the audio was definitely worth the extra money; we highly recommend it if you ever go). We walked around and saw as much as we could. By the end, we were rushing through things just to be able to see everything at least a little and hear all the main audio tracks (after you listen to a track, they sometimes have the option to hear more about a particular topic and you can choose whether or not you want to listen to it - we didn't get to do this as much during the end because we were running out of time).
They had the Scottish Crown Jewels on display, now called the Scottish Honors as they are no longer used in any crowing ceremonies. But the rock that goes under the English throne when a new sovreign is crowned (I forgot the name of it) was there on display and will travel down to Westminster Abbey when next needed.
We got inside the castle around 1:30pm and left when it closed at 6pm and we could have easily stayed there another 2 hours. So if you plan on going here, make sure to get the audio guide and plan on spending the majority of the day there.
When it closed, we walked out and back down to our car. We put in a little more money to get us through until the free parking hit in. We found the information we needed to find "The Real Mary King's Close." This was a tour that took you under the streets of Edinburgh to see what the streets used to look like that once existed before they were built over (close is another name for street). Jeremiah was really interested in this so we wanted to see if we could get in on a tour that night as their last tour started at 9pm.
We started walking on the street and looked around for High Street but couldnt' find it anywhere and I had left the information in the car on accident. We turned down one street and just didn't know where to look. So I stopped a local and asked him if he knew where High Street was. Apparently we had just come from it but I didn't realize that The Royal Mile was the same as High Street. So we walked back to it.
We continued walking a little ways and then we found it. We walked inside and saw a sign that stated they were all sold out for the night. We asked about it and they were sold out but were taking reservations for the next day if we wanted to book. I said that we were leaving the next day and then I asked if there were any other tours like theirs that toured the streets below. Of course there isn't one exactly like theirs but they thought one across the street did take you under the city.
We talked about it and were a little disappointed we wouldn't get to see this one. Then we thought about how much time we needed the next day to do what we had planned and we decided we could squeeze in the tour first thing in the morning.
So I went back inside and got us tickets for their earliest tour at 10am. We then got directions to the nearest Subway (earlier we had seen people eating it so I knew it had to be near). It wasn't too much futher down the road so we headed there for dinner. We got our famous £5.99 meal for the two of us and found a bench nearby to each.
We ended up sitting in a square where there was a statue in the middle and there was a tour going on talking about how people used to be tortoured on that very spot. Oh, I should mentioned that we happeded to be in Edinburgh during their annual Ghost Festival so there were tours like this going on all around and was probably one of the reasons the tour we wanted was all sold out.
We then headed back to the car for some reason but I can't recall why. There was a payphone nearby so I waited in the car while Jeremiah talked with his mom for a bit. I was ready to hit the road to the Travelodge but Jeremiah want to walk around a bit more as it was still light out (my feet weren't really up for it but I thought I would regret it later if I didn't go).
So we started back up those steps again and were on a mission to find the place where Jeremiah had seen a monument to Abraham Lincoln by accident 10 years ago. He didn't really remember where it was that he had stumbled on it so we just walked down some streets.
There were some high walls we walked by and then there was tall gate to an opening. It was a graveyard and the gate was closed. I decided to push on the gate just to see if it would open and it did. Jeremiah wasn't sure if we should go in in case we weren't supposed to but I figured that it would be locked if we shouldn't be there.
So we walked inside and up some stairs to see some really old graves from the 18th and 18th centuries. We looked to our right and to the back and low and behold, there was the statue of Abraham Lincoln. Seems like the best way to find this thing is to stumble upon it.
We looked around for a bit and read some gravestones. It was crazy to see that the same year some of these people had died was the year that another person in a grave just next to theirs had been born. One grave was exactly 200 years old this year. It was also sad to think that the people who had known these people were not around anymore either, which is probably why this graveyard didn't look like it was very well taken care of.
We stayed there for a bit and then left. Since that is what Jeremiah wanted to see, we started walking back to the car. On the way, some very lively (and extremely drunk) girls came up from behind us. As they passed by, one actually grabbed on to Jeremiah and started talking to him. It was really weird.
Walking through the city, it wasn't one that I particularly liked, not like New York or London. There was just something unfriendly in the air about it and I was kind of glad we weren't staying there any longer than we were.
We got back to the car around 9pm and started off for the Travelodge. It was only 10 minutes away off one of the freeways; really easy to find. We checked in and went to our room. This place was just a welcomed site after our experiences the night before. It was clean and had everything we needed (including one thing we didn't need - a spider!) and did not come with unfriendly hosts.
We brought in our stuff and then I convinced Jeremiah to head back out to a McDonalds for ice cream (I was really craving it!). We got in the car and found a McDonalds on the GPS. We had passed one on the way to the Travelodge but I didn't know the street it was on so I figured it was best to trust the GPS.
We were on the freeway and then I saw what looked like the street the McDonalds we had passed was on. We got to a roundabout and decided to keep going to the one the GPS was taking us to; I figured it couldnt' be too much farther away. Well, I was wrong; it was quite a bit farther away but we got there and at least they were open.
We got some ice cream and brought it back in the car with us and then headed back to the Travelodge where we could enjoy it. And we did enjoy it! We then got ready for bed, set our alarm, and went to sleep.
Even though the day didn't start off great for us, the rest of it was superb.
Love,
S&J
We woke up around 8:15am, got slightly ready for the day, and went down to breakfast around 8:45am (breakfast was served between 8am and 9am).
Our hostess asked us about the hot water and if we ever got it back. We told her "No" and explained that we had to heat up water for ourselves; this didn't phase her one bit that we had to got through so much trouble to finish our showers. She then went on to say that no one has ever complained before about running out of hot water and that the other guest rooms all had electric hot water so it was bascially our fault for running out of it. Somehow I find it very hard to believe that if we were the only ones using the hot water from the tank that the little bit we did use used all of it. It wasn't the most comforting feeling after having gone through that the night before to be practically blamed for it. She never even apologized for the inconvenience of it all.
Nevertheless, we sat down for breakfast. She asked if we wanted a full Scottish breakfast with Haggis and Black Pudding. Jeremiah said no to the Haggis and Black Pudding and I said no to the Haggis. I wasn't sure about the Black Pudding. I had vaguely remembered Jeremiah telling me what it was but with pudding in its name, it couldn't be that bad, right? Well, I ask her if I could just try a little bit of it but she said that wasn't really possible. So then I asked what it was. She then handed me a framed sheet of paper which detailed exactly what black pudding and haggis were.
After reading "congealed blood" in the description of the black pudding, I knew instantly that I would pass on that one as well. I told the hostess this when she came back in the room and she seemed surprised that I didn't want any and asked a few more times just to make sure I didn't.
She then left the room to go fix our breakfast. We got some cereal and fruit to start it off. There was a brother and sister at the table next to us and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. The hostess soon came back with some toast. I picked up a piece after she left and was about to put some jam on it when I noticed that it had mold on it. I put back the toast on the rack and told this to Jeremiah. He then inspected the rest of the rack and they all had mold on them. Jeremiah didn't want me to say anything about it to the hostess, but I thought that something needed to be said as that's just not acceptable any place you go.
When she brought in our hot food, she started talking to the guests at the table next to us and started giving them help on the bus ride in to the city. She then took them out to the hall to give them more information. When the hostess came back into the room I mentioned the toast and politely asked for some new toast and didn't make a big deal out of it. She looked over the toast and was surprised and then set it down on the table next to us. After a few minutes, she brought us some non-moldy toast.
As we were eating our meal, she then started to ask us about our plans. Each of our previous hosts have done this and we thought she was just trying to be friendly like them. We told her we were on our way up to Loch Ness and such but then she interrupted and asked where we were staying that night. We didn't really want to tell her that we were staying in Edinburgh at another place because we didn't want to make her feel weird that we chose not to stay both our nights in the city at her establishment but she was insistent. So we told her we were staying at a Travelodge not too far away (honestly, when we booked this place and the Travelodge, we had no idea until after the fact that they were only a few miles away from each other). Jeremiah tried to play it off that we like to try out new places and not stay at any one place for too long (instead of telling her that it was because they charged so much for the room that we couldn't afford to stay there two nights).
She was kind of shocked at this and asked us how much it cost. We told her that it was £30 for the night. She then insisted that it must be per person as no place could charge that little. We told her that it was for both of us for the night and then she insisted that it must be a hostel, not a Travelodge. I insisted that it was a Travelodge and to make her feel a little better I told her that it was somewhere between £30 and £40 for the night (I really couldn't remember exactly how much it was right then; it ended up being only £30 when I checked my paperwork later).
She then asked if we read reviews of places. She told us that we must not because she has heard that that place is very run-down even though she had never seen it herself. We told her that we did read reviews and we would just see how it went. Finally she dropped the subject and left us alone.
We finished out breakfast and Jeremiah headed upstairs while I waited below for the hostess to come out so I could pay our bill. I waited for a while but she never came out and I felt awkward knocking on the kitchen door to get her attention. I figured I would settle it later and went upstairs myself.
I wasn't feeling too well so I laid down for a bit while Jeremiah went to the bathroom to finish getting ready. I must have fallen asleep for a bit because a little while later someone was knocking on my door. I couldn't think of who it might be other than Jeremiah but I was sure he took the key so I ignored it. A moment later, there was another knock so I answered it with my voice. The host then replied by saying that check-out was at 10:00am; it was now 10:15am. I was surprised at this as we were never informed of a check-out time. So I told him okay and I started to scramble around the room packing our things as quickly as I could. I then grabbed my toothbrush and headed to the bathroom.
On my way, the hostess was coming up the stairs and reminded me again that check-out was at 10am. I told her that we weren't aware of that and that we were just about finished so we could leave. She then went on to say that they needed to be leaving and that they needed to make up our rooms now. I again said we were hurrying. She then asked for me to pay. Now I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was not expecting her to ask for the full payment after all we had to go through. I was at least expecting some type of compensation for the inconveniences but I guess they didn't feel the same way. I gave her the cash and went into the bathroom.
We finished up as quickly as we could and went back to the room to grab our things. The hostess was working on the room across the way from ours and reminded us again that check-out was at 10am. What more did they want from us?!?
We grabbed our things, double-checked the room to make sure we didn't leave anything behind (because, believe me, we did NOT want to have to come back here again), and walked out of the house to our car. We got in and just drove; we didn't even wait for the GPS to register so it could tell us where to go; we just wanted to get as far away from there as possible as quickly as possible.
We drove through the city a bit and then decided on going to Arthur's Seat (for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is a mountain that sits right next to the Holyrood Palace). We found some parking and walked across the street to start climbing the mountain. There was a rocky path to walk up and it was rather steep (steeper than it first appeared).
We continued up, stopping every once in a while to take a look over the city and to catch our breath. Eventually we made it to a paved path and it was leveling off a bit. I figured we must be close to the final ascent to the top. Then the path started to decline and it didn't stop declining. I was really confused because we were not at the top yet and the only path in front of us was one that continued to go down, not up.
We continued to follow it and then came in our view another mountain, decently higher than this one, sitting right beside it. We were about halfway back to street level by now and standing between the two mountains. Jeremiah had been here before with some buddies from Capernwray and they came really late at night. They climbed the side of the mountain to get up it (he didn't remember a path at all) but then standing there, he thought maybe this is what happened before - they got to this point and couldn't find a path to go to the top so they climbed the side of the wall. It was rather disappointing to get this far and up such a steep path to not even reach the top.
Well, we saw that there was a path to go up the second mountain so we walked towards it. Then we turned around a bit and saw that there were smaller paths to go up to the top of Arthur's Seat, from the back-side. We decided to first go up the second mountain and then up Arthur's Seat.
We started our climb but this time there were steps to climb. This was not trivial either. We had layered on our clothes and at this point everything was off except the last layer. We were so thankful that it was a cool day out and that the sun was not shining down on us.
At one point, we stopped for a little break and we could see another couple climbing up behind us. One was a girl and she was in a bright pink jumpsuit. She looked very prissy and they were gaining ground on us. That was the last push for me to keep climbing without stopping. There was no way that prissy pink girl was going to beat me up the mountain!
The steps finally stopped and we started on a path for a little bit. Then it was a really steep path for the final leg to get up to the top. We climbed as quickly as we could but did need to take a short break and I'm glad we did because as we were standing there, a little bunny came out of a hole in the ground and started looking around. Then 3 more bunnies on the other side of the path popped out as well. They were so cute!
I tried to get close to them to see if I could pet any and I was able to get closer than I would have imagined, but eventually they ran back in to their holes. We made it to the top just to see that beyond this top, there was another bump to the mountain that was even higher that you could climb.
We found a rock to rest on for a bit and to take in the wonderful views; we were the only ones there. As we were sitting there facing Arthur's Seat, I saw there was a pretty level path that went along the back of Arthur's Seat. I wondered if this would be an easier way to go around the mountain and back to our car.
We then decided to visit the bunnies one last time and then head up the second bump to the top. We went to the bunnies but the girl in pink was there and I think she scared them so they wouldn't come out. We then walked over to the second bump and started to climb the steep path up.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of people at the top of this mountain. We took some pictures but didn't like the crowd too much and there were a ton of flies so we only stayed a few minutes before we headed down.
We thought about taking a different path down, but couldn't tell if it actually went through or not. So we went back the way we came. This time we saw the bunnies again briefly; still very cute :)
We walked down all the stairs and it was a lot easier going down than coming up; no breaks needed. I then told Jeremiah about my idea of walking that more level path back to the car. We couldn't tell for sure if that's where it led but when we started going up Arthur's Seat, I did see a path going towards this direction so I thought maybe they met up with each other.
We only had about 20 minutes to get back to our car before the time expired so we walked quickly. As we were nearing a curve, I saw a path a little below that went the opposite direction we wanted to go and I started to get afraid that this path was not what I thought it was. So we started to jog a little just to see what was around the bend. That other path was just a branch off this one and this one led right back to the front of the mountain, across the street from our car. Whew!
We got to our car with a few minutes to spare and planned where we wanted to go next. We didn't particularly want to go to the Palace and walking around the streets of Edinburgh wasn't that enticing. Jeremiah had been told years ago that going to Edinburgh Castle wasn't worth the money but we thought that we might take a chance on it anyways.
We found some parking just below the castle on a street (very expensive parking, I might add, but it was a really good spot and we didn't want to waste time trying to find it someplace else that was cheaper). We had to climb some stairs and on one of the platforms there were toilets, so we made a little stop. Then we climbed the remaining stairs and started walking towards the entrance. By this time it was 1:00pm and I wasn't sure I could make it for hours inside the castle without eating anything. We didn't really want to take the time to go get a meal, so I hurried back down the steps to the car to grab a few snacks.
I then went back up the stairs and met up with Jeremiah. We headed towards the gates of the castle. There was scaffolding everywhere in front of the castle as they were setting up bleachers for an upcoming event.
We found our way to the ticket booth and bought our tickets (£11 each) and we added in the audio guide for £2 each. We walked up the path a little ways to the audio booth to pick up our headsets.
We punched in the appropriate numbers, found a bench, and started listening. This was an amazing castle and definitely one of my favorites. They had so much to see, including a museum, and so much good audio to listen to (the audio was definitely worth the extra money; we highly recommend it if you ever go). We walked around and saw as much as we could. By the end, we were rushing through things just to be able to see everything at least a little and hear all the main audio tracks (after you listen to a track, they sometimes have the option to hear more about a particular topic and you can choose whether or not you want to listen to it - we didn't get to do this as much during the end because we were running out of time).
They had the Scottish Crown Jewels on display, now called the Scottish Honors as they are no longer used in any crowing ceremonies. But the rock that goes under the English throne when a new sovreign is crowned (I forgot the name of it) was there on display and will travel down to Westminster Abbey when next needed.
We got inside the castle around 1:30pm and left when it closed at 6pm and we could have easily stayed there another 2 hours. So if you plan on going here, make sure to get the audio guide and plan on spending the majority of the day there.
When it closed, we walked out and back down to our car. We put in a little more money to get us through until the free parking hit in. We found the information we needed to find "The Real Mary King's Close." This was a tour that took you under the streets of Edinburgh to see what the streets used to look like that once existed before they were built over (close is another name for street). Jeremiah was really interested in this so we wanted to see if we could get in on a tour that night as their last tour started at 9pm.
We started walking on the street and looked around for High Street but couldnt' find it anywhere and I had left the information in the car on accident. We turned down one street and just didn't know where to look. So I stopped a local and asked him if he knew where High Street was. Apparently we had just come from it but I didn't realize that The Royal Mile was the same as High Street. So we walked back to it.
We continued walking a little ways and then we found it. We walked inside and saw a sign that stated they were all sold out for the night. We asked about it and they were sold out but were taking reservations for the next day if we wanted to book. I said that we were leaving the next day and then I asked if there were any other tours like theirs that toured the streets below. Of course there isn't one exactly like theirs but they thought one across the street did take you under the city.
We talked about it and were a little disappointed we wouldn't get to see this one. Then we thought about how much time we needed the next day to do what we had planned and we decided we could squeeze in the tour first thing in the morning.
So I went back inside and got us tickets for their earliest tour at 10am. We then got directions to the nearest Subway (earlier we had seen people eating it so I knew it had to be near). It wasn't too much futher down the road so we headed there for dinner. We got our famous £5.99 meal for the two of us and found a bench nearby to each.
We ended up sitting in a square where there was a statue in the middle and there was a tour going on talking about how people used to be tortoured on that very spot. Oh, I should mentioned that we happeded to be in Edinburgh during their annual Ghost Festival so there were tours like this going on all around and was probably one of the reasons the tour we wanted was all sold out.
We then headed back to the car for some reason but I can't recall why. There was a payphone nearby so I waited in the car while Jeremiah talked with his mom for a bit. I was ready to hit the road to the Travelodge but Jeremiah want to walk around a bit more as it was still light out (my feet weren't really up for it but I thought I would regret it later if I didn't go).
So we started back up those steps again and were on a mission to find the place where Jeremiah had seen a monument to Abraham Lincoln by accident 10 years ago. He didn't really remember where it was that he had stumbled on it so we just walked down some streets.
There were some high walls we walked by and then there was tall gate to an opening. It was a graveyard and the gate was closed. I decided to push on the gate just to see if it would open and it did. Jeremiah wasn't sure if we should go in in case we weren't supposed to but I figured that it would be locked if we shouldn't be there.
So we walked inside and up some stairs to see some really old graves from the 18th and 18th centuries. We looked to our right and to the back and low and behold, there was the statue of Abraham Lincoln. Seems like the best way to find this thing is to stumble upon it.
We looked around for a bit and read some gravestones. It was crazy to see that the same year some of these people had died was the year that another person in a grave just next to theirs had been born. One grave was exactly 200 years old this year. It was also sad to think that the people who had known these people were not around anymore either, which is probably why this graveyard didn't look like it was very well taken care of.
We stayed there for a bit and then left. Since that is what Jeremiah wanted to see, we started walking back to the car. On the way, some very lively (and extremely drunk) girls came up from behind us. As they passed by, one actually grabbed on to Jeremiah and started talking to him. It was really weird.
Walking through the city, it wasn't one that I particularly liked, not like New York or London. There was just something unfriendly in the air about it and I was kind of glad we weren't staying there any longer than we were.
We got back to the car around 9pm and started off for the Travelodge. It was only 10 minutes away off one of the freeways; really easy to find. We checked in and went to our room. This place was just a welcomed site after our experiences the night before. It was clean and had everything we needed (including one thing we didn't need - a spider!) and did not come with unfriendly hosts.
We brought in our stuff and then I convinced Jeremiah to head back out to a McDonalds for ice cream (I was really craving it!). We got in the car and found a McDonalds on the GPS. We had passed one on the way to the Travelodge but I didn't know the street it was on so I figured it was best to trust the GPS.
We were on the freeway and then I saw what looked like the street the McDonalds we had passed was on. We got to a roundabout and decided to keep going to the one the GPS was taking us to; I figured it couldnt' be too much farther away. Well, I was wrong; it was quite a bit farther away but we got there and at least they were open.
We got some ice cream and brought it back in the car with us and then headed back to the Travelodge where we could enjoy it. And we did enjoy it! We then got ready for bed, set our alarm, and went to sleep.
Even though the day didn't start off great for us, the rest of it was superb.
Love,
S&J
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