Just one of those days...

Yeah. It wasn't the worst day in the world but it sure didn't run smoothly.

I woke up this morning with a wonderful itinerary for another day in London:

• Arrive in London at 10:15
• See Tower of London until noon
• Quick Lunch
• See British Museum until 2pm
• Meet with Lord Barnett at the House of Parliament at 2:15
• Walking tour of London and wander around
• Go back home around 6pm

This is what today actually looked like:

• Arrive in London at 10:15
• See Tower of London until noon  go to Tower but be deterred by price and crowd
• Wander around underground for a while
• Quick Lunch snack
• See British Museum until 2pm  iPod dies
• More underground shenanegans
• Meet with Lord Barnett at the House of Parliament at 2:15
• Walking tour of London and wander around
• Go back home around 6pm 4

Yeah...My train was on time so I was off to a good start. I got off the train and onto the underground, also making good time. Then I thought of something: remember last night when I posted all of those pictures? Yeah...I left my SD card in the computer. Ooops. All I could think about was what an awful blogger I would be if I didn't have any pictures! Thankfully, I walked right by a camera store and picked up the smallest, cheapest one I could find. 

Then I headed to the Tower of London.

I got there at a reasonable time (or so I thought). I was walking up and heard Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and thought how fitting it was to be listening to a Beatles song in London. There was a line both at the ticket booth and to get in. I don't really care for crowds and though Monday wouldn't have been so packed but I wrong. I was already in a bit of a grumpy mood since I had to spend 11 pounds on the SD card and didn't want to spend another twenty pounds on a museum when there are plenty of free ones across the city.

So I left and headed towards the British Museum. The underground line I planned to take was experiencing major delays so I had to go an alternate route which was out of the way of course. I got off at Russel Square. Ever wonder how far down the subway is underground? Most tube stations have escalators. This one doesn't. It does offer a lift though. But I thought I would take the stairs. I started counting and wasn't even close after the first 50. It was a spiral staircase which was worse because there was no end in sight. The good news is I made it up all 177 stairs. Guess who's butt is going to look great tomorrow! I wanted to die when I reached the top. I got out and crossed Russel Square which is this small, beautiful park.

Then I finally made it to the British Museum.  

I was still recuperating from conquering those stairs and decided I needed a reward of a cheese and tomato crepe. MMMMMmmmmm....crepe.

I wandered in and turned on my Rick Steves British Museum Audio Guide. I've mentioned this before but wherever you travel, you MUST download the Rick Steves Podcasts. He gives great commentary on all types of attractions as well as tips for staying wherever you are. The British Museum is HUGE and he covers the highlights of the permanent exhibits in just over an hour. Honestly, I think if you were to cover every bit of information in the museum, you would walk away with nothing as it's truly an information overload. I apologize for the quality of the pictures from here on out, but of course I also forgot to charge my camera before I left and to conserve the battery (and make my SD card purchase worth while), I turned off the flash.

We started in the Egyptian exhibit with the Rosetta Stone.

Let my people go! This one of the many statues of Ramses that he had made during his time.

Translator anyone?

 Roman mosaics. A technique they got from the Egyptians and mastered the art.

What's an Egyptian exhibit without a mummy? There was a whole room of them!

This is Ginger, a perfectly preserved skeleton.

Now we move on to the Assyrians. They were very advanced for their time. Can you find the tank in this picture?

And then on to the Greeks. Like the camera battery, I had not charged the iPod before I left and it died with a little less than ten minutes of the tour left to go. That meant that I couldn't take the walking tour I had planned later in the day.

So I headed to Parliament. I had been put in touch with Lord Barnett as he is a family friend of my Great Uncle and he knew my maternal Grandmother growing up (I'm a quarter English by the way). I spoke to Lord Barnett last week and we set a time to meet: today at 2:15. I got there at 2:00 and was escorted into the building most Londoners haven't been in. I'm sure there was some sort of mix up as our meeting never actually took place. We set the time and date on Thursday of last week once he was back in Manchester and I hadn't given him my contact information in case something else came out. I kept holding out hope until 2:45 when I finally left. I still have a few more weeks here so hopefully we can work something else out.

It was beginning to rain and since I knew I couldn't do my walking tour anyways, I thought it was a good time to go home. A little bummed from the days events, I really holding out for some French macaroons at the market by the Waterloo station. I passed up some tempting street food vendors only to find the market was gone! Now I was really upset and grumpy as I hadn't had anything more than breakfast and that crepe. I thought for sure I would splurge on the next indulgent thing I saw. Then I came across a sushi stand. It was only 4 pounds (much better price than any pre-packaged sushi in the States) for all of this. It absolutely hit the spot! I love how sushi is an extremely satisfying, relatively healthy option. YUM! I grabbed it for the train ride home and read my book for the duration of the journey.

I caught a bus immediately and was home before I knew it. I was going pull the pity card and pout for the rest of the evening until I got to chatting about cakes with some family. That always puts me in a good mood. The roommate made burgers and that made me happy too. 

All in all, today actually wasn't too bad, just not great. I did walk over 20,000 steps and my ankle is more comfortable thanks to the brace I bought. YAY.

Cheers!

I haven't forgotten about you

I've just been extremely busy and it's hard to blog when I'm not home during the day. Thursday and Friday were uneventful. So uneventful that I took some pictures of the food I ate just so I would have something to blog about. Obviously, I never got around to it, but don't worry, it wasn't anything special.

Friday night was when everything started picking up. After a quick dinner of jacket potatoes and beans (a common meal here), we went to the scout meeting.

The scouts went through a rotation of pitching tents, first aid, knot tying and sawing. The Husband helped out as an unconscious person.

The meeting ended with a fun game of dodge ball.

After the meeting, the scout leaders got together and hung out by the fire. It's nice to be able to get out in the community and have an evening out with others. We got a ride home and went to bed for an early morning. We had to be in London earlier than ever before. We were going to take a tour coach through the country to Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge. I grabbed a quit half of grape fruit and some coffee as we planned to have a true British breakfast in London.

I had an egg, hashed browns, grilled tomatoes and bean (they do love their beans in this country). The husband had scrambled eggs with toast and chocolate cake (of course). Then we were off to catch our coach for an 8:45 departure.

The trip had its pros and cons. The cons were associated with the tour company and "guide." There really were no cons related to the places we actually got the chance to visit so I'll stand on my little soap box here and complain a bit (just a bit, I promise) about the tour itself. We went with a company called Evan Evans. A friend of mine actually recently went on a tour and raved about it so my complaints could mainly be attributed to our poor tour guide. First of all, this kept displaying on the screen:

Its not super clear in this picture but it says "Evans Evans Tours," not "Evan Evans Tours." This gets under my skin like none other. I understand type-os happen but there were two instances on the slides that rotated where they spelled the company's name wrong! It just shows the lack of professionalism to begin with. At least they got it right on the giant bus.

Our tour guide wasn't really a guide at all. He shared a few pieces of information but nothing truly relevant or interesting. He also didn't see to be knowledgeable about certain subjects when asked. Our first drive to Windsor was about forty-five minutes. He talked for a fraction of it. When we got there and got off the bus, we were to meet him at a set location in an hour and a half. After the self-guided tour, we headed back to the bus and were told that it would take two and a half hours to get to the Roman city of Bath. After the first hour of silence, the bus driver finally offered to put on home music. It may have been poor planning on my part but I did not bring a book or an iPod as I anticipated a TOUR with a speaking guide. We got stuck in some traffic and he said it would take a little longer. Even with the traffic, we made it to Bath in two hours. I would assume that if he's done this tour before, he should know how long it takes to get places. 

At Bath, the same thing happened, we got off the bus and were to regroup in an hour and a half. Then it was another two hour drive to Stonehenge. This site was the first one I didn't feel rushed at because while we were given 45 minutes, it really only took 30. Once again, back on the bus for another two hour ride back to London. Our guide, Peter gave us some misinformation regarding the London Eye and places to eat, which made us question everything else he's told us. We had planned to catch the Eye after the tour but he said it closed at 7:30 and that the price was 11 pounds. Good thing we called because it closed at 9:30 and was 18 pounds.

All in all, we were unimpressed with the company as the guide is representative of Evan Evans. We are well aware that different guides will offer different information but this suggests that there is no standard across the company. For less money, I could have gotten on a regular coach (rather than a tour coach) and done the same amount without any added benefit. Essentially, the tour guide was more of a chaperone.The only positives were that we didn't have to wait in line too long for the attractions as we were with a group (which can also be avoided with strategic planning), and that although VERY rushed, we were able to scratch three places of interest off our list. 

WARNING: The rest of this post will contain A LOT of pictures (because we covered A LOT of ground)

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I would highly recommend every place we went to, just not particularly with a tour. As I mentioned before, we started the day off at Windsor Castle. It is the oldest and largest functioning castle in the world. When the Queen isn't in London, Windsor is her preferred home. Inside, we saw Queen Mary's famous doll house, complete with working plumbing. We weren't able to take pictures inside the castle but here are a few shots from around the grounds.  

Then we were on our way through the beautiful British countryside to Bath.

Bath is an ancient Roman city known for its hot spring. The Romans came and set up a temple around the bubbling warm water. I particularly love ancient Roman engineering and how well it was preserved. I find it very easy to imagine what it was like to live in the time.

Here is what hung on the entrance to the bath house. The museum did a great job at piecing everything together based on the ruins. This theme was present throughout entire rooms.

Again,  here is an altar recreated to fill in the gaps.

The springs aren't too hot and it would have been nice to go for a dip

We got out a few minutes early, grabbed some pasties for lunch and stumbled into a fudge shop. We did not leave empty handed.

We wandered around town before we got back on the bus.

As we were leaving, we got this beautiful view of the city.

Then we made it to Stonehenge.

Just like the Roman engineering, this prehistoric site still blows my mind. How did they get the stones to stand up AND stack them perfectly leveled?

When we got back to London, we headed towards the London Eye. On our way, we we passed Westminster Cathedral...

 Not to be confused with Westminster Abbey.

I don't know much about the London Eye other than it's just a giant ferris wheel. It takes about a half an hour to get all the way around.

Up high, you can see a fabulous view of the city.

For dinner, we headed to a Latin resistant, Iguana. Mexican food isn't my favorite cuisine but it is one thing I do miss and will eat as soon as I get back. I settled for veggie chili and rice with tortillas. It was very good and was also nice to have guacamole for starters.

This morning, we were planning on going to Portsmouth but our train was delayed last night and the weather was so bad today we slept in and hot up the carboot sale again. We picked up two helmets and an ankle brace for me.

Then we went to the grocery store, had lunch and got to working on our bikes. We cleaned them, degreased them and then regreased them. No squeaks or clicks now! Hopefully they will get some use this week.

That's it. Until next time, Cheers!

A Train Delay in our Favor?

I would like to preface this post with an apology as I like to give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Andrea  for her use of opposable thumbs and technology to allow our cat to be able to Skype with us yesterday. We know he's to lazy to do it on his own.

Yes, that's right. Another day of train frustrations but it all ended good and well. When the Husband came home, we grabbed some lunch and went looking for someone we saw at the carboot sale last week. We picked up two pedometers for 4 pounds. Then we went to top up our chip and pin card we got last week. What a nightmare that I won't even get into because it's too lengthy to explain. Because the customer service is so poor here (nation-wide) our thirty minute trip to the phone store  turned into over an hour and we missed our train to Guildford. We got on another one that took about 45 (rather than 17) and headed straight towards Guildford Castle. It was quite different than Farnham Castle. It had been lived it at one point and restored in 2003-2004.

Always on the top of a hill...

The gardens were breath taking!

The Husband is 6'3". That's clearly taller than anyone in the Middle Ages.

I, however, seem to be of normal height.

I'm not quite sure what they were playing but there was a game going on on the castle grounds.

The city of Guildford is one of the larger ones we've been to.

The city rests on the River Wey. When we go back, we'll take a boat and a walking tour to find out more secrets of the town.

Each town has a High Street and it's where everything happens. This picture was taking after everything closed but there are great shops in the area.

Guess what we found! No, we didn't eat here. We found a place call Giraffe. I forgot to take a picture but it was one of the best meals I've had out here. Nothing fancy but I had a hard time deciding on what to eat so I made the server decide for me. 

We think this was a prank. The statue is for Surrey College and it's around the time of graduation here. You do the math.

And then there was this guy.

We headed back to the train station and got on a train back to Farnborough. We were supposed to have a 40 minute layover in Woking but there was another train delayed until we got there (perfect timing). We rushed to the other platform and the train was moving before we even sat down. Next thing you knew, we were back home and had walked over 12,000 steps from 2:30 on.

Now that my legs are resting, the rest of my body will be joining shortly.

Cheers!