So after Lizzie had left, it was up to my brothers and I to do what we do best, be tourists and blend with the locals (aka drink.) We started off our day of extreme tourism by going to Abbey Road, where the Beatles wrote many of their songs. We looked around, snapped a few photos, and then tried to recreate the famous album cover from the Abbey Road album. So we propped the camera on a ledge and put it on timer so that all three of us could be in the picture. Well, let me tell you, it’s difficult to try to get the timing down of when no cars, bikes, people and walking right in the middle of the road. We must have looked like complete idiots (tourists) because after attempting the shot about 7 times, a man came up to us and told us he had been watching us for the past twenty minutes. So not only did we feel like dummys, we looked like them and had an audience…super! But we managed to get a decent picture and is in the running for the Dodge 2009 Christmas card (we will send one out this year…hopefully.) side note: sort of weird but “I want to hold your hand” just came on my itunes…freaky. Anyways, after the Beatles excursion, we went to Madame Toussads! Who doesn’t want to pay to pose with their favorite actor? (In my case I got to pose with Prince William, aka my future husband) there were a ton of people there so I felt a little odd going posing with the majority of the wax figures. Everybody sort of watches how you pose with the figures…for example, they had made a Saddam Hussein model and I don’t particularly like that fella so I gave him a piece of my mind. Then a man and woman came around the corner and they appeared to be from the Middle East and immediately turned in the other direction. Oops. But at least Saddam now knows how I feel about him. We managed to find our way through the museum pretty well, but one thing that I thought was hilarious was the torture room/haunted house. They showed many detailed mannequins being tortured (gak) and then you could get in line for this “chamber of torture” (cue creepy music.) I was all for it…but both of my strong, manly brothers somehow didn’t feel up to it. There I said it, Will and Steve were scared! I told them I would protect them from the scary monsters but neither of them were having it. So we skipped the queue and finished the museum unscared. The final excursion of the day was to a pub and back to bed. We had to rest up for our final excursion…St. Paddy’s Day!
St. Patrick’s day was an all day event of fun. (If you are bothered by drinking at noon, probably not your idea of fun.) We decided to do our own “pub paddy’s crawl.” We went to about 8 or 9 pubs through out the entire day and had a few pints. The best thing was this one owner of about 5 pubs was giving out coupons for free Guinness. (You don’t even need to go to the ‘factory’ first!) So we, by we I mean my two brothers, enjoyed some Guinness. Trust me it tastes like tar and coffee that was mixed in a garbage can. No none for me thank you. We ended at our favorite bar called the Three Tons where we had met a bartender, Narie, earlier in the week. After that we were in the mood for McDonald’s where Steve proceeded to speak French to the worker. “Est-ce que je peux…a McChicken, Large Fry, another McChicken, a cheeseburger and a large coke?” Then he proceeded to give a thumbs up to everyone on the street. Oh man, we had too much fun…or alcohol.
It was really hard to say goodbye to my brothers the next day. I really had a lot of fun with them, and it made me a tiny bit homesick to say goodbye. But what made me happy was that the day after, my really good friends, Kaytee and Kathryn, were coming to visit me in Scotland! So we said goodbye, teary eyed (me), and went our separate ways. Me back to Scotland and them to Paris…yes I was worried to leave them by themselves in Paris. I navigated through Heathrow by myself, only having an hour until my plane left (most anxiety filled underground ride I had back to the airport because oh there was an “emergency in the next vehicle” so I had to wait about 30 minutes until they cleared that up.) But I managed, fingernails intensely short, and hopped on the plane back to my love Scotland.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
London...Part One
Well I have no excuses for not writing in about a month except for the fact that I literally have not had more than one day to myself for the last 3 weeks. I am not even kidding the past few weeks I have entertained, traveled and entertained some more...but I have returned with lost of stories to share about my misadventures in Scotland and beyond.
So about a month ago now...I got to see my brothers and a good friend from home (Lizzie) in London! I took about 5 days off of school, eh hem, I mean none if your name is mom or dad...and flew into london to meet them all. We had decided that Lizzie would meet me at my arrival gate since she arrived first and then together we would find my brothers at their gate. Well here's a shocker, I get off my plane and cannot find Lizzie. So I call her, but surprise it doesn't connect. So I decide to find my brothers and then figure out what to do about finding Lizzie. Now keep in mind Heathrow is perhaps the largest airport in the world and is currently undergoing construction...sweet. I literally am walking in circles trying to find terminal 3. circles. I ask a few of the late night workers (we landed at ten o'clock local time) but none can seem to point me in quite the right direction. Finally I approach a bunch of construction workers, all male between the ages of 20 and 40, where I can find terminal 3...they sort of smirk and tell me to follow the signs to terminal 2, and then just keep walking...a long time. So I figure I have a lot of ground to cover in a little time, like 15 minutes. Now if you have been keeping up with my blogs you will understand that working out is not quite my thing (bleep test. enough said.) But I manage to find my way just as the boys are entering the arrival gate. Then we think to call my dad and have him call lizzie and voila she appears in the elevator in front of us...yay. So all four people are off to our hotel in London. We managed on the underground and found our hotel without a hitch (that's because I'm a genius and decided to print out turn by turn directions to get to our hotel.)
The next day we decided to get up early (like 10 am) and go explore. We stumbled onto Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Eye all within about twenty minutes. It was weird to get off the metro and see all these sights literally right in front of you. It's as if I didn't believe they existed outside of movies, but guess what...Big Ben isn't just from a movie. The parliment building was extremely pretty and perhaps my favorite part of London. Really, the White House does not even come close in comparison. Like honestly who decided to make a white house and have that be the center of politics? There are plenty of white houses in America, but there is only one Parliment building in all the UK that is so cool. Anyway enough of that complaining...We ate a traditional English pub for lunch, I had a bowl of chips (fries) and will and steve had a pint of Stella with some fish n' chips. They clearly have no problem adjusting to the traditional english ways. After lunch we walked around London for a bit and hit up Harrod's. One of the biggest department stores I've ever seen. It is like two city blocks and you literally could get lost in it. It was really cool but the thing I had a problem with was the pricetag of the items. A t-shirt cost around 65 pounds. Uh, thanks my hanes cotton tees from target work just fine thanks. So besides being able to say I went to Harrod's, I didn't think it was all that great. So we went to a pub and called it a night.
The next day again filled with touristy things to do note: I am a great tourist by now. We actually went into the eye and got to see the entire city of london. I kept singing the BBMak song while I was in the eye, "Until you're back here baby..." because it was filmed in the eye. But apparently I was the only one who knew this because nobody seemed to agree with me and I kept getting odd looks. After the eye we decided to go to the tower of London. This is where Anne Boleyn got beheaded. well and other things obviously happened there as well, but that was what I thought was the coolest. There was also a torture museum in the Tower, and I think I am glad we don't use that kind of thing anymore. The things they did were definitely not what I would want to do in my free time. I am already tall enough for a girl so no thank you I do not want to be stretched out. After these two big tourist spots Lizzie and I felt that we needed some girl shop time. So we hit the shops...only to discover that everything was closed. I guess that is a good thing because my bank account is looking a little dismal these days. So instead we went to a cupcake shop and had a double chocolate frosted cupcake. Almost as good as shopping just with a few more calories. Finally we met the boys for dinner and had a few pints before we had to say goodbye to Lizzie. Her flight was at 6 am so she had to get on the bus at 3 am. That was probably not fun. With Lizzie gone, the boys and I had to continue on our adventures.
So about a month ago now...I got to see my brothers and a good friend from home (Lizzie) in London! I took about 5 days off of school, eh hem, I mean none if your name is mom or dad...and flew into london to meet them all. We had decided that Lizzie would meet me at my arrival gate since she arrived first and then together we would find my brothers at their gate. Well here's a shocker, I get off my plane and cannot find Lizzie. So I call her, but surprise it doesn't connect. So I decide to find my brothers and then figure out what to do about finding Lizzie. Now keep in mind Heathrow is perhaps the largest airport in the world and is currently undergoing construction...sweet. I literally am walking in circles trying to find terminal 3. circles. I ask a few of the late night workers (we landed at ten o'clock local time) but none can seem to point me in quite the right direction. Finally I approach a bunch of construction workers, all male between the ages of 20 and 40, where I can find terminal 3...they sort of smirk and tell me to follow the signs to terminal 2, and then just keep walking...a long time. So I figure I have a lot of ground to cover in a little time, like 15 minutes. Now if you have been keeping up with my blogs you will understand that working out is not quite my thing (bleep test. enough said.) But I manage to find my way just as the boys are entering the arrival gate. Then we think to call my dad and have him call lizzie and voila she appears in the elevator in front of us...yay. So all four people are off to our hotel in London. We managed on the underground and found our hotel without a hitch (that's because I'm a genius and decided to print out turn by turn directions to get to our hotel.)
The next day we decided to get up early (like 10 am) and go explore. We stumbled onto Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Eye all within about twenty minutes. It was weird to get off the metro and see all these sights literally right in front of you. It's as if I didn't believe they existed outside of movies, but guess what...Big Ben isn't just from a movie. The parliment building was extremely pretty and perhaps my favorite part of London. Really, the White House does not even come close in comparison. Like honestly who decided to make a white house and have that be the center of politics? There are plenty of white houses in America, but there is only one Parliment building in all the UK that is so cool. Anyway enough of that complaining...We ate a traditional English pub for lunch, I had a bowl of chips (fries) and will and steve had a pint of Stella with some fish n' chips. They clearly have no problem adjusting to the traditional english ways. After lunch we walked around London for a bit and hit up Harrod's. One of the biggest department stores I've ever seen. It is like two city blocks and you literally could get lost in it. It was really cool but the thing I had a problem with was the pricetag of the items. A t-shirt cost around 65 pounds. Uh, thanks my hanes cotton tees from target work just fine thanks. So besides being able to say I went to Harrod's, I didn't think it was all that great. So we went to a pub and called it a night.
The next day again filled with touristy things to do note: I am a great tourist by now. We actually went into the eye and got to see the entire city of london. I kept singing the BBMak song while I was in the eye, "Until you're back here baby..." because it was filmed in the eye. But apparently I was the only one who knew this because nobody seemed to agree with me and I kept getting odd looks. After the eye we decided to go to the tower of London. This is where Anne Boleyn got beheaded. well and other things obviously happened there as well, but that was what I thought was the coolest. There was also a torture museum in the Tower, and I think I am glad we don't use that kind of thing anymore. The things they did were definitely not what I would want to do in my free time. I am already tall enough for a girl so no thank you I do not want to be stretched out. After these two big tourist spots Lizzie and I felt that we needed some girl shop time. So we hit the shops...only to discover that everything was closed. I guess that is a good thing because my bank account is looking a little dismal these days. So instead we went to a cupcake shop and had a double chocolate frosted cupcake. Almost as good as shopping just with a few more calories. Finally we met the boys for dinner and had a few pints before we had to say goodbye to Lizzie. Her flight was at 6 am so she had to get on the bus at 3 am. That was probably not fun. With Lizzie gone, the boys and I had to continue on our adventures.
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