A Look into my Life

And Brighton got my shoes wet. The past two days I’ve been taking advantage of the rail system within the UK. It’s one aspect that I find truly amazing about this country. You can get from one point to another by train in a very short amount of time and it doesn’t cost a lot. Yesterday I made the journey to Oxford. I was actually very close to it when I went on my road trip. I figured it would be best to tackle the city without having to worry about a vehicle.

It definitely is a unique town. I quite enjoyed walking around it. I made sure to drop by Christchurch. It has some significance to Harry Potter. I’ll have to wait for a resident HP expert to chime in, Kim!! I ended up walking through a park and made it to out skirts of town. It was a long walk back in but I made it! At this point I was starting to really feel the effects of the cold that I was hoping was only a sore throat. Check out the Oxford album, there’s some good photos!

Today I boarded a train to Brighton. It’s on the southern coast of England. It is know for it’s rocky beaches. I didn’t quite know what to expect. The beach is completely covered with what we would call river rock. It’s much smaller, about an inch in diameter. It’s the weirdest thing! So I went down to the waters edge with a goal in mind. I wanted to touch the water!! This is when things went terribly wrong. I studied where the water would come up to and finally felt comfortable going near it. Well, one of those random large waves decided to rear it’s ugly head and before I knew it I was in water up to my ankles. OOPS! So I had some wet feet for the remainder of the day, great for being sick as well. I walked along the edge of the beach. They have a sort of board walk there. There is also Brighton Pier which is like an amusement park suspended over the sea. 

Upon arriving back in London I made my way to Oxford Street. We Americans have Black Friday, Londoners have the first Saturday of December. Oxford Street and Regent Street is closed to traffic and as I found out people swarm the area. It was unbelievable the amount of people that were out. I also made what will probably be my last visit to the Regent Street Apple Store. 

Tomorrow I’m heading to Canterbury. Check back tomorrow evening for those details. I have also dropped below a week remaining in London. I’m still in shock that this is my last Saturday in the city. Quite amazing! I can almost see home from this point!!

I took ma and pa back to the airport this morning. Everything went without issue. Mom is quite worn out but she did survive the week, just. And dad did too!!

Yesterday I once again hired a car, just for the day this time. Mom wanted to see the prime meridian at Greenwich and Hampton Court Palace. So we took off early in the morning in our Vauxhall Astra heading for Greenwich Park. There we wandered around the Royal Observatory in the drizzle that would accompany us all day.

After our visit there we headed across the south of London through terrible Friday afternoon traffic. This is when I really wished I’d opted for an automatic transmission. Regardless I now have a stronger left leg. We arrived at Hampton Court with only a little time to actually go through. We did hit all the major areas however, minus the gardens. But it was raining and despite the current situation, would have been miserable to go through. The rooms within were beautifully decorated and were massive. It must have been quite extraordinary to live in there in the 1700s. There had been a fire in the King’s portion of the state rooms. It was repaired and refurbished and looks fantastic. 

We then departed Hampton Court with the Satnav set for Piccadilly Circus in the centre of London. I want mom and dad to see the lights there as well as the Christmas lights of Regent Street and Oxford Street. We looped up through there seeing everything and being one of the few cars on Oxford Street mixed amongst the busses. Quite intimidating! We stopped off at a few shops and got them some souvenirs, dropped them off back at the hotel, returned the car, and dined on some pub food before calling it an evening!

I’ll put of pictures of yesterday as well as pictures from their trips to Windsor, Stonehenge, and Paris. 

Status Update

In two week time I should be landing, or near landing at Philadelphia International. 

I have a little bit of a dilemma on my hands. After I return home, finish up covering my experience here and write about re-culturing myself the the way of the United States I don’t really know what to do with my blog. I will keep it up for quite a while. I hope to go back through and do a lot of proofing and minor tweaks to the posts, but once that is done I have no idea what else to write about. So for the next couple weeks I’d like to hear from everyone who has been viewing and ready for the past 3 months to leave some feedback on where and what you’d like to see from my site. I’d love to post about my last semester at school but it would all be the same; cold, it snowed, and class sucked. So I’m open for ideas!!

Last evening there was a celebration on Oxford Street to turn on the Christmas lights. Performers from X-Factor (not sure what that is) were there to sing, the Sugarbabes were there to sing as well (still clueless). At 6:15 they flipped a switched and the entire street lit up and fireworks went off! I have a few pictures to upload in a bit, so check them out!

This will be my last post until I return from my road trip. I should have my car around 8am my time. This should be interesting!!

The smell of Christmas is in the air! It seems that the Christmas season kicks in a bit early when you don’t have Thanksgiving to mark the start of the Holiday season. I took a nice walk down Oxford Street in the brisk autumn air and I was astonished at the number of shops that have their Christmas window displays set up and lights have been strung on the buildings. There are massive stars also strung between the buildings on Regent Street. I’m very anxious to see what else develops over the next few weeks. I’ll be sure to make an album for all the Christmas lights in the next few weeks, don’t worry!

Amsterdam!

The final leg of break was an exciting trip to Amsterdam. I’ll pick of the story very early Thursday morning. Now when I say early I mean 2:30am early. We were ready early and then caught a cab to Victoria train station. We caught a train to Gatwick Airport and had a 7am flight to Amsterdam. When we arrived we made our way to our hotel, checked in, and we both were completely exhausted. There was no time for sleep though! We had to keep moving. We walked into town stopping at a small pub for lunch. I assume it was traditional Dutch cuisine, but I’m not 100% what it really was.

The city is on the small side. One side to the other was about 45 minutes at normal walking pace. Thankfully they do drive on the right side of the road and I could default to normal walking habits, which have become not so default over the past few weeks. In reality you did have to worry about cars. The residents relied mainly on bikes for transportation. There were thousands of them running around and chained to anything that wouldn’t move. They had stretched ones with spots in the front for their children and all!

Our first goal for the day was to take a canal cruise through the many canals that make up the city. The sights along the canals were fantastic and actually made my day. Many of the pictures we took came from the cruise. We also did some shopping around. For a touristy place they certainly do hide a lot of the touristy stuff and the tourists!

Did I mention there were a lot of tulips? We walked through the flower market. There were huge amounts of tulips, tulip bulbs, wooden tulips, wooden shoes (who knew they were real?), and various other things (junk).

That evening we had a walk through the famous red light district. I only dared to take my camera out for one picture and that’s all you guys are going to see! At this point I’ve forgotten a lot of details about that trip. I’m sure Jamie can comment on a few things as well.

We finished things up the next morning with a stop at the Heineken brewery and then headed back for a rest and then catching our flight out. At this point we were exhausted, it was raining, and the beds at the hotel were calling our name!!

Status Update

There are 25 days until my mom and dad come over for the week of Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to that. My mom has already scoped out the largest shopping mall, which just opened up in West London recently. I believe they will also be going to Paris and doing the Windsor/Stonehenge/Bath tour. I believe we will also take a day trip to Hampton Court Palace (they don’t know this!). Henry VIII turned this into a royal palace in 1514. It is thought that his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, haunts the palace.

I have 45 days remaining in London. I can’t believe how fast time is passing! I’m going to be home before I know it. I’m trying to pack my weekends full of all I can to make sure that I accomplish everything that I want to.

Before I get into anything else there have been several changes in the UK over the past week or so. The most import is the dollar to pound ratio. Its now $1.50:£1. Things are becoming affordable! Fall has also moved into the area. The temperature has fallen over the past week (ask Jamie!) and the days are becoming much shorter. The island has also left British Summer Time after last Saturday. For this week we are only 4 hours ahead of Eastern Time. With the time change the evenings end very early. This hit hard today while sitting in class. The sun had set by 4:30pm!! By the time I got back to my tube stop it was dark. Plus I had to go food shopping. What a depressing place! We have been warned that it will begin to get dark as soon as 3:30pm while we are here.

Without further distraction, back to break week! Wednesday was a London day. We went around to all the important attractions in the city. First off was Buckingham Palace. We were there EARLY and were the only tourists in the area. Made for some excellent pictures and stress free enjoyment of the royal residence. Sadly the queen wasn’t at home this morning.

Next we headed to Tower Hill for a walk across Tower Bridge and spent a few hours within Tower of London. Look back for details on the tower. Not much changed since my last entry, other than a much lamer tour guide. Pictures will be posted however!

We swung back to check out St. Paul’s Cathedral. The size still amazes me. We had lunch next to it at a Pizza Express. We then headed to Harrod’s for some shopping. This is a department store spread out into a building that could house a medium size mall. It is owned by Mohamed Al Fayed, the father of Dodi Al Fayed. On the bottom floor is a memorial dedicated to Diana and Dodi. 

After that we walked down Oxford Street and picked up a few nick knacks a long the way. Of course stopping by the Apple Store!! We then snagged some dinner and proceeded to relocate our luggage to my flat for storage and preparation for our early departure for Amsterdam. It will take me some time to type that up. Look for it tomorrow since it’s my day off!

Until then, enjoy the snow Western Pennsylvania!!