Great Britain (Eurotrip-2012)

      
        Humps for the next 200 yards. Not only is this a humorous street sign that Margot and I keep running into but it also seems to be a recurring headline for our trip. While the trip has been absolutely brilliant so far, there have been minor bumps in the road. In fact this morning I got the time for the train from Salisbury to Holyhead mixed up and we found ourselves running across town to get to the train station with only 15 minutes till our trains departure time. We luckily hailed a cab and the driver was so friendly he waived the cab fee when we arrived at the station. We rushed into the station to find Platform 2 and had just enough time for both of us to use the restroom before Margot suddenly realized that we were on the wrong platform, we needed to be on Platform 4. So we ran down and under the tunnel in order to reach our platform across the tracks only to be informed that indeed our train was actually on Platform 2. So we started running back in the direction that we’d come until we were told that no no Platform 4 WAS for our train. Sweating and painting we finally managed to get onto our train and speed off towards Holyhead. However, thinking all the excitement for the day was over, Margot just lost her ticket to Holyhead and we are now anxiously awaiting the conductor to come ask for our tickets so we can explain our situation and hopefully not get tossed from the train. During today’s course of events I think a little sign exclaiming “humps for the next 500 yards” would be more than appropriate.

            In regards to the title of this post, I assure you we did not find jobs paying a dismal rate, although we could definitely use the money. This is actually how much it cost us to enjoy England. We spent $5.42 for each hour we spent in England. So while the past week has been absolutely incredible and I wouldn’t change a thing about it, it has also been outrageously pricey. But before you write Engalnd off as a money vacuum, let me give you a run through of everything we’ve done in just the 5 days we’ve spent in the country. (Also, I realize this post is a bit long so if you skim it I won’t at all be offended. But it’d be nice if you let me know that you’re listening and leave me a little comment or something.)

London:

            We flew into London Heathrow at 11:45 A.M. on Thursday Aug. 9^th. At this point in time we had been up for almost 20 hours straight and hadn’t had anything to eat (excluding peanuts and cliff bars) for 16 hours. Exhausted, we navigated the Tube system like London natives and enjoyed the British accents of our fellow passengers along the way. Our Hostel didn’t start check-in until two in the afternoon so we stored our bags in the luggage room and set off to find some much needed food. We found a great Indian Restaurant just down the street off Belgrave and had some chicken and kashmir curry.

        Refueled we set off to explore the city and through a thick forest of pubs and Brits we managed to arrive at Westminster Abbey. We had missed visiting hours but just seeing the outside of the building was amazing and really snapped me into the realization that I was actually in fucking London. It was a great moment that only got better when we stumbled upon Big Ben and Parliament. We crossed over the River Thames and took a stroll down the side of the river, passing Kings College and exploring an old church along the way while also examining MI6 and its intense security systems.

       We found our way back to our hostel at about five in the afternoon and proceeded pass out. I was awoken by Margot a couple hours later exclaiming that we would mess up our sleep schedules if we continued to sleep. With so much sleep deprivation and only a two hour nap under my belt it took me a little while to get a real grasp on where I was and what the hell this woman was talking about. But after crawling out of bed and shaking my head awake we managed to make our way to the local pub for some bangers & mash and ale. It was so great to finally eat a real English meal and I went to bed a very happy man that night.

        We met our roommates for the night when we got back to the hostel, a brother and sister from Alberta, Canada. They were a tad bit older than us and the boy was a dancer who performed traditional Ukrainian dance and was in town for a show. They were very friendly and we were happy to share a room with them. Unfortunately they left the following day and you’ll hear about our new bunk mates a little while later.

            We got a good eight hours of sleep that night and had big plans for our Friday in London. Our first stop was the kitchen for our free breakfast of toast and … toast, it was just toast. With bellies rumbling we made our way to Buckingham Palace. Luckily we happen to be visiting during only a short period each year when they open up the State Rooms. Pictures were not allowed inside but I can tell you that it was absolutely incredible. Throne rooms, Dining rooms, Picture rooms, and Music rooms. Grand Staircases, Drawing rooms, Waiting rooms, and the Quadrangle. The whole building blew me away, not only was the building extremely old but it was all still in use by the Queen today. The way that the entire country of Britain has managed to intertwine the old and the new is something I personally found amazing. There were a couple pictures and statues that I found especially interesting in the Palace, but for the sake of boring my audience and making this post even longer I’ll exclude these parts and you can ask me about them personally if you feel inclined. Unfortunately we missed the changing of the guards because we were inside the palace when it occurred, but we gained the privilege to say that we were being guarded by twice the amount of guards as most of the tourists that pass through the palace. There is a funny story to go along with our trip to the Palace though. During the first half of our exploration through the Palace I was lagging behind, but as we went through the picture room Margot somehow ended up behind me. So when I exited into the Royal Gardens an hour later I was surprised not to see her anywhere waiting for me. Confused, I kept walking and eventually found my way to the exit. But as I left the gates I noticed that there was absolutely nobody out here and also no re-entry back into the Palace. As I was exiting I noticed a path leading deeper into the gardens but assumed that it was off limits, but while waiting outside I became unsure of myself and started following the brick walls around the Palace grounds in the direction of the path searching for another exit. I found none and ended up circling the entire grounds of the Palace only to find Margot waiting at the exact spot that I had exited at.

        After this stressful event and a much deserved lunch we were only a couple hours behind schedule heading to The Tower of London. The castle was magnificent and amazing to look upon, but being behind schedule and spending way too much on lunch we decided to skip the tour. This is a perfect example of something that would’ve been amazing to see but because we spent such a short time in London we were unable to experience. We’re working on minimizing these events from our trip. We circled the tower and then snapped some pictures near Tower Bridge.

      We walked a short distance over to the Monument which was erected in remembrance of the great fire of London, which burned half the city down in 1666.

     We walked the 311 steps to the top of the world’s tallest isolated stone building and then walked across London Bridge (which was not falling down) to find Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. We found its original location as well as its current location. It was also a really cool building that would’ve been great to see a show at if we were in town for a longer period. After visiting the Theatre we walked across the Millennium Bridge which talked to us. Yeah, the bridge had these speakers playing melodramatic music and soft voices explained to us what the bridge was. I would give you an example but I’ve been told by some of my audiences that you must’ve had to be there so I’m not going to embarrass myself on my blog post as well. All I can say is that it was very corny and hilarious. On the other side we came up on St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was amazing. It was so expansive I couldn’t help but be impressed. And while Margot informed me that there were huge cathedrals like this all over Europe, this was the first one I’d ever experienced and thus it blew me away. We made plans to visit Camden Town after this but halfway through our walk there we saw a Nando’s and really wanted to eat some food. Unfortunately, the oven broke down literally as we entered the building and we were forced to walk to another Nando’s in Brunswick. The chicken was delicious all the same and it was pleasant to have a full belly once again. From here we took the Tube to Trafalger Square and then walked over to the London Eye to see the whole area lit up at night.

       It was a great way to end our short stay in London, however this unfortunately wasn’t the absolute end of our stay. We went home and got to bed early for our 5 AM train the next day, but at about 11:30 I was awoken by some hooligans on the street below hollering and drunkenly singing to each other. I decided to go to the bathroom since I was now up and noticed that the hollering was getting closer and closer until eventually it was right outside my door. I came out of the bathroom and found out that these hooligans were indeed our roommates for the night. Fortunately they decided to go out for a drink and didn’t come back until 3:45 in the morning, precisely the same time we were walking up to go to the train station. We had a nice conversation though and discovered that they were from the Netherlands. One worked for the Welfare division of the Netherlands and the other one was still a part time student. They turned out to be pretty cool guys and we had a nice lively conversation about our separate governments.

Windsor:

            After a short ride on the train we found ourselves in Windsor at an alarmingly early hour. As we walked along the streets I was wondering how the hell all of these shops were surviving, I hadn’t seen another soul since we’d left the station.

I would find my answer later in the day...

           But for now we ventured on and eventually got worn down to a point that found us on a park bench in the middle of town with Margot sleeping on the bench while I updated my journal and watched our stuff.

         After a quick rest Margot woke up and we started searching again for our B&B, which we found but decided it was still too early to come knocking on their door. So we found a local coffee shop and had a full English breakfast to revamp for the day ahead. It was delicious, I fully approve of the way the English do breakfast. After a couple hours here we found it suitable to finally go to the B&B and did so, dropped our stuff off, and set out for Windsor Castle. The castle was awesome and very beautiful, which is probably why the Queen considers it her home and visits here almost every weekend.

         There was a beautiful garden in the middle of the castle and there was this story of a Scottish prisoner watching an English Princess from his prison cell in the castle and falling in love. After being released years later he came back and married her. I could imagine how easily it would be to fall in love with a woman in that garden, even the fat tourist from Bulgaria with a plumber’s crack looked gorgeous next to those flowers.

      After the Castle we wanted to go to Runnymede, which was supposedly only a couple miles up the river. This was false and we found ourselves in Datchet an hour later with Nettle stings and sore legs.

         Giving in to our exhaustion we took the train back to Windsor, walked to the local pub and gulped down a couple beers and some fish and chips, and passed out in our hostel at nine PM. Eleven hours later we woke up and talked to Franco and Karen who ran the B&B we were staying at as they made us breakfast. Franco was an Italian who had been living in Britain for way too long according to him. He was really friendly though and while I couldn’t really understand him too well with his accent Margot somehow did and had a conversation with him about unions and paying athletes to participate in the Olympics. After waving goodbye we walked around town exploring until it was time to take the train.

Salisbury:

          We took 2 o’clock train to Salisbury with only 4 transfers along the way, which all went incredibly smoothly. We later heard that trains were often late in the UK but from our experience they were extremely timely, so I guess we just got lucky. We then walked to our hostel and threw our stuff in our room and took a bus out to the Stonehenge with a stop at Old Sarum along the way. These two locations blew me away not only because they were just plain incredible but also because Old Sarum was a fortress created by Romans all the way back in the 4^th century and Stonehenge was created in 1300 B.C. How these structures can still be around today is amazing. And it seems that history is everywhere in this country. Every town we go into has some old cathedral or fortress. Even the place we stayed in last night in llangaffo, Wales used to be a blacksmiths shop from the 13^th century. The history is so rich and abundant. Margot and I have decided that we blew through Britain much too fast and would definitely like to come back and thoroughly explore the entire country sometime later in life.

        Finding food in Salisbury after visiting Stonehenge was like a scene from Mission Impossible. We walked around the entire city, which took about thirty minutes, and there were 3 shops open. One wasn’t able to serve food for another 45 minutes, on didn’t serve food on Sundays, and the final one was still serving food but half the menu was already gone because they had a heavy lunch period. But we did manage to find a couple menu items that were still available and enjoyed a nice dinner in another English pub before heading back to bed.

            The following day was an unexpected joy. We expected to have a very slow and relaxed day in Salisbury before heading up to Holyhead later in the day but ended up meeting some amazing people and having an exciting day. We went to see the Salisbury Cathedral, which only survived all of the bombing during WWII because it was such an identifiable structure to the German pilots bombing the country. They would fly until they found the Cathedral puncturing the clouds in the sky, then follow the river Avon to all of the towns nearby and bomb them instead. They considered the Cathedral too important of a landmark to the success of these missions that they ordered it not to be destroyed. We thought we would only spend a couple hours there but ended up running into an English couple named Pat and Graham outside the cathedral. Their daughter works as a tour guide at a Cathedral elsewhere in the country and so Pat spent the tour pointing out really awesome stuff to us. We saw ancient graffiti on the walls and learned about misericords which are the seats for those listening to long sermons. They are little ledges on the back of a seat that are slanted downwards so that if anyone fell asleep during the sermon they would slide right off the misericord. Supposedly a lot of them have really humorous carvings underneath them, like a wife beating her husband with a rolling pin or something. Graham talked with me a whole bunch about the idea of war, criminal acts, and the remembrance of soldiers who dies fighting battles long ago. They were incredibly friendly people and I’m so thankful we ran into them.

          We also ran into a man named Fred while at the Cathedral when we went to view one of only 4 original copies of the Magna Carta. He served in the Royal Air Force for 27 years, including WWII. He met and became friends with many of the U.S. soldiers that were building the ships that they would later use to storm the beach of Normandy on D-Day. Once again an incredibly friendly man that we took several pictures with. All in all, we spent about 5 hours at the Cathedral instead of 2. After this is when we discovered the discrepancy in the tickets and my memory of our train’s departure time.

     

Wales:

          After that whole mix up, we finally found ourselves in Wales at the Holyhead station. We got picked up and spent the night with a really nice lady named Wendy in Llangaffo, which is a very rural town on the western coast. We realized when we got there that everything was closed since there were no restaurants in the town to begin with and Wendy made us a nice dinner herself. She made us a great breakfast in the morning as well and drove us back into town. She was an incredibly nice lady and we vowed to come back again sometime in the future. We ventured around Holyhead for an hour waiting for our ferry, exploring an ancient fortress and spending the last of our Pounds on some Welsh bread and pastries. We then walked over to the ferry station to begin our journey to Ireland, which is where I’ll leave this blog post and pick it up again on the next one.

Sorry for the outrageous length. I’m planning on doing one blog post per country and any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoyed it and feel a little more included in my adventure across Europe. See you next time.