England

Well I found my mom at the airport in London, and we were off to see the city of London. The weather wasn't great, wet windy and cold, but at least we didn't really get rained on too much when we were out and about, and even had one nice day with some sun!

We saw all the main sights, but my mom wasn't overly impressed with the hustle and bustle of London, but she did enjoy a few parts of it, and we had a couple very good fish & chips. It was a pretty tiring 3 days, lots of walking, as there is much to see in London, we were both quite tired at the end of each day, and went to bed early most nights. It was different for me starting the days early, it was a nice change, as you often got to beat the crowds on most of the tourist attractions..

We then spent 2days and 3 nights at Tan's in Delft, with a day trip to Amsterdam, mom was a little taken a back by the red light district I think, it is a little shocking indeed!

We are now heading to Paris by Train, I just hope the weather picks up a bit, as it is a tad on the cool side. And I hope moms visions of Paris come true, it does have some magical parts, but it is also a busy city, and in my mind much dirtier than London.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I made the wrong decision to stay only 1 night in Liverpool. It's a great city, I enjoyed it much more than Manchester. The people are so friendly. Saw the Beatles Museum, they are truly still loved here, most pubs I went into had some sort of Beatles memorabilia, and people would sing along if a Beatles tune was playing. I'm not a huge fan myself, but it was interesting enough to see.

I went to a pub after a long day of walking around, sat down and had a pint. A old couple in there late 70's sat down at the table with me, and started talking, they talked about how Liverpool has grown and changed. The amount of construction going on here is insane, I have never seen so many cranes in one spot, it certainly rivals Calgary for construction going on. A whole city block was taken out and being rebuilt for a European Cultural Summit. The old couple left, and then another two older guys sat down, also very friendly, they became even more friendly when they learnt I was Canadian, they thought I was German at first. I had problems understanding them at times, they were well on there way in pints, and there accent was so thick. It's interesting how the accent from Liverpool and Manchester differ so much, even though they are like one hour away. They even bought me a couple pints, (they were only 1£ each, which is so much cheaper than London's 4£ pints). After a few pints, and a great chicken salad for dinner, I decided to head back to the hostel where I planned on just relaxing, for the evening.

I get to my room and there are 3 guys from Australia just getting ready to go out on the town, and asked if I wanted to come along, so I decided sure, since they were going to go play pool and it had been ages since I had played pool. My team won 8 games to 1, it was fun times. Not to mention the cheap drinks were going down pretty good. The pub started to fill up, and became more like a night club, it was some Results Party, where students got there results from school I guess. So it was quite packed, we were dancing away, and before I knew it, it was 3am. I had to check out of the Hostel at 10:00, so I headed back to the hostel. I had lost the Aussies, turns out they went looking for an after hours place, and didn't return until 5:30, so I am glad I got a few hours sleep.

The morning came way to soon, and I was a tad hungover, it had been a while since I had felt that rough. Had a shower, checked out, and left my bags at the hostel and went to check out Liverpool Cathedral. It was quite amazing, around the Cathedral there was a large graveyard, with big trees and old tombstones, I was the only one walking through it as the weather was a bit damp. It was so silent, it was quite eerie. It was like I was transported in time, and I felt like I was in an Ultima game (An old Computer Game set in the middle ages).

After that I headed back to the Hostel, and got my bags, and headed to the John Lennon Airport, as I am off to Dublin. I am looking forward to Ireland!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well not a whole lot to report from Manchester. It certainly has a different vibe than London, a little more laid back, it is more a blue collar city that is trying to become more cosmopolitan. I actually kind of like it here, other than the seemingly never ending clouds and rain. Had a few hours of sun Wednesday afternoon, it was funny to see how the city changed almost instantly. Everyone was sitting outside, and kids were running through fountains, even though it wasn't really that warm, around 19 or so. There aren't as many tourists here, but you can see the city is trying to push Tourism, with signs and buses popping up.

I really didn't do anything touristic while I was here. I was feeling rather drained, and needed to recharge my batteries, so I strolled around the city centre, had some nice meals in some interesting pubs, caught up on some sleep, and enjoyed some proper showers. I forgot to mention, the showers in Slovakia, Prague and Budapest were not really showers, just bathtubs with a shower nozzle, but no shower curtain, or anywhere to hang the shower head, so you just sat in the tub, and bathed yourself with the shower nozzle. I enjoy my standing up showers! It is how I wake up in the morning!

Other than that I just messed around with my MacBook, I hadn't really done anything with it other than email and web browsing since I bought it in London. Starting to see it's appeal over Windows now. I also accidentley wiped my IPOD of it's music, which may have been a blessing as it was full of lots of music I didn't listen to, and was rather unorganized.

But no need boring you all with details like that. I am now off to Liverpool, taking a one hour train there. I hope it stops raining for my walk to the train station. Well at least I am getting good use of my umbrella that I have been lugging around!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well my ten days in London flew by. It is certainly an entertaining
city. There are lots of people with money here. Bentleys, Rolls
Royce's, Aston Martins, and Porsches galore. It is possible I saw so
many since I was staying near the trendy and affluent part of London,
where royalty and celebrities like to hang out. As when I ventured
farther away from the city, I did notice a difference. Many
foreigners work here in the pubs and restaurants. I think London
would be a hard city to get started in, as things are pricey.

Food is pretty bland unless you go to one of the many ethnice
restaurants, which is really the only place you can get somewhat
healthy food, as British pub food is not overly good for you,
probably why there are advertisements reminding people to eat there
fruit and veg daily. It's a pretty diverse city culture wise, I
heard a radio advert say that there are 400 languages spoken in
London, and they are trying to hire a more diverse police force to
reflect that.

The weather during my stay was pretty decent, only rained a little
bit here and there, and for short times.. The Pharohe Monch concert I
went to was pretty good, however I was surprised the club shut down
right after the concert at 10:30. This may have been a good thing as
it was in a rougher part of London, so it was nice to be able to take
the tube back home, and not have to mess with the night busses. It
also allowed me to get up early the next day to see some more of the
sights on Wednesday. Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Canary Wharf, all
quite interesting. I wouldn't mind coming back and checking out a
couple shows. Tickets where pretty impossible to get in short notice.

I am now off to Amsterdam, that should certainly be entertaining.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well yesterday was a long day, I got up nice and early and made it to the car rental place down the street and picked up my 2007 VW Passat. Really nice car.
As soon as I sat in it, I was like wow, this is rather a weird feeling, everything is backwards, I am really glad I went with the automatic. So I fired up my GPS and made my way out of the middle of Downtown London, surprisingly it was rather easy to get out of the city, which was good, as I was a tad uncomfortable with the narrow
roads, and scraped the left hand curb a couple times. But soon I was on the Motor-way, and on my way to the country side. I didn't know they still used miles for speed and distance here, that was weird.

My first stop was going to be Avebury, which is a set a stone circle like Stonehenge, but as I was driving along, I saw a sign showing the way to Windsor Castle, so I thought that would be rather neat to see.
It must have been the perfect time to get there, just after 9am there was hardly anyone there, well it was busy, but not packed by London standards. So I toured around there for a while, quite an amazing place, unfortunately the queen was not at home, so I could not have some tea with her, perhaps next time. I was also lucky enough to get a perfect vantage point for the changing of the guard ceremony. This is when the place started getting really busy, but i had a clear view, and enjoyed the whole event, even though it seemed like they dragged it on a little to long.

Then it was back in the car and of to Avebury, not sure if it was my GPS giving me a weird route, or if it was the only way there, but the roads were pretty empty, and very scenic, it is quite a enjoyable drive, everything is so green and there are tons of great old buildings to check out along the way. Avebury Stone Circle would
have been amazing in it's day the circle was massive as were the stones used, however not too many of the stones remained, so it's true glory was lost. But the area is quite nice and quaint.

Then it was off to Bath, an old Roman city that is known for it's hot springs. I had brought my bathing suit as I was hoping to go for a dip. I was disappointed to find that the only place you could have a dip in the water was a modern Spa, the tour of the actual roman bath only included a cup of the water to drink, which well didn't really
appeal to me, so I spoiled my self for a short little spa visit, quite relaxing. However it took a while and I didn't get a chance to explore more of Bath, which really was bigger than I anticipated, but I did get to see some cool buildings, and maybe I will make that my starting or ending point for the rest of my UK trip later in August,
as it does have an airport with European connections.

Now I was off to Stonehenge, it was a bit of a race to get there before it closed at 7:00, you can't really speed as there are photo cameras everywhere, and even though my GPS knew where all the cameras were, they have got around that by doing Average speed photos, so you get your photo taken at one camera, and then at the next camera, and they can tell how fast you have been going by the time it took. I made it in good time though, as I was now getting more comfortable with driving on the right hand side, although a few times getting in to the car I would reach to put my seat belt on the wrong way over the left shoulder instead of the right.. I made it there with just over an hour to spare, and again I think I timed it right as the were only maybe 50 people there which was great, I had a nice relaxing stroll around the magical place, it was really quite beautiful. I really do wonder why and how they built these henges so long ago, 5000 years old, that is quite amazing, I
guess we will probably never know the true reason for there purpose, but perhaps that is for the best.

So I started on my way back to London, that is when traffic got ugly, coming into London on the M4, it was slow going, a 1.5 hour trip turned into almost 2.5, but finally I made it back to London, and was going to drop the car back off at the rental place. So I went to go fuel up, and well I did something rather stupid, I put unleaded fuel
in the diesel tank. I was not aware that I did this until I started driving, and the car quit on me about 400 meters from the rental place. I was so sure that I had picked the Diesel Pump.
So we had to get a 'recovery vehicle' this is what they call a tow truck, but it's a van with a towing system in the back, quite a neat little machine, and they towed it back to the rental place. So now I get to see how my credit card car rental insurance works! Apparently it is a pretty common occurrence, even the tow truck driver said he
did it once after a long day of driving, and looking on google it seems to be a common occurrence, so hopefully it doesn't end up costing me much.

Only a couple more days left in London, there is still much more I could see here, so maybe I will come back when it is less busy, but we will see, as it's not the cheapest of cities to stay in. I am off to Amsterdam and the rest of Netherlands on Thursday to meet up with the girl I met in Bergen Norway, so that should be fun.


The link to map button will take you to Stonehenge for a nice arial view, just zoom in.

Posted by Jason Willock

Whoops, a little bit of time slipped by between updates, I just got busy enjoying London, which is indeed one massive city.

There is no shortage of things to do or see here, everything you could possibly want to do, eat or see is somewhere here, lots of cultural and historic sights.

It is a very crowded city, with many many tourists, even lots of tourists from other parts of England and the UK, London is certainly a giant melting pot of cultures, not all which seem to be tolerated, I was walking down the street the other day and there was this older british lady telling this younger eastern european girl to piss off and go back to where she came from. It was rather bizarre. But I think that is a rare case, as people seem to get along fine here.

Went on the London Eye yesterday, a big observation wheel that offers pretty amazing views of London, and fortunately I had a nice clear day for it, which was good, I am also glad I purchased my ticket online, and paid the extra few dollars for the guided tour, as it allowed me to avoid the queue, which was massive. So many queue's here for everything.

Nightclubs here are the only place I think you pay money to be able to stand in a queue, there are so many clubs to choose from, and you can even buy VIP tickets which apparently let you skip the queue, but I don't think they work very well as I have seen some people complaining that they have these tickets, but then the have to stand in the VIP queue. I found it's best just to arrive early, like 10:00pm and you will have no problem. The problem comes that you have to pay for the expensive drinks for longer. Friday I went to a club called CC Club, pretty big club, great music, early in the night there were even a few b-boys and girls doing some great breakdancing. Also an assortment of people, including a few Vikki Pollard types (From Little Britain), if you don't know what that is, then just imagine ultra trailer trash type girls. Rather amusing. Last night was Bar Rumba, a little smaller, but much cheaper drinks, and even better music. No shortage of Hip-Hop/Dancehall music here.

The Underground closes pretty early here, right around midnight, which kind of sucks as it is a pretty good way to get around, however there are night busses that do the same routes if you can find them, there actually pretty fun after the bar you get on a bus with a bunch of drunk people all who are heading to your part of London, I met some interesting characters on these busses.

The weather here has been pretty good actually, a little rain here and there, but the afternoons and evenings are generally pretty clear which is nice, it's another nice day today, so I am going to see a few more sights, I am going to try to brave the British Museum and hope it's not insanely crowded, but I think pretty much everything here is always crowded.

Tomorrow I am renting a car for a day and heading twords Stonehenge, Avebury (which is apparently better than Stonehenge) and Bath, should be interesting driving on the right hand side, I paid a little extra to get an automatic, as I think shifting with my left hand would just be too much to deal with in one day. The car rental is cheaper than any tour I could find, and I would prefer to do it on my own then in a huge tour group, so should be fun!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well yesterday was a rather exhausting day, it started out as a
relaxing morning in Stockholm with a nice journey to the airport to
find out my flight to London was delayed an hour, no big deal. Nice
flight, had a good seat that was like a 1st class seat with out the
service, there were only two of those on the plane. (I was quick with
the online check-in). We then have to fly around London for about 20
minutes as there was a back log of planes, finally we land, but the
spot we were supposed to park in was still full because of the back-
log, so we taxi to the far reaches of Heathrow airport. It isn't
connected to the terminal, so we have to wait for a ladder and a bus
to arrive, another 20 minutes. Finally I get inside the airport,
whip through customs, and then go to luggage pickup, the luggage pick
up place is so filled with luggage that it's hard to move. Where are
all the people who haven't picked up there luggage was the common
phrase spoken.
An hour passes, and still no luggage from my flight, finally after
about 75 minutes it starts to unload, and 90 minutes my bag arrives,
one of the very last ones.
I am surprised bags didn't go missing, I could have easily walked out
with someone elses bag, I bet the really nice fancy bags from the
Dubai flight would have had some rather nice stuff in them!

I then stand in a line to buy my Oyster London metro card, that took
another 25 minutes, so my 5:15 original arrival time turned into well
past 8:00, and I wanted to go to the Apple store to get my new
laptop, so I took the metro to the hotel, checked in, and had about
15 minutes to get to the apple store which closed at 9:00. Somehow I
managed, even having to transfer trains, I was running like a
sprinter, I bet I caused some attention to the guys who watch all the
CCTV cameras here. So I am now the proud owner of a new black
Macbook, pretty neat, I have a bit of learning to do to get as
proficent with it as I was with Windows, but it seems pretty decent.

Today it was pretty cloudy and wet in the morning, but I figured it
was always going to be like this, so I headed out to the Tower Of
London, I figured I would get there early to avoid the crowds, 9:00am
is not early enough, the lines were massive, and it was 16 Pounds to
go see it, I wasn't even too sure what was inside it, so I was going
to shell out $35 on a crowded castle, so I walked around it, and the
sun started coming out for short times which was nice as it was quite
cold. Checked out a the Tower Bridge, and London Bridge, the London
Bridge is rather dull and boring, the Tower Bridge was impressive though

It is funny I thought ahh here I am in England, no worries about
language, just easy English speaking for a while. I went to a
chicken place for lunch, and the clerk could not speak much english
at all, so I had to point to what I wanted, and we figured it out.
While I sat eating, several people came in and ordered, all in some
Arabic type language, it was rather bizzare, i guess I was just in
that part of town.

Went to a pub for dinner, no shortage of pubs here, they are
everywhere, and now London is Smoke free, which is nice, except now
no one sits inside they just crowd around tables, it could be because
this evening was quite sunny, which has been pretty rare for here
lately, and the forecast is looking pretty good, no rain tomorrow!
There is also a problem with pubs and clubs smelling funny with out
the cigarette smoke to mask the odors.

The hotel/hostel I am staying in is pretty decent located, just a
couple minutes from the Earls Court tube, so it is pretty easy to get
around. I haven't decided what to do tomorrow, either Big Ben and
Westminster, or some shopping on high street, I am in need of some
new clothes, as my current selection is starting to wear out. I was
reading in the paper that there was just some big busts on stores
selling fake merchandise, so at least I know I should be getting
quality stuff I guess.

Posted by Jason Willock