Day 10 Glasgow

Day 10

Oct 24/09

After Trevor woke up, it was off to the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. This museum was a collection of items collected by William Hunter as well as other scientists that taught or worked at the University of Glasgow. There were some amazing items. William Hunter was an amazing collector and had and Egyptian mummy, Roman and Greek stones and all kinds of medical items. He had body parts in jars because he figured it was important for students to see first hand the items they will be looking at. Another scientist had his urine in a vial that apparently he had boiled and sealed off to see if it would stay sterile and apparently it had stayed clear for (I think) over 100 years! It was a really interesting museum. We also went to see the Hunterian Gallery where there were paintings from the 1500-1900's. Some really interesting paintings. After taking a look at the art gallery it was off to Cambridge where we would be hanging out the next day. It was another long drive today, all the way down to Cambridge. Parking again was a bit tricky but we found it (thankfully).

Day 9 Edinburgh to Glasgow

Day 9

Oct 23/09

Today we headed off to the National Museum of Scotland. Again free (I love free), it had really cool displays. It sort of doubles as a history museum and a science centre. In the science centre part they have THE Dolly, the first sheep that was cloned from an adult cell! They also have the original Gemini space capsule (or whatever it is). We also learned a little bit about Alexander Graham Bell in the phone section. It was then time to expore the Scottish history side of the museum. Once we were museum'd out we headed to lunch a cute little Italian restaurant in a rather touristy area and then headed back to our car to head out in the direction of Glasgow, our final stopping point that night. Just before we left Edinburgh, we drove by Alexander Graham Bell's home and took some pictures, then we were off. First we had to go see the Falkirk wheel (one of the Geek Atlas items.) It's a type of lock for boats, but it raises boats about 50m! It was kind of cool. It's hard to describe, but when I post pictures, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. After this it was time to find parking. It was rather tricky finding a parking space this night. Edinburgh to Glasgow is only about 45 min and between the two is mostly bigger town/city so there weren't the typical blue P signs to indicate parking. It probably took us about 2.5 hours of driving to find a spot to park. Somehow we found one. It was in a cute little spot. It was away from the highway which was nice. It was now time for bed to get ready for the next day.

Day 8 Edinburgh, Scotland

Day 8

Oct 22/09

Edinburgh. Today was the day we would go see our first castle. First we needed breakfast, so off we went to find a restaurant that Trevor found on the internet called Toast. It took us a bit of time to find it, but we did. After we ate, we had a tricky experience trying to get our car out of where we parked. Trevor had commented earlier in the trip that he now understood the Austin Powers joke when he tries to turn around and has to move back and forth a bunch of times. I don't recall the part, but it is ridiculous to turn around on the roads. They are so narrow, and when you considered we are driving a car 1.5 times the length of any other car, we are definitely too wide to turn around. Trevor ended up having to back out of the alley for quite some time to get us out of our predicament. Next it was off to the castle. The castle sits on top of volcanic rock and overlooks the city. The views were amazing from there. We took a little tour and then looked at the Scottish crown jewels, which only have 3 items: crown, scepter, and sword. They are the oldest crown jewels in Western Europe and the second oldest in the world (the Hungarian crown jewels are older). They were nice but not as shiny as the English jewels. We also went into the War Memorial for WW1 and WW2 that is at the castle and Trevor believes he found his great-great uncle's name in the WW1 books!!! After we explored the castle I decided I wanted to see the beach so Trevor drove us over to the water and we walked up and down the beach. It was then time to find a hotel for the night (we hadn't showered for 3 days at this point and we weren't looking or feeling very wonderful). We ended up getting a room in the Travelodge (yup they have them here, but they're different here). We decided to eat at Ryan's pub that night which apparently is a very popular pub in Edinburgh, and then it was off to bed.

Day 7 Cardiff to Edinburgh

Day 7

Oct 21/09

I woke up to beautiful scenery of the lake the next morning. I went down to the lake for an early morning stroll while Trevor continued to sleep. This seems to be the way things are on the trip. I wake up early and do something (read, write, walk) for 20 ish min while Trevor sleeps and then we start driving. So off I went took some pictures and then it was time to drive. There wasn't much else that happened this day. We drove until we were just outside Edinburgh and then parked for the night. The drive between places in the UK is very minor (especially compared to our ridiculous road trip). Within the hour we would be in the next destination. The drive today was a much longer one. From Cardiff to Edinburgh was a 7 hour drive (still minor on the road trip scale). Very uneventful day.

Day 6 Cardiff, Wales

Day 6

Oct 20/09

This morning we went out and explored the stone circle. The stone circle here surrounds the village and you can walk right up the stones and touch them. It was a bit of a drizzly day, but that didn't stop us from taking a hour or so walk around the stones. It was really quite fascinating. They were placed essentially in farmer's fields with sheep grazing around them. I guess the stones weren't placed in farmers fields, more like the farmer's fields surround the stones. Well we walked around, enjoyed the sheep fields and stones and headed out to Bath. At Bath we walked around and saw the beautiful Roman style buildings. This was the place the Romans lived a few centuries ago. They also had this giant map on the ground where for just a moment I standing in Edmonton. We then saw the Roman baths from the outside and headed back to the car to continue driving to Cardiff, a city in Wales. We drove off and then remembered that we probably should have looked for a money exchange a little more seriously, but I figured we'd be able to find one in Cardiff. Not long after that thought we made it upon our first and only toll booth of the trip. We ended up having to pay for most of it in Canadian dollars. Crappy thing was, they would only accept foreign dollars in denominations of $10. Since $10 is about 5 pounds and the toll was 5.40 it meant if we had paid it in Canadian dollars, the toll would have cost us $20! Luckily we had 40p and were able to pay the $10 and then 40p (in British pence). Man oh man. But we had made it across to another country. We were now in Wales. You could tell we were in a different country, but it's hard to put it in words why. There were still fields of sheep and green rolling hills with lots of colorful trees, but it was different. Mind you the signs helped since they were written in both English and Welsh. When we got to Cardiff, there wasn't too much to see. We could have gone into the Castle, but right now we have to be smart with money and we knew we'd be seeing Edinburgh Castle shortly. When circumstances are unknown, it's best to err on the side of caution. We walked around a bit and of course as I usually need to do it, I had McDonald's in Wales. My Big Mac tasted drier than in Edmonton, but still same old Big Mac. So we walked around a bit more and took pictures and then it was back to the car to decide where to next. We decided that we would spend the night in the Black Mountain National Park. We drove over and found a cozy spot near a lake, Trevor cooked up some pasta and we went to bed.

Day 5 London and Stonehenge England

Day 5

Oct 19/09

Trevor left after breakfast to pick up our Wicked Van. We decided that it would be cheaper if only one of us went. I stayed and carried all of our luggage down the narrow stairs to wait for Trevor's arrival. It was not an easy task since at least two pieces of luggage weigh over 40lbs and are not exactly the easiest thing to carry down stairs with little vision. Trevor arrived in our Tutti Fruitti van with fruit all over the sides and on the back the following message was written "Warning: the consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns to the forehead and knees". I thought it was cute, Trevor was less impressed stating it wouldn't have been his first choice. We were off on another road trip. First destination, Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian. It was definitely not an easy task to get there because we learned that London's streets change names as you drive on them! But we made it and we stood on time 0. It wasn't anything overly exciting, but it was just neat to be on, to say we've seen the Prime Meridian. We also walked around the Royal observatory and then drove to our next destination; Stonehenge. On our way we stuggled to find somewhere to pull off quickly to eat and ended up spending the last bit of cash that I had exchanged. We made it to Stonehenge just as the sun was setting and that's when we learned that you can only go to the stones at set hours. Otherwise you had to be satisfied with Stonehenge from 50 m away (not that you can walk up to the stones anyways, because there is a rope around them and a trail you must follow. It was pretty neat to see Stonehenge, though not as exciting as I anticipated. We took a bunch of pictures and drove to Avebury, a village which is the site of the largest stone circle. Right before we got there we decided to stop into a grocery store where we learned that our mastercard was not necessarily going to work in small town grocery stores (because they don't take credit cards). We had to scramble to find some sort of cash (which we had thought we had run out of the day before). We somehow managed to find 6 pounds between the two of us and went off with our groceries. It was to be our mission to exchange money as soon as possible after this. For the night we parked in a parking lot of a pub in the village after asking permission, though not getting a clear Yes in response. Apparently to ask the proper people was to find another company that was in charge of the parking lot. But we took our chances and slept there the night.

Hello from England #2

Day 3

Oct 17/09

We decided to head down to Portobello Road, a market famous for it's antiques. Not too far of a walk, we decided to head there by foot. It was an extremely packed and extremely interesting market. Set on Portobello Rd, the area is awesome. The buildings are all colorful and the street isn't very wide, so when we encountered the garbage truck trying to get through, it was definitely a tight squeeze! The antiques were really neat. I never really had an appreciation for antiques, but this was a good way to start. We had a snack at the market and then headed to purchase a ticket for the Underground to get to our next destination. That destination would be the London Tower. This is a fortress in the middle of London that is from the 1200's! It was used as a residence for royalty as well as prison and a place of private execution. It was really neat. People still live there today. It looks like a fairytale. Unbelieveable that real life actually looked like the stories they tell. It also amazes me how London looks. Depending on where you are, you will find areas that look old, older than anything I'm used to with our modern day Edmonton. I think the closest thing we have in Canada to London is Quebec city (the old part) and even that doesn't look quite that old in comparison. It's crazy. So, we went around London Tower, saw the Crown Jewels of England, which I must say are very impressive, saw some graffiti from the early day prisoners and then we headed out. We also saw the London Tower Bridge and then went to see the London Bridge (I had to. The song kept playing in my head over and over.) We crossed over the London Bridge and walked over to the Shakespeare Globe which is a theatre rebuilt in the image of the original theatre that his plays took place on. We only looked at it from the outside. Again my feet were tired. It was time to go back home. I believe this was the day that jet lag hit me so hard that I fell asleep around 8p and woke up around 5a and had issues falling back asleep. Oh how I love jet lag.

Day 4

Oct 18/09

Today we again headed to the Underground, this time heading to St. Paul's Cathedral, the church that Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married in. We looked around and then we were off to the British Museum. The nice thing about most museums in Britain is that they're free. And they're really good ones too. The British Museum has incredible items from all around the world including Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mexico and others. They have the Rosetta Stone on display (that was pretty cool). They also had mummies, Greek and Roman statues and all kinds of other very museum like items. It was a quick trip here so that we could make it to the next two destinations in time. Next was the British Natural History museum. Trevor has been following his Geek Atlas which tells him all the geeky places to see all around the world. This was one of them. I was a little disappointed after seeing the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Next it was off to the Science Museum next door. Now this was cool. Unfortunately my feet (again) were giving up on me, but I had a bit of strength left to see some of the amazing displays including a section on history of Medicine. Wow, the craziness of how modern medicine began! It's amazing. I also learned of William Hunter. I had heard of him before, but very little. He was a doctor of obstetrics and apparently an amazing one at that. There were some pretty things on display about him. They also had "the closest thing to Watson and Cricks original model of DNA" on display and a huge display on clocks. This was definitely a cool Science museum. We spent a bit more time at the pub next to our hotel after all the museums this day, this time having a traditional meat pie and Trevor had sausage and mash (better known as bangers and mash). We then went back to get ready to leave London the next day.