The schools here in the province of Niedersachsen have a 2 week autum holiday. I asked myself, what would I rather do: sit at home for two weeks, or travel? Ok, so that's really not much of a question. I called my friends up in England and Ireland to see if they were around for a visit. Turns out they were home, and had couches to spare, so I jumped on a plane and did England for 7 days and Ireland for 4.
Now, the great thing about Europe is that it's just so darn small and the inter-Europe flights can be unbelievably cheap. My Ryanair flight from Germany to England cost me just 25 dollars! Only problem is, Ryanair is sneaky. So I had a backpack full of clothes to last me 14 days, and I had to travel waaaaay outside of Dusseldorf to get to the right airport (which I only found out about the day before I left. I was all set to go to Dusseldorf city centre. Eep!).
I spent the first day in London, checking out every touristy thing there was to do: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Westminster Abbey, the Horse Guard, London Eye, Shakespeare's Globe, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Millenium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral... It was one action packed day. And a lot of asking fellow tourists if they could take my picture, since I was by myself. Cheese :)
Here I am standing infront of Buckingham Palace - as you can see there are about a million bajillion other tourists there. And it wasn't even a very nice day - drizzly and sticky. I managed to arrive just in time for the Changing of the Guards... only it didn't happen cause the weather was too yucky. I guess those hats aren't waterproof. Shucks.
I spent the rest of the day hopping on and off the London Underground (which was a feat in and of itself, seeing as how I've only been on the subway once before in my life) as I made my way around the city, checking out the sights in no coherent order whatsoever.
I did see lots of those oh-so-famous telephone boxes. See?
Big Ben was right across the road from Westminster Abbey - both of which are beautiful buildings. Minus the oodles of construction going on...
I had lunch in Covent Garden, a fun market full of little shops and restaurants - and afterwards found a lovely little pub to try some English Ale. I believe it was called "Old Hooky". How can you say no to a name like that? And it was super yummy too.
Midafternoon and I was back in the city centre taking a look at Shakespeare's Globe (although I unfortunately missed the matinee show) and even peeked into the Tate Modern (it's a big art gallery in an old warehouse - right across the river from St. Paul's Cathedral giving). Then I took a gander across Tower Bridge to check out the Tower of London.
That was Day 1. And it was a loooong day. There are no lockers in the city because there have been problems with people blowing things up (something my small-town mind didn't quite know what to do with) so I had to tote my 10 kg bag around all day long. My back and I got in quite the argument over it.
Day 2 happened on the east coast of England. My Grandfather's Spitfire that he flew in WWII is on display in a tiny little museum in Kent. I figured, since I was in England I most certainly needed to check it out. To be honest, it was number one on my to do list.
When I first got to the museum - and it's kinda in the middle of nowhere - I thought I had ended up in the wrong place. I was very close to bursting into tears, thinking that I'd come all the way to England only to go to the wrong museum. After asking the gentlemen behind the desk, however, I discovered that I was indeed in the right place.
I then asked for a picture with the plane, having explained that my grandfather flew it in the war. Instead of standing infront ot it, they let me stand right up next to it. I was unbelievably excited! Check it out!
Ok, so the smile is a little small here, but it was a mile wide in reality! Then, to my utter surprise and delight they let me sit in the plane!!! I could barely restain myself from jumping up and down with joy! It sure was tiny inside... making it hard to avoid the buttons connected to the guns. I was warned not to accidentally shoot the windows out :)
Still - here I am in the plane! Woohoo!!
So. Cool.
Next stop of the day was the city of Dover. I wanted to check out those blindingly white cliffs. Too bad it was a depressingly grey and rainy day. When I walked towards the pier to get a picture I realized I couldn't even see the cliffs anymore throughout the haze. Then I decided it didn't really matter since I had been inside the cliffs in the "Secret Wartime Tunnels". During WWII the English built a network of tunnels in the cliffs to defend the English Channel.
So I didn't get the famous shot of the cliffs, but that's cause I was standing on them:
That's the shot looking up from the entrance of the tunnels.
I also tried some good old-fashioned Fish'n'chips in Dover - since I was right on the coast. Holy cow were they ever tasty! And I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I was cold, soaking wet, and absolutely starving at the time...
Day 3 dawned much nicer - and how fantastic, since I was going to be outside all day long checking out the stone circle of Avebury. My friends back home told me it was much nicer than Stonehenge because it's much less touristy. And they were right - it was located in the beautiful English countryside. Lots of grass, loooots of sheep.
I had a great time with the self-timer on my camera that day :)
But the best part about my day in Avebury? The fact that I had to take the train to Swindon before grabbing a bus to the village of Avebury. Yes folks, Swindon. I was so excited! But it turned out to be an epic failure. No one was walking their dodo in the park, the mammoths weren't migrating through the city centre, I didn't run across the church "Our Lady of the Lobster", and I didn't get to meet Thursday Next. I guess Swidon is much more exciting in my favourite fictional books by Jasper Fforde... *sigh*
Next stop on the trip was a few days in Coventry visiting my friend Sarah at Warwick University. We trekked over to Stratford-upon-Avon to see where Shakespeare was born and have cream tea. For those of you who don't know, cream tea involves a raisin scone, jam, clotted cream and a cup of delicious English tea (and seriously, the tea in England is delicious!). Now I don't know about you... but I always thought that cream tea was some crazy English delicacy of sour milk. Boy was I wrong... It's really whipped cream on steroids! It's this fabulously dense, heavy whipped cream that I could eat all day long. Mmmm
My last stop in England was Leeds where I visited my friend Larissa. I took the Megabus up there, which turned out to be the biggest mistake ever. My 7:30pm showed up at 8:30pm. The bus driver had gotten lost. Always a good sign. It went downhill from there. We got lost again, then had to stop and fill up, then 12 miles outside of Leeds we had to stop for a 45min break because the driver had been on the go for 10 hours. On top of all that, I had no credit or battery left on my cellphone, I didn't know Larissa's address or phone number and we were an hour and a half late. However, Larissa was a super friend and waited at the bus stop for an extra 2 hours until I showed up. And the moral of the story: Don't travel with Megabus. :)
Leeds isn't the most touristy of towns - Lara's there for university. So we just wandered around and chatted. Although, we went to a milkshake shop that had over 200 flavours available. I was really torn between the Tic Tac Tropical and Ferrero Rocher (I went for the chocolate). I wasn't so tempted by the Marmite.
That's Larissa and I out for dinner shortly before I left for the airport and flew over to Dublin.
England was great - great tea, great clotted cream, great friends, not so great weather (but it is England, rain is to be expected). And that was only the first half of my journey! Soon to come: Ireland!
Cheerio!
Sandy
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