Scottland

Edinburgh

March 22-24, 2008

Edinburgh Castle

Day 2
We arrived really late in Edinburg, but found the bus that we needed to take to the hostel. We got off at the stop that the direction told us too, but they were wrong! We were heading in the opposite direction. So we turned around found our hostel, checked in and then went for dinner. We found a nice place called McDonalds! The only place that was really open that late, so we had some food then went to relax back at the hostel. We played cards for a while then went to bed.


Day 3
The next day we created our own walking tour of the city, starting at the far west end up by these columns and working our way back to the castle. The old town was nice to walk through, and we would have spent more time there if the weather had been better. Despite the fact that London has more to offer in terms of attractions and things to do, I think we all fell in love with Edinburgh’s charm. To escape the rain we found a movie theatre...It was amazing to see a film in English without subtitles. Later dinner was in a Scottish pub and was followed by another movie. We wished that we had more time in Edinburgh and had been able to take a day trip up to northern Scotland.

Day 4
We woke up early and took the bus to the airport. We were tried but we knew we would have a long day still a head. We arrived in London at around 10ish, ready for more action!

Edinburgh was a 3. The weather was much nicer, and the city much quieter.

England

London

March 21-25 2008

Parlament and Westminster bridge

Day 1

We flew from Düsseldorf to London Heathrow, arriving in London at around 2pm. We took the underground to our hostel; St. Christopher’s, checked in and headed out again. We took the train to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Once there, we decided we were hungry and ate at Cup of Noodles, good cheap food. Then we walked back to the Cathedral and went inside briefly. After seeing the Cathedral we took the train to London Bridge, walked across it and all along down the river past HMS Belfast ship, toward Tower Bridge. We walked across Tower Bridge, to Tower of London. We didn’t go inside the Tower of London, just sat on a bench outside. We started to walk back to the train station, and of course it started raining. Then it eventually started hailing, so we took cover until it stopped, then made our way to the underground. We went out to see Wimbledon. We made it there in the dark, but took some pictures nonetheless and then walked back to get some dinner. We had dinner at this great Thai restaurant. Then we went back to our hostel, and went to sleep.

Day 2
Today was a busy day. We woke up at 9:00ish went to breakfast, checked out, stored our luggage then headed to the sights! We went to Buckingham Palace, down Birdcage walk to Westminster Abby. From Westminster Abby, we went to we saw Parliament and Big Ben. As we were walking across Westminster Bridge, we came upon an interesting scene. There was apparently a jumper! Well they found a pile of clothes and no one there to claim them. Naturally the cops think that someone jumped but they were searching the river for a body, not sure if they found one. It could have been a prank. Anyway we continued our journey to waterloo station so that we could see where Bourne Ultimatum was filmed! Didn’t really look the same!! We left waterloo station to Covent Garden, were we ate lunch at Walk-about restaurant. We ate fish and chips then decided to see the Biggest Department store in the world, Harrods. We didn’t buy anything, not that we could really afford anything. We went back to our hostel so that we could get our luggage and go to the airport. (See Edinburgh).

Day 4
We arrived back to London at around 10am. We found our hostel, the Ashlee house, by Kings cross Station. We checked in left our luggage, and then headed out to Knotting hill, after Knotting hill we went to the London Eye. It was pretty cool, and expensive, but at least it was 30mins. We went to Charring Cross by St. Martin-in the Fields and found an Italian restaurant. After our late lunch we went to Kings cross, did the Harry Potter’s platform 9¾. Then we went back to take a little nap! But Victoria and I fell a sleep for a long time, and Travis didn’t wake us up. We woke up on our own and realized that we were going to be late for WICKED!!! So we literally ran to the train station, caught a train, and made it in perfect time to the musical. The musical was great, and we went back and hit the sack!





Day 5
We woke up early and packed our stuff and went to the airport. We made it back to Düsseldorf a little late due to the flight delay. I finally made it home around 5pm!

London was a 2.5. The city is amazing but the there are too many tourist and the weather sucks.