she returns again!
This time I actually have an excuse - I have been away, as I said! Away to england and wales and paris! I shall post some pictures as soon as I have tidied them up and received a few photos of me from frodolyn .
We stayed with my family and some family friends almost everywhere, so the only place where we had to pay for our own accommodation was in Paris, where we stayed only one night. By the second to last day of our 3 week trip I had spent only 5 £ of the money I had got for myself -- though I spent a fair bit more on our last day. How silly is that? Not that I mind, you understand. :)
Our transatlantic flight out was very hot and cramped, but luckily only 6 hours (we flew from Toronto, which we had reached via westjet). On our very first day in Britain, we went to a safari park, and hence saw things like giraffes and elephants and tigers, etc etc. And squirrel monkeys, which are adorable. Then there were a lot of stately homes and cathedrals and second cousins all the way through York and up until Cardiff, where began the castles and the Daleks. Because that's what Cardiff is for, right??? The Doctor Who Experience was very fun, not least of all because I'm pretty into costumery, which there was lots of. And K9. And shooty-Dalek things. Lots of missed opportunities in the gift shop though. Then we visited Cardiff Castle and Castle Coch, which are both fairy tale style and very cool, and where I bought a sarcastic looking, lopsided welsh dragon TY toy. His name is Draig - though he has been given several nicknames along the way.
Cornwall was wet and windy and thoroughly miserable for most of our adventure, though it got suddenly warm when we made a trek down to the Eden project, which is this biome thing where they've made an barren old quarry into a lush paradise in only 10 years. It was extremely awesome. Our hotel room sucked so much that we both couldn't sleep the first night because we were redecorating in our heads, and the morning before we left we rearranged the furniture and left notes about what needed to be fixed (like the werewolf-raveged drapes and the window which was held together with newspaper).
Following that we took a (very expensive) train to London, and the next morning got on a (slightly cheaper) Eurostar to Paris. We didn't actually stay in Paris long though, since we headed straight off to Versailles, which was very, very awesome. Hall of Mirrors anyone??? It's great because so many things we covered in social studies in high school related back to versailles, so now I can put a place to a name. We didn't get a chance to see Marie Antoinette's hamlet, but that's something for next time. We also went part way up the eiffel tower (all the way up is...very far up an elevator, which I don't fully trust). The next day we visited the Louvre, and spent a shocking amount of time therein searching for a statue of Emperor Hadrien's lover, since they're apparently everywhere. We found about 5. By this time, we were tired and dehydrated and more than a little homesick, so we sort of wandered around, looked at some significant landmarks, and sat in a park for the afternoon. I got sunburned. Kaitlyn thought she was jealous until I explained that it would soon peel away into the white nothingness from whence it came. I don't mind.
Back to London, then, where we had a 6 day London Pass and three free days. The pass covered pretty much every major attraction you could think of in London (except Mme. Tussauds wax museum), and several obscure attractions you'd never even think of. The Britain at War experience was one of these, and had a great gift shop to boot. Another was Chislehurst Caves, which is a man-made series of caves and caverns covering druid, roman, and saxon times, and used as a shelter during the war. Technically we also had a discount of 1£ on a Jack the Ripper walk, but we got on the wrong one and had to pay a full 6£ instead of merely 5. Such a loss. I think if I had to pick a favourite from all of the more obvious attractions it would be the Globe Theatre, which has been rebuilt to be as close a copy to the original as possible. Everything was pretty cool though. Except the Tate Modern, which I found a bit dull. I'd say it was because I have a limited understanding of the visual arts (read: almost none at all) but Kaitlyn thought the same and she's an artsy type, so...maybe it was just dull. They did have a few Warhol pieces though, which was cool. We also saw Les Miserables, which was very cool especially since it was one of my earliest fandoms (though my 'shipping has long since moved on from my Eponine/any attractive male days).
We met up with some of my Dad's family during a day trip to Oxford, where we saw actual shrunken heads and a bottle which some very gullible people believe contains the soul of a witch because some old lady said so. The next day, we went to the sherlock holmes museum, which I'm sure was very cool if you're into that sort of thing (as far as mysteries are concerned I'm more an agatha christie girl, not that I've read a lot of her either), the london aquarium (where I could have spent all day if we didn't have other plans), the movieum (where kaitlyn made us get cheesy star-wars photos taken, despite my distaste for such things), and the London Eye (which moved imperceptably slowly). And then we shopped, though neither of us really bought very much. I don't see the need really - I did however get a pretty dress and a pretty bow and some jelly babies, and I found a coat that would have been amazing on me were it a mere inch bigger (and actually it was pretty amazing on me anyway, but if I'm going to buy a knee-length vintage suede coat I need to be able to button it up).
Anyway, that's all for now! In the next couple of days I'm going to go though my friends page backlog, and then hopefully I'll be all caught up and able to give you my undivided attention for the rest of the summer. <3
We stayed with my family and some family friends almost everywhere, so the only place where we had to pay for our own accommodation was in Paris, where we stayed only one night. By the second to last day of our 3 week trip I had spent only 5 £ of the money I had got for myself -- though I spent a fair bit more on our last day. How silly is that? Not that I mind, you understand. :)
Our transatlantic flight out was very hot and cramped, but luckily only 6 hours (we flew from Toronto, which we had reached via westjet). On our very first day in Britain, we went to a safari park, and hence saw things like giraffes and elephants and tigers, etc etc. And squirrel monkeys, which are adorable. Then there were a lot of stately homes and cathedrals and second cousins all the way through York and up until Cardiff, where began the castles and the Daleks. Because that's what Cardiff is for, right??? The Doctor Who Experience was very fun, not least of all because I'm pretty into costumery, which there was lots of. And K9. And shooty-Dalek things. Lots of missed opportunities in the gift shop though. Then we visited Cardiff Castle and Castle Coch, which are both fairy tale style and very cool, and where I bought a sarcastic looking, lopsided welsh dragon TY toy. His name is Draig - though he has been given several nicknames along the way.
Cornwall was wet and windy and thoroughly miserable for most of our adventure, though it got suddenly warm when we made a trek down to the Eden project, which is this biome thing where they've made an barren old quarry into a lush paradise in only 10 years. It was extremely awesome. Our hotel room sucked so much that we both couldn't sleep the first night because we were redecorating in our heads, and the morning before we left we rearranged the furniture and left notes about what needed to be fixed (like the werewolf-raveged drapes and the window which was held together with newspaper).
Following that we took a (very expensive) train to London, and the next morning got on a (slightly cheaper) Eurostar to Paris. We didn't actually stay in Paris long though, since we headed straight off to Versailles, which was very, very awesome. Hall of Mirrors anyone??? It's great because so many things we covered in social studies in high school related back to versailles, so now I can put a place to a name. We didn't get a chance to see Marie Antoinette's hamlet, but that's something for next time. We also went part way up the eiffel tower (all the way up is...very far up an elevator, which I don't fully trust). The next day we visited the Louvre, and spent a shocking amount of time therein searching for a statue of Emperor Hadrien's lover, since they're apparently everywhere. We found about 5. By this time, we were tired and dehydrated and more than a little homesick, so we sort of wandered around, looked at some significant landmarks, and sat in a park for the afternoon. I got sunburned. Kaitlyn thought she was jealous until I explained that it would soon peel away into the white nothingness from whence it came. I don't mind.
Back to London, then, where we had a 6 day London Pass and three free days. The pass covered pretty much every major attraction you could think of in London (except Mme. Tussauds wax museum), and several obscure attractions you'd never even think of. The Britain at War experience was one of these, and had a great gift shop to boot. Another was Chislehurst Caves, which is a man-made series of caves and caverns covering druid, roman, and saxon times, and used as a shelter during the war. Technically we also had a discount of 1£ on a Jack the Ripper walk, but we got on the wrong one and had to pay a full 6£ instead of merely 5. Such a loss. I think if I had to pick a favourite from all of the more obvious attractions it would be the Globe Theatre, which has been rebuilt to be as close a copy to the original as possible. Everything was pretty cool though. Except the Tate Modern, which I found a bit dull. I'd say it was because I have a limited understanding of the visual arts (read: almost none at all) but Kaitlyn thought the same and she's an artsy type, so...maybe it was just dull. They did have a few Warhol pieces though, which was cool. We also saw Les Miserables, which was very cool especially since it was one of my earliest fandoms (though my 'shipping has long since moved on from my Eponine/any attractive male days).
We met up with some of my Dad's family during a day trip to Oxford, where we saw actual shrunken heads and a bottle which some very gullible people believe contains the soul of a witch because some old lady said so. The next day, we went to the sherlock holmes museum, which I'm sure was very cool if you're into that sort of thing (as far as mysteries are concerned I'm more an agatha christie girl, not that I've read a lot of her either), the london aquarium (where I could have spent all day if we didn't have other plans), the movieum (where kaitlyn made us get cheesy star-wars photos taken, despite my distaste for such things), and the London Eye (which moved imperceptably slowly). And then we shopped, though neither of us really bought very much. I don't see the need really - I did however get a pretty dress and a pretty bow and some jelly babies, and I found a coat that would have been amazing on me were it a mere inch bigger (and actually it was pretty amazing on me anyway, but if I'm going to buy a knee-length vintage suede coat I need to be able to button it up).
Anyway, that's all for now! In the next couple of days I'm going to go though my friends page backlog, and then hopefully I'll be all caught up and able to give you my undivided attention for the rest of the summer. <3