Day 14

This morning {finally I'm caught up!} we got up and walked through Luxembourg Gardens, they were beautiful. There's a huge palace that was built by a long for his queen to remind her of Italy. Just for her. It was absolutely gigantic! 

See? It went a lot further back too!

From there we walked to the Pantheon which is currently under construction so we didn't go in. The scaffolding on the outside however, is covered with selfies of people! Mom read an article about it in Time a few weeks ago. This artist guy used to live on the streets and then became a famous photographer and was commissioned to decorate the scaffolding so that it didn't look as bad. Apparently the whole floor of the building on the inside is covered with selfies as well. The outside:

Cool. 

We went along the Seine River again, and found the Paris Plages {shoutout to Aunt Rose for finding out about these for us!}  Each year in Paris along this certain section of river they bring in truckloads of sand and umbrellas and chairs and ice cream stands and make a little beach that people can go and chill out at. You can't swim in the river {they regularly dump sewage into it apparently- ew.} but you can sit on the sand and relax and it was really great. Us at the "beach:"

Aww we're cute :)

We also saw Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph, the Louvre, the bridge with all the locks, that was really pretty. Lock bridge {+ me!}

{you can see the locks go all the way down the railing on the side, and all across the bridge. On both sides of the bridge and on the railings at each end. Easy to see how the bridge is starting to collapse under the weight of them all. They were so sparkly though, in the sun. It was beautiful}

On the metro back to our place 2 guys got on a stop or 2 after we did. One had a guitar, the other had a saxophone around his neck. They came on and the sax on stood next to me, the other guy across the car. They nodded at each other and then started playing! They played I'm Yours by Jason Mraz and Stand By Me by Ben E King. It was great. I took a video. Then in the station we got off at, there were more musicians playing some almost Spanish sounding song. One thing I loved about this trip was all the street performers and musicians. They are all so great. 

Now that I'm all caught up, it's time for bed. Less than 24 hours until we are back in the states... Good night America, I'll see you tomorrow!

Day 13

Our first real day in Paris was a busy one! We walked to the place Napoleon is buried, it has a golden dome that was stunning. Then to the Eiffel Tower, took tons of pictures of that, of course! {fun fact- this year is the 125th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower} We walked along the Seine River and down this island thing in the middle of it. We saw 2 different brides taking their wedding pictures with the river and Eiffel Tower in the background, their pictures are going to look incredible. It was such a nice day out for photos too! 

The other interesting thing we saw was multiple gaurds in army uniforms carrying very large guns patrolling the crowded areas. That was a bit intimidating, knowing that they could start shooting at any second. And not knowing why there were so many of them around. We told Nick to smile so we could inconspiculously take a photo of them, but he ended up looking slightly confused instead of smiling. Sigh. But here:

 

See? Intimidating. 

The sun set behind the Tower and it was really pretty:

{taking photos of the camera again, sorry! It was a ton better in real life though}

Day 12

We got up really early and packed the car up in the rain {first real rain we had to be in the whole trip, we had just about decided that the whole "lots of rain in the UK" was a myth!} and started on our way back to London. We stopped at Avebury, this stone complex thing that's even older than Stonehenge, but not as famous for some reason.

We had to walk a pretty far way in pouring rain to get to the museum, which wasn't that interesting. Most of the displays were something like "we don't ACTUALLY know what any of this was, since it's so old, but our best guess is..." Which, ok, makes sense, but it was still sorta boring.

Since it was raining so hard, we couldn't really go and see the stones, except the ones you could see from the path between the museum and the "car park" {as they say in Britain!} We took a few photos, but they're not worth sharing honestly. 

We drove the rest of the way to Heathrow and dropped off the car. Took the Tube to Kings Cross Station, saw Platform 9 3/4, from Harry Potter! {Which they have moved since the series became so popular and now it's not even on a platform, it's just out by all the shops in the train station. *sigh* And you have to wait in a huge line and pay to take a photo with it, so we just took a picture from the side instead}

The station out train was leaving from was just across the street from Kings Cross, so we got over to there and ate dinner. There was a piano by where the people got off the arriving trains, so some people were playing it to keep the people waiting for the trains to arrive entertained. First it was an old man who played jazzy instrumental songs and then it was some probably college students who played and sang songs like American Pie and Mac The Knife. They were all amazing, I took videos of them. 

Our train ride was uneventful, hooray. 

We arrived in Paris at 8:40 French time, took the {dirty} metro to our flat/apartment/whatever they call them in French, and unpacked and went to bed. Out the windows of each bedroom you can see the Eiffel Tower, it's amazing. The first 10 minutes of every hour at night it's lit up with sparkling lights that photos can't do justice. It's amazing really. 

Here it is during the day:

❤️❤️❤️

Day 11

On our second day in Bath we wandered all around. We went to Bath Abbey {which, not surprisingly, was a lot like Westminister Abbey and Glasgow Cathedral...} We went to the Circus, a round thing of apartments that Nicholas Cage used to live at or currently lives at or something. We went by an art museum with statues and a garden that was one of Jane Austen's favorite places, but it was literally just grass and shrubs and paved walkways. Kind of a let down. We also went to The Royal Crescent, more famous people's apartments, except in a half circle not a full one this time {hence, crescent.}

Lunch was had at Bea's Vintage Tearooms, which was adorable. And they had really good food too so that was nice. Photos:

Yay for lunch selfies

And yay for 1940s decor

It wasn't a bad last day in Britain really. Lots of walking but that's healthy so it's ok :)

Day 10

Day 10:

We got up and ready to drive to Bath, but stopped to talk with the owner of our cottage, Kate. She told us about the history of the place, said it was about 200 years old. We got a tour of her amazing gardens and met her horse and llama. The gardens were like something out of a book or movie, it was incredible. We asked her how long she had lived there, judging by the gardens I would've guessed 15, 20 years minimum, but she said just 11 years. It was amazing. 

Our drive to Bath was uneventful {yay} and we got there with enough time to drop off our stuff at the hotel and go to the Roman Baths. 

The Baths were also amazing. In freshman year Latin we learned about them and being there was like being inside our textbook or something. I took tons of photos on my camera, {and I'm going to try something different now to put them on here. I took a photo if the photo on the display of my camera, so it's not the best but it works, right? *crosses fingers that it's not horrible quality*}

{that's not that bad after all! Me at the baths, if you couldn't tell ;)}

And another:

{the Baths standing at one end looking back}

And another: {this whole taking a photo if my photos is great}

{aww we're so cute. Christmas card photo??}

After the Baths we went out to dinner at a place right next to them, The Pump Room, which was incredibly fancy, but for tourists so everyone there was dressed down. There was a huge chandiler and a guy playing the piano and the waiters were all dressed up. I had a salad that was really good :)

We wandered around Bath a little and then went back to the hotel and fell asleep instantly!

Days 8 and 9

Day 8:

We spent our first full day in Wales with my penpal Casey and her family, at Chirk Castle. Chirk Castle is a really really old castle that has surprisingly survived and has been restored to look just like how it used to. It was so cool to see all the old stuff, in the library there was a book from the 1500s! We wandered around there all afternoon and after a late lunch, I went home with Casey and the rest of my family went back to our {adorable} cottage. 

At Casey's we talked and had dinner from a "chippie," kind of like W. H. O. P. back in America. We had chicken and sweet corn pizza, which was surprisingly good. Then we went bowling, I was only 6 points off from winning the second round, another surprise! I was given a tour around Wrexham, the main town that Casey's school is in, and saw shops, the school, a catherdral, everything. After a long day it was nice to go back to Casey's to sit a watch a movie, The Princess Bride, which Casey hadn't seen before {*gasp* can you even imagine??} but luckily she liked it, so we can stay friends ;)

Day 9: 

We woke up at 9 {which was quite early because we may or may not have stayed up talking...} and went around 11 to meet up with my family at the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It's this huge aqueduct over a valley and river that you can walk across. It had amazing views. And wasn't actually too scary! I took tons of photos on my camera, but here's a photo off Wikipedia so you can see what it was like:

{looking back the way we came, you can see the sidewalk on the right that we all walked on}

After that we went to the town of Llangollen, a cute town with lots if shops and a train station. Casey's grandfather had volunteered at the station fairly regularly since her mom was little so they knew all about it. We got to see the train, an old fashioned steam engine, come into the station and then turn around and go back. It was SO loud! That had great pictures too, but once again they're all on my camera. {sorry!}

We all had lunch and ice cream for dessert {honeycomb ice cream is actually really good!} and wandered around the shops. Then down to the river that had rocks you could climb on. Nick, Casey and I went all over the rocks while our parents talked and watched. We saw guys jump off the side of the river bank into the water, that was a combination of cool and terrifying. Cool because it looked like it could be fun, but terrifying because the current was swift and the depth of the water was unknown. There was very little room for them to mess up and hit the wrong spot of the river. Picture of all of the are, again, on the camera. *sigh*

We all went out to eat for dinner since we had to leave the next morning and had a great time. We had the waitress take our picture:

{thank you Casey for, among other things, posting your photos on facebook so soon!

{Nick, me, mom, dad, Kings, Kerry, Casey}

I had a great time in Wales, thanks to those 3 amazing people pictured above. They are some of the kindest people in the world, everyone deserves to have friends like them at some point. Hopefully Casey and I will stay in touch for the rest of our lives, if we don't that would be so terrible and I know we would both regret it. Thank you all for everything!!

I still have to write something for days 10 and 11 but it's 10:30 here and we have to get up early to go to Paris tomorrow{!!} so I'll post them tomorrow! Goodnight everyone! :)

Days 4, 5, 6 and 7

It's been quite the weekend up here... *cue dramatic music*

(Also I apologize for the length of this post!!)

Day 4:

We sadly packed our things and departed london for Glasgow, Scotland that day. We woke up at 7 in the morning to take the tube out to heathrow to pick up our rental car, and we were on the road by 930. It was a little weird getting used to driving on he wrong side of the road, and our car would just randomly stop sometimes when we were waiting at a stop sign or something. Scary!! 

So we are on the road for an hour or 2 and then we hit a ton of traffic. We stopped dead and say there, going maybe 20 mph in a "fast" section. And then we would get to the end of that traffic, 15-20 minutes later, go normal speed for 5 minutes, and hit more traffic! It went on like this for a really long time. Our gps originally said we were getting there at 5pm, then 6, 7, 8, 9... We FINALLY arrived at our flat at 11 at night. 13 hours of driving. Since the signs on the road warned us of "queues ahead", our motto for the night was "Screw the Queue!!"

One really great thing we discovered on our terrible car trip was that the rest stops here are a million times better than the ones in the US. They are way off the highway so it seems really rural, and the one we ate dinner at was just amazing. It had a gorgeous view and a duck pond and a hotel! The food was fantastic, all freshly made, and everything was very clean. They even had a shower you could use if you wanted!

Allison, my moms penpal, met us at our flat and it was a joyful reunion, though the 4 of us were in a state of sleep-loss induced hysteria by that point. It was so great to finally meet her after hearing about her for my whole life. She was amazing, even better in real life than the stories I've been told. She stayed a bit and we all went to bed sometime around 12 that night, but little did we know it would be the earliest we would sleep for the next few days!

Day 5:

On Saturday we got up and had breakfast at Allison's and then she took us around the city of Glasgow after. The Commonwealth Games, the third largest games in the world after the Olympics and the Asian Games, are being held in Glasgow all this week and next. {Fun fact- the world wide premier of Eric Whitacre's virtual children's choir was held at the opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games last week sometime. We didn't see it live, but you can watch the video on YouTube and possibly see some of my friends from school chorus!}

While in Glasgow we saw tons of street performers, such as a band of drummers with a bagpiper, and these people who did ballet and acrobatics and acted out a story, the best part was when one of the girls stood on one of the guys heads! I have tons of pictures on my real camera, they were great subjects of photos! There was also a street festival going on with crafts and things you could buy, the whole city was buzzing with activity. 

We got to go inside a house that was built in 1471, the oldest house in Glasgow! It was pretty cool, they had furniture and plates and things from the 16 and 1700s. We went to the catherdral across the street from the house, which was about the same age, and absolutely gorgeous. It was like a smaller version of Westminister Abbey. And people still use it as their church every weekend! 

In the evening, and "half six" as Allison called it, we went to a concert of the BBC orchestra and another orchestra combined, classical music, with Allison and her kids Seona and Struen. We met up with them at the little cafe thing outside the concert hall, and they were both just lovely. Struen was hilarious and Seona was so nice. 

For dinner we went to a fast food type place and brought back to Allison's place real Scottish fish and chips, deep fried and everything. Sooo bad for you but soooo good! We had a great time talking with the three of them, and stayed up until midnight again!

This is us laughing over something Struen had said:

(Dad, Nick, me, mom in the back and then Struen, Mitch, Seona's boyfriend, and Seona in the front)

Day 6:

Yesterday was our last day in Scotland. We went to Allison's for breakfast again and then walked around Glasgow again and visited the botanical gardens, they had tons of plants from all over the world in greenhouses and even an entire room of carnivorous plant, my personal favorite. We also went to Glasgow University which Allison and both her kids had gone to, and the best part was that it looked almost exactly like Hogwarts, from Harry Potter! We took a bunch of photos of that, this is the only one on my ipod:

{sorry it's such bad quality}

And we went to an art museum, but we were pretty exhausted by that point and all went back to Allison's for dinner again. 

After dinner we stayed until about 10, Seona brought home 2 baby rats as an early birthday gift for Allison and we watched them a while but we wanted to get back to our place so we could get up early the next morning and drive to Wales. We said goodbye, mom and Allison cried and hugged everyone, and we walked to our car. The drivers side window had been smashed in with a rock and someone had stolen our gps and chargers. Glass was everywhere, the front, the back seat, on the sidewalk, just everywhere. We all walked back to Allison's and waited for the police to come do a report.

I got to hold the rats, named Tiffin (which is some kind of Scottish cake) and Lulu. They were so cute, and would climb all over my shoulders and arms, it was fun!

Me and Tiffin:

{she tickled!}

Mitch, Seona's boyfriend, was kind enough to drive Nick, mom and I back to our flat while dad stayed and waited for the police to come. We waited up for dad though, he finally got in around 1 30 in the morning!

Day 7:

This morning dad got us a new car with a not broken window and we drove to Wales! We stopped at Hadrians wall, the old northern border of the roman empire, and walked around exploring there for a while. There were sheep that lived right near the wall and walked all over it like it was no big deal, not a wall the was built by the Romans 2000 years ago!

We got in to the town we are staying in around 7pm, but were lost for almost an hour and had to ask 2 women we saw in a park we turned around at. They flagged down people biking by that they knew and asked them. Turns out we had turned around in the driveway of the place we are staying, we just didn't know it at the time! 

We settled in a little and then dad and I drove up to Wrexham to visit my penpal Casey and her family! They were so nice and just lovely people to get on with. We ended up staying until past 10! Whoops :)

Tomorrow we are going to go somewhere with them, not sure where exactly yet, but it is sure to be a fun time!

~T

Day 3

Hi everyone!

Today we went on the London Eye and saw Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace!! Me and mother on the Eye:

Sadly, no pictures allowed in the Abbey, but I can tell you it was absolutely amazing and I really wish we could've taken photos. There was also lots of Latin, some of which I could actually read, that was really cool. 

Buckingham palace was also gorgeous, I took photos of that on my real camera, not my ipod, so I can't post them at the moment. 

We were walking to our hotel through Hyde park and we found Princess Diana's memorial fountain, it was almost like a water slide! The water was knee deep at the most and it was a huge circular thing of granite that the water flowed down on both sides. You can walk in it and there were tons of kids playing in it, as well as people my age and parents and all sorts of people. We walked all the way around it, the water felt so nice as it's so hot out here! This is really the only photo I have of the memorial on my ipod, but it gives you an idea of what it was like:

Tomorrow we are renting a car and driving on up to Scotland to meet up with Allison! 

Good night for now,

~T

Day 1 Continued

Big Ben is magnificent in real life!! It has a sparkle that this little camera cannot ever do justice, I'm not sure if any camera could. We went on a river boat cruise down the Thames today, and took a selfie with the famous tower, at mom's request:

We were all tired and hungry, and now are off to bed soon! Good night :)

Day 1

Hi everyone!

I'm writing this from the plane! We are 35,000 feet up in the air and have been for the past 2 hours? 3 hours? I lost track. 

In the car we I started taking the first of what will hopefully be several hundred photos of our trip:

NP was so happy to be in this one -_-

All of our traveling, while tiring, has gone well so far! As for now, it's 930 in MA, but 2 in the morning London time, so I'm going to try to catch a bit of sleep before we land in 4 hours!!

~T

~when I wrote this is was the time I said it was, but I couldn't post in until I had internet which is now so that's why the times aren't matching~

3 Weeks!

Wow. 3 weeks until I get on a plane and fly far over the ocean and end up in a completely unfamiliar country with my 3 favorite family members. Ahhhhh. I cannot WAIT! We have been planning for months now, probably closer to a year. Plane tickets - check. Things to do - check.  Places to go - check. People to see - check. Places to stay - check! All there's left to do now is pack and get on the plane!!

The sad part though, 5 weeks and I'll be right back here at my computer, in the USA, looking through pictures and hoping to one day return to the awesome and amazing United Kingdom (and France!) I'm trying to keep that out of my mind however, and so far, it's been working!

While I'm there, I'm going to try to post something on here at least every few days. No promises though! We do have wifi at almost every place we stay at, but I'll probably be pretty tired and may or may not have time to write anything for here.

Also, thanks to Maia for the idea of making a blog. And if this turns out I'm bad at blogging, I'm going to blame her for that too ;)    (kidding <3)

Fun Fact: In Paris where we are staying, you can see the Eiffel Tower from the balcony off the bedroom! Just like in movies :)

Another update soon!

~T