Some Statistics

Countries Slept In: 4

Cities Slept In: 9

Planes Flown On: 8

Trains Taken: 15

Busses Ridden: 17

Tube Lines Ridden: 6

Taxi Rides: 4

Security Passed: 7

Beds Slept In: 11

WiFis Used: 10

Scissors Confiscated: 1

Crying Phone Calls Home: 2

Day 25

It is the last real day of the trip. We leave the hotel at 6am tomorrow. I keep thinking of a line from one of my favorite movies, Withnail and I. "We've gone on holiday by mistake..." We're not doing much today. Its 11am and we're still in the hotel. Hannah is writing post cards. I'm trying to be patient. My feet hurt too much to want to walk around any more, but I'm also restless with all of Rome waiting outside my doorstep.

My tablet has been weird about charging since we've been here. I realized today I think it was the outlet I was usuning. It seems to be a lot better since I've changed it. But that's partially why updates have been scarce and I'm so far behind in posting pictures.

So tomorrow is flying all day. It's something like a 3 hour flight to Amsterdam, a 9 hour flight to Minneapolis, and then a 3 hour flight to KC. I'm trying not to stress about it but travel days always worry me a bit. Catching things on time and all that. But I'm checking my bag tomorrow so that will make everything easier. And we have an hour and a half between each flight which should be enough time to make the change. I hope. I'm choosing to believe it will all go smoothly and i will be in my house with both my dogs well before bedtime tomorrow night.

When the girl finishes her post cards we are heading out. She's going to bottle a little bit if the water from Trevi fountain for a friend of hers and i think I'll get some for my mom. I don't even remember where else we were going to walk, but it seems like we had some ideas. We haven't visited any churches or museums here, but I think we've seen all the good stuff. I wish we were going back to the forum but it costs so i kind of doubt we are. But who knows. We'll see.

I wish I had some email from home, but there's been plenty little of that. I don't think home gets how hard it is to be away for so long or how much little messages help.

I'm going to go do some stuff to help Hannah along.
See you tomorrow.

Day 19

I am cranky today. I haven't had many cranky days on this trip but this was one of them. I started to list all the things that made me vranky but that is unhelpful, so i deleted them.

We are in the lobby of our hostel. Its crowded but surprisingly quiet. Which is nice. Also Hannah just did something really nice for me and that was nice too. I think were in for the night. Its really cold today. We weren't quite prepared for it. And we couldn't find a lot of stuff to do, at least not without spending a lot of money. Its 8:30. Whichbisnt really too early to be done for the day because we have to be all packed up and ready to go by like 8am tomorrow. We have our Mad Max tour to some henges and some lovely quaint towns and then a quick exit out of town and back to Susan's. We hope quick. We'll see I guess. I hope it's warmer tomorrow, and i especially hope less pouring rain. It really came down at several points today.

One week from now we'll be on a plane home. You know I want to see Rome but we are so ready. We are worn out. At least we won't be cold in Rome. We might be too hot and sweaty but it seems like a nice change.

Wow. A giant group of maybe 20 teen agers just showed up. I think that's my cue to go to my room!

I still haven't written about London, have I? I am way behind. I may never catch up, but I will try.

First I'll tell you I am in the kitchen at the YMCA hostel in Bath. Hannah and I got here after a long boring train ride from Chichester and a wee hike from the train station. I forgot to download my directions while at Susan's and was proud of myself for remembering the way here from last time. I was pleased to find it was a lot closer than I remembered. We had a lovely dinner of sammies, chips, fruit and soda provided by Susan and now were enjoying the free wifi while a bunch of Spanish girls char loudly. The wifi here is free, but not in the rooms. The hostel is pretty nice. Second best after the Caledonia Backpackers in Edinburgh.

The trip from Edinburgh to London was long and a little hectic. I wasn't exactly sure how to get from Heathrow to the city, and by the time we made it in it was late and crowded (Friday night). I
It was really warm out, especially after Scotland and it was practically a furnace in the subway (Tube). I was red faced and sweaty by the time we made it to the hostel, and then we had to climb a thousand steps to our teeny tiny room. I'll save the hostel review for a post later, but we did not love it. We rested up and made it back down to the lobby to pay a pound for 20 minutes of internet and then head out for dinner and a look about. We bought some groceries and ate them in some square before heading down for a look at the lights and the river from the Millennium Bridge. Then we went back and seriously crashed out.

Until the next morning when the bells woke me up. Eventually I got Hannah up and out towards the British museum. We spent 4 hours there and didn't even see half of it. It was fantastic. We didn't know what to do next for sure, and we didn't know exactly where we were, but lucky for us there were lots of maps about. We found a Marks & Spencer across the street from a tube stop and I bought a shirt to try to replace my lost shirt. We took the tube to see Parliament, heard Big Ben chime, ate some sammies at Cafe Nero (and found dome free wifi!), saw Westminster Abbey (but didn't go inside because it was closing), bought some cold medicine (day nurse) at Boots, walked down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square and then headed back to the hostel for a quick rest and change of clothes before we met the London Walks guide for a ghost tour of our area. We learned many creepy things, including that we were staying right down the road from the barber shop of Sweeny Todd himself. I enjoyed it but Hannah didn't find it ghosty enough I don't think.

The next day was Sunday so we headed off to Hyde Park for Speaker's Corner. It was insanely crowded on the tube, and maybe even more so in the park! There was some free concert and a 5k run, so Speaker's corner wasn't even happening. Big drag. We didn't even really enjoy the park. Bad choice all around. We were right on Oxford St so Hannah wanted to do some shopping. She bought a few things at H & M. We headed off to the tube stop for the Harry Potter walking tour and almost missed it because I had the wrong time in mind. We missed the first stop, which was Gringotts Bank, but rushed to catch up with them at the next stop. I didn't really love it. It was rushed and covered a huge area with tons of walking. There was too much about other movies, not enough HP talk, and the guide said Rowling wrong. It ended up in the middle of some Thames Fare going on along the river and I could not even bare how crowded it was. I thought I was about to have a freak out panic attack at a couple points but we finally made it back to the hostel where we hurriedly packed up, checked out, took a couple tubes trains to Waterloo station where we caught a train to Oxshott where my cousin Pam and her family lived.

They picked us up at the station, took us to their home and fed us some dinner. I had a marvelous shower. We slept great that night and decided to take the whole day off on Monday and rested up. Which was great and not great at the same time. We definitely needed the rest, but it turned out that there were so many things in London we didnt get to do that we really wished we would have had that extra day in the city.

Even though Hannah slept almost all day Monday, it was really hard to get her up and going Tuesday morning. It was almost 1 by the time we made it to the Tower of London. We stayed there til they closed, and then took the Jack the Ripper tour from the Tower Hill tube stop. We meant to take the London Walks tour but we weren't really on about the company after our other two walks, and then another guy showed up about 45 minutes earlier offering a different Jack the Ripper walk and we decided to go with him. We were really glad we did. H loved it, and even though I don't care about Jack the Ripper I found the tour very interesting. Because our guide was great. His name was Chris and he spent his days as a Beefeater at the Tower of London as the Raven keeper. It was super late by the time we made it back to Oxshott by Pam and Alex were so great they stayed up to give us a ride home from the train station.

And then it was our last day in London already! Instead of going into the city proper we took the train to Hampton Court. We loved it bunches. I think it was the best done of all the places we toured. We got there an hour after they opened and stayed almost till they kicked us out. We made it back to Oxshott just in time to walk across the field from the train station before it got dark, which was good because no one was around to pick us up that night. We had some dinner and packed up our suitcases. We enjoyed some internet and i called home for a bit. I tried to stay up til Pam got home but kept dozing off. But I woke up when she got there so we could say goodbye. They were up and out early the next morning and we were out hiking across the field with our luggage not much longer on the way to take the train to Susan's at Havant. Which you pronounce like 'haven't, not like huh-vant they way I'd think if it were American.

So that was London. Fast and furious, except the one day it wasn't.
I'm typed out for tonight. Maybe I can sum up our time around Chichester tomorrow when I wake up too early and can't get Hannah out of bed. Tomorrow is the Roman baths and a general looking around this beautiful ancient town.
Xox

One thing I forgot about Scotland - after lunch at the elephant house we stopped by the statue and graveyard of the little dog known as grayfriar's bobby. It started raining though so we didn't stay long.

Now we are my friend Jen's sister's house which I think is in Aldsworth. There are a million little towns and villages around here so I'm neverexactlysure where we are, but they're all around Chichesterbwhere Jen used to live.

Yesterday we took the train here from Pam's house outside London, so goodbye to London. We really didn't have nearly enough time there to do everything we wanted. Not even close really. We both half regret the day we took off and slacked about at Pam's but on the other hand we really needed a good rest. We will be back there for a few hours between Bath and Rome, but most of twill be sleeping and not really long enough to get anything seen.

So Susan met us at the airport yesterday, brought us back to her house for some lunch and then into Chichester to see Jennifer and have a bit of a walk around town. We saw the cathederal,  stopped in a couple shops (where I wanted to buy lots of stuff), had cake and coffee at Jen's favorite place, played at the park and walked along a bit of the Roman wall. Chichester started as a Roman town. I love that. Can't find any of those in Kansas.

Today we are waiting on the horse people to show up at the horse farm across the road. Hannah is hoping she'll be able to ride one. We hung out with the horses for a while last night and fed them lots of apples. After that I think we're visiting the castle at Arundel, visiting Jen's other sister Caroline, and later having a big dinner with a few of Jen's friends. Tomorrow we'll visit Jen's beloved open air museum before we take an evening train to Bath.

OK we're off. More later.

Catch up: all about Scotland

I'm far behind on telling you about what we've been up to. I have time today so I'm going to try to catch up. I hope I can keep it all straight!

We made it to Scotland and took the super efficient air link bus to our hostel. The Caledonia backpackers was the hostel I was most unsure about and it turned out to be the very most fantastic. It was big and beautiful. The desk people were helpful and friendly. There was strong wifi in our room and a million computers all around. We headed out to get some food and afterward ended up walking all around, along princess street and up the mound to the royal mile. Man that was a hike! But it was beautiful up there. We were in love with Scotland.

The next day we slept in a bit and then walked to the train station to hop aboard one of the many hop on hop off busses. We paid one price and were able to us any of the different tour busses throughout the day. First we took the full tour around the city, and then got off at the national museum. I think Hannah liked it more than I did, and I think we somehow managed to miss a binch of stuff. Afterward we wandered around looking for the cafe where jk Rowling sat to write harry potter. There was a kids bday party going on and it was way too crowded. We were starving and they were mostly out of food so we split something and moved on without getting the real effect. I can't even remember what we did next but I'm sure we got some real food at some point. We rode our way up to the castle but didn't go inside. I was cold and starting to feel sick. We had planned to go on an 8pm ghost tour but met up with a guy from mercat tours who had a ghost tour at 7 so we decided to take it as well. It was full of murder and torture stories. Hannah loved it. She wanted to do another one but it was late and we had an early morning the next day so When it was done we walked the long way home and went to bed.

The next day was our Hairy Coo tour to the highlands and around. We went to Stirling and climbed way too far up a steep mountain to the William Wallace monument. It wasn't really with it and made me kinda too worn out to otherbhikes later in the day that I might have liked. The view was nice, but you know, not worth it for me. We saw lots of fantastic scenery, lakes (or lochs) everywhere, moss, ferns and forests. We had a pup lunch in a charming little town and towards the end of the tour caught up with some hairy cows that ate bread from our hands and were fantasticly cute.

It was too late to tour the castle as we had planned when we got back so we decided to go on a tour of the underground Mary King's Close. Very historic and fascinating. In the olden days so many people were crammed into the 1 mile square that was Edinburgh at the time. Hard to imagine.

The next day was our last there. We were slow to get around and didn't do much but visit another pub for lunch before we headed back to the airport for our flight to London. I'm about out of battery now so I'm going to stop here for now and tell you about London later.

day 12

it's 10:30 and I am safely snuggled into the warm, quiet, big bed in a bedroom all of my own at my cousin Pam's house in Surrey. not even an hour away from the crazy city of London. I am grateful to my dad and her dad and being a part of a family that takes family seriously, and one that would happily offer up  warm meals and comfy beds and all the hospitality that comes with it, even at the last minute.

part of me wants to stay awake in the quiet and write about all the things we've done lately. but another, I think stronger part wants to lay back, cuddle up and get some much needed rest. Hannah and are taking the day off tomorrow. while our family goes to work and school we are going to lounge around their home. doing laundry, taking long showers and never walking further than from one room to the next. I'm thinking that will be a better day for writing of our adventures, and hopefully uploading pictures.

so goodnight for now. I'll see you tomorrow, relaxed, well rested and clean.