London

Wow – well people told me that I would love London… and I would have to say that I did – I had a brilliant time there. We were so busy the whole week – it was insane.

On Wednesday we went to the Monument of the great fire, It this massive thin column – which you can go up and see 360 degree views of  London. There were soooo many stairs (I think about 312 stairs) to climb up but the views were pretty good – they would have been much better before all the buildings around it were built.

We then walked to the Tower of London which is famous for holding the Royals crown jewels – the place isn’t a tower it’s a massive fort next to the river – back in the olden days it was also used as a prison, torture chambers and executions. But we went there for the crown jewels mainly. We got in there for free (woo London Pass) and saw the traitors entrance, which is where traitors were brought in by boat through this gate (from the Thames) and into he fort where they were then dragged to the prison. Guy Fawkes was brought here after his attempt of town hall and all the royal family and important people.

We then went to the crown jewels. They have a lot of boring golden plates and big steins and things which look so delicate and very old. We got to the good stuff – but we couldn’t take photos… they have travelators to go pass the crowns and septars so you couldn’t just stand in front of them which I thought was a good idea. The amount of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires that these puppies had was insane! They have two very impressive diamonds (Cullinan I & Koh-i-Noor) – the jewels in total are something like 23,500 – how shiny is that!! We then went and saw an exhibition on the armour worn by the kings hundreds of years ago. You could see how big and how small some were.

After wandering around there for a little bit we kept going and went to the tower bridge – where we could go up and see the history of the bridge and the stunning views. It was pretty cool – thankfully we got a lift ride up and didn’t have to climb any stairs. haha.

We then went and saw the HMS Belfast which has a sister in Sydney (which we saw when we went to Sydney). It was pretty cool but we didn’t stay to long here as the day was getting on. We then got some lunch in an Italian restaurant and kept going to the transport museum where we saw old trains, buses, coaches, the underground back in WW2. We also played some interactive games where you could drive a underground train – the museum was great.

We then went out to Chelsea to an Independent film cinema where we saw the film – Whatever Works- which was a brilliant film. The same guy directed Vicky Christina goes to Barcelona. We also got to see that for free and we finished the night off with free tokens in a timezone place.

That day we got 60 pounds worth of value each. So we made our moneys worth double.

On Thursday we went to St Paul’s Cathedral… It was nice for a church. The outside is impressive. We then went to  Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and did a tour around here – It was interesting to see the history behind the theatre and the techniques applied to creating effects back in the day. The theartre itself is a close spitting image to what it would have looked like back in the day (thatch roof and everything). I was a little disappointed in they didn’t have much on Shakespeare. (except from the gift shop).

After that we went bowling!! Cindy beat me.. but we didn’t play so great!

After that we went back to the city and walked around – we ended up buying tickets to the theatre that night – like and hour before the performance. We were going to see…. Priscilla Queen of the Desert. We grabbed some dinner and then walking past Leicester square we saw the Eclipse Premier (twilight movies)… we couldn’t see anything as too many people and baracades blocking us out so we just heard screams. We then went to the theatre.

We were up soooo very high – up in the balcony but we had a good view. The show was brilliant – so clever and funny – it was brilliant.  It was nearing midnight when we got back to the hostel.

Friday we went and saw the entrance to the leaky cauldron… and bought tickets to see Oliver that evening. We went back to the hostel to eat dinner and get ready. We also had balcony seats but I think there was many people attending that night because they closed the balcony so we were upgraded to the 2nd row in front of the stage. At first I was put off thinking I would be too close – but it was pretty good. The kids were great in the performance and the adults were brilliant. It was much different to Priscilla which I enjoyed more but the show was still good.

On Saturday – was Pride Day! We got to Trafalga square and went to the stalls where organisations were giving things for free so we got some pens, badges, stickers, posters, magazines, keyrings… so we got lots of free stuff.

Stonewall which is an charity for LGBT – but they had the best brand at pride. They had t-shirts that said – SOME PEOPLE ARE GAY – get over it and  Love your inner lesbian. haha so we wanted to buy the t-shirts but they weren’t selling any on the day (which we thought was a missed opportunity) – so you can buy them online (http://www.stonewall.org.uk/what_you_can_do/2590.asp and http://www.stonewall.org.uk/what_you_can_do/3696.asp)

Anyway the parade was awesome – so many companies and organisations were marching proudly (nothing like home)… We had politicians, the armed forces, police, fire, ambos, sporting clubs – I was asked to play hockey for a club lol. Businesses like British Airways… They weren’t letting normal riff raff like us in the march – but I didn’t like being told to go behind the barriers so I just pretended I was an official photographer and I got to stand on the VIP side of the barrier – muahahahaha… After a while Cindy snuck back over and we joined the parade – everyone was clapping us and we had a ball. We ended up catching up with Stonewall and hung out with their float.

This parade stopped traffic literally – Pride shut down Baker Street, Oxford Street, Regent Street to Trafalgar square.  It was brilliant… whereas back home we used to start of at town hall and block off a little portion of George street… we now start at Roma street and go back streets… Doesn’t show the same message does it.

Pride was brilliant we hung out at Trafalga square all afternoon watching the performance and people getting up on the big fountains in the middle and then watching them getting told off and then security getting into the water to drag them off… haha good times. When we left I saw that they were wearing waders (what fisherman wear)… and standing in the fountain making sure no one would be going in. I thought it was funny.

We then went to Westminster and walked over the bridge there and went back to the timezone like place and did some bowling and games – it was fun and when we got out it was near 11 and the eye was glistening in rainbow colours.  Pretty cool. We went back to the hotel.

On Sunday we got up bright and early as we were on a tour to go to the Stonehenge, Bath and Salisbury. Stonehenge was good, small and rocky. The amount of people there was crazy… you couldn’t go up to the rocks but I thought it was amazing that these rocks are still like that after however many years…. We then went to Salisbury where we saw the cathedral there and the original magna carta which is a legal document back in the day saying the rights of the kings people – and the responsibilities of the king. That was cool.

We got some lunch there and also walked around the town. It was good.

We then stopped at Bath – where we saw the Roman Baths. The brains behind the Romans were way ahead of the times – the genius to come up with the plans for them were so clever. The baths were great.

Bath is an Amazing town – I would go back there in a second – it’s so beautiful.

That night we got Chinese for dinner ( sooo good)… guy gave us free prawn crackers.

On Monday – we slept in and then packed our bags. We went to the train station and jumped on a train to go to East Midlands Parkway station (in the middle of nowhere) where our megabus was waiting for us to take us the rest of the way to York.

We got to our hotel and we’re right up the top and have a nice view if you peer out the window. We went to the pub for dinner where the owner was very nice and chatty… After dinner we went to the SPAR and got some drinks and snacks and went back to our room. The SPAR guy was also very friendly….

We then called some people and had a good time chatting to them.

Today is now Tuesday and all we have done so far is lie in bed.

Photos will be up this afternoon…. maybe.

Love us. xoxo

London Sunday-Tuesday

Well we’ve been busy busy beavers the last few days.

Sunday – we headed to Wandsworth to a pub there called the Ship. We beat Simon there so we got a drink and hung out in the sun. It was so hot… I skulled my beer… We met up with Simon when he arrived – He’s changed so much and London has been great to him, We had a great catch up and his pub had some new ciders that we tried (Cindy’s cider page has been updated). England lost 4-1… hahaha suckers. We got back and CSI sunday was on TV… So we died in the heat while watching tv.

On Monday we moved to the other side of London to Brixton where the other hostel is. Its much cooler here… we’re in an 8 bed dorm, and we’re sharing with 4 live in girls… who are very messy. After checking in and making our beds we headed back to the city and picked up our London Pass which I will talk about later. We then walked to the British Museum and checked that out. The only thing I really liked was the Rosetta Stone (How scientists were able to decode Hieroglyphics), that was awesome to see – I remember our Egypt guide being quite annoyed that Britain had it. We then walked to a nice little park and sat for a while, I fell asleep… lol It was nice and cool in the shade, after a while we headed back to Brixton and got stuff for dinner.

Okay so explaining our London Passes. We bought a 3 day London pass for 62 pounds each and we get free access to a whole bunch of attractions, you get up to 80 pounds a day.

So today (Tuesday), we got up early ( I know, it was hard) and it was raining quite hard but by the time we were ready the rain vanished and we went to the London Zoo and got free access to that and saw lots of cool animals and also saw where they filmed a scene of Harry Potter. My favourite animals were the sleeping Otters and the yellow frogs. We stayed there for a few hours before continuing back into the city and went to the Jewel tower (free access) – its an old tower (the old parliament/storage area) back in the 1800′s (I think). It was pretty cool, we then had an Ice lolly to cool down.

After our break, we went to the Churchill War Rooms (free access) which is like a basement underground where Winston Churchill ran the British War movement against Germany and Japan in WW2. It was very interesting to read and see what it was like 70 odd years ago. After the museum we headed to the river and jumped on a river cruise (free access) and went down the river Thames and saw the London Bridge, Tower of London and went all the way to Greenwich and saw the outside of National Maritime Museum. We just took the boat back once it got to the end.

We then got the metro back to hostel, had dinner and now bing bang boom – the blog is done! So our total spending for our London Pass is 50 pounds each so we’ve nearly made our money back and we still have 2 days left.

Tomorrows an even earlier morning… going to see the crown jewels…ooo

Until next time,

Love us.

P.s will put photos up now.

Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford, Brighton

Well we have been quite slack in writing blogs lately (as I am sure everyone is aware since there hasn’t been one for a week or 2)..

We returned to Cardiff on the 12th June for 2 nights for the Annual Welsh Beer and Cider Festival. We stayed in an Ibis hotel next to the Cardiff International Arena, so it was very convenient. We arrive before lunch on Saturday and went for lunch in a pub down the road from the hotel. Once we were full we headed to the festival. We didn’t get Id’d or anything, so it was great. Pretty much the venue was a giant hall which in the centre of it had a huge stand that had 140 different types of Ales and around 60+ Ciders and Perry’s. On Entry you got a glass and some “fake money” which you used to buy your drinks. Drinks varied depending on what you got and how much you got. The smallest amount was a 1/3pint which was about 1pound, the glass you got at entry was a 1/2 pint, so unless you specified you were automatically given a full glass of the drink you requested. Apparently you could upgrade your glass to a pint (but we are not sure how you were meant to do it- we just saw people with the glasses).. We both really enjoyed our first drinks, then it went a little down hill from there…. All drinks were served at room temperature, which really doesn’t show the full potential of the drinks in my opinion.  We had about 4-5 drinks each and watched some entertainment that was on. It was great fun. When we had enough to drink we headed back to the hotel and watched the Australia Vs Germany match… we won’t talk about that!

On Sunday we met up with Colin and Fiona and the kids and they took us out to St Fagan’s which is an open air museum that shows buildings and life in/around Wales in the past. Some of the buildings were pretty amazing, and the stairs in some of the houses were insane, you wouldn’t have been able to put half of your feet on it, so I have no idea how people shifted house or even walked up the stairs.. We went on a little train ride there too, that was fun. It rained in the afternoon when we were there but it was when it was closing so it was pretty good timing… We said goodbye to them again and spent the rest of our evening in our hotel room.

Unfortunately we had to leave early to go to Manchester, so we had to get up early. I started to get a bit sick in Manchester. We stayed in a hotel, which I thought was more like an inn. The owner was really nice and he took us out for groceries in the afternoon. As we were a fair way out of Manchester the next day we just spent in the village, we went for a walk around and down the stream, then we had a nice lunch in the hotels pub… That night the owners, Will and Natalie took us out to a huge shopping centre called Traffords. It has sections of it which are themed. The food court area is like a huge ship, it was really cool. We played in Fun House (arcade area) while they had their dinner, after they were finished we went back to the hotel.

The next day we went into Manchester City and went to the Museum of Science and Industry. The museum was pretty cool, we got to go into a fake sewer, one of the original ones built.. we also saw some of the old trains and planes and other things. After that we went on the Manchester Eye… It is the same company that owns the one in Brisbane, so it was pretty much the same size etc. It gave us pretty good views of the city and it went for about 30mins or so and we got in for students so it was really good. It was a bit hot though, apparently the UK doesn’t believe in Air-conditioning, even though it gets really hot!

The day after we went on the Manchester United Football Stadium Tour… We got in as students here too.. First we went through the museum, and you got to see old players profiles and jersey’s and team photos and cups that they have won over the years! Yes we did see David Beckam’s jersey, and also Micahael Owens.. The stadium wasn’t as big as I imagined it would be.. but nonetheless it was quite impressive.. The field had just been re-done so it was a bit dodgy looking when we saw it.. We saw the players change rooms, which I honestly didn’t think was very impressive, they were quite small, though they did have a huge Tv in there which was cool. We saw the area where the players wait before going to the change rooms, this was also apparently the area where David and Victoria Beckham met.. in this area the players girlfriends/wives hang out and get free food and drink. The players are allowed to go there after a game but are limited to one alcoholic drink, which according to the guide most of them don’t even have one! haha. We got to go through the tunnel that the players come out of.. it is really quite dark in there, we also got to sit in the dig out.. the chairs are apparently racing car seats or something.. Kath said they were really uncomfortable. We then went through the original tunnel from the remains of the first stadium which was built over 100 years ago.. Thats how long Man U has been a club for (but was known as a different name for a few years in the begining). After the 3 hour tour we caught a bus and train back to the hotel. That evening we packed our bags to get ready to leave early the next morning.

We arrived in Oxford around lunch time and luckily enough we were able to check straight in.. The hostel was run by Aussies, a few of them were even from Brisbane! We went out for a wander around the town and had some lunch before heading back to the hostel to watch the soccer match between England and Algeria match (I think it was Algeria).. We had a few drinks and the hostel was pretty full. After the match we were pretty tired so we headed to bed. The next day we walked around Oxford to try and see some of the college’s and uni campus’, but apparently everything was closed (we think there might have been graduation ceremonies on or something).. so we just walked around the outsides and looked at some of the old buildings. That afternoon we watched a few more soccer matches and the guys in the hostel put on Avatar so we watched that and ate popcorn. We had an early night after the final match as we had another early morning on Sunday.

We were lucky to take a double decker bus to London on Sunday (the first part of our journey to Brighton).. We were first on so I chose the front seats. The last time I was on a double decker bus at the front for more then 30 mins was the trip we took as kids down to Melbourne, I think that trip we counted road kill… well it seems I am a bit more mature now.. this time we counted flags that had fallen off cars… Between Oxford and London we counted 107… We thought that was quite alot. When we arrived in London we got some breakky as the hostel kitchen was closed when we left in the morning.. We then got ready to take the next bus to Brighton.. Well unfortunately this was not a double decker bus, so it was a bit of a disappointment. This time we counted 139 flags, crazy! Just to put it into perspective as to why we started counting these flags.. I am going to say nearly every 2nd car in England has got these flags hanging off their cars, and Kath and I were discussing how many we thought that people loose… so we decided to count… I would say that the majority stay on the cars, but its a lot of extra rubbish on the highways if you ask me… Or really cheap souvenirs for tourists hahaha!

Anyway after our 3 or 4 hour bus trip we arrived in Brighton and made our way to our hostel (3km out of the city centre)… When we arrived they told us they didn’t have a booking that we canceled it, then after explaining to them that we changed the booking from 5 nights to 4 they continued to say we didn’t have a reservation, so I pulled out the trusty little laptop and showed them our confirmation from hostelworld.com (who we have used for our entire journey without a hassle) and showed them we did have a booking. Finally the dumb girl on reception said that lucky for us the room we did book was available.. but hadn’t been made up as they weren’t expecting anyone..  an hour later they had finally got around to putting some sheets on the bed.. and we checked in.. By the time we went to the grocery store it was dinner time, we were starving as we missed lunch having been on buses and trying to check in.. We had yummy spaghetti for dinner and had a new cider, Merrydown.. It was quite sweet but still tasted ok.. Kath enjoyed it most I think.

This morning we got up fairly early and walked to the centre of town by the waterfront and the ended up at the famous Brighton Pier.. We walked past the old pier and saw it’s old skeleton, rusty construction. We wandered around the “new” pier and looked at all of the rides and enjoyed the nice weather we had.. Then we headed into the city area and saw some old buildings, then we found Mountain Warehouse, where we got our shoes, jackets, pants and towels from and I got a new pair of shoes… There were none in Kath’s size.. so we are getting more in London. We then walked another 3km back to the hostel and are getting ready to have dinner soon.

Brighton is a nice town and very gay friendly. Today we have walked about 7.5km in total.. good effort I say.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying winter at home, summer here is quite hot so far.. The UK seriously needs air-conditioners!!! Especially in shops!

Love Cindy and Kath

PS new pics are up in Wales and England!

Birmingham

We have spent the last 3 nights in Birmingham, this is our last night before heading back to Cardiff for the Ale and Cider festival. We have had a good time here and have pretty much relaxed and not done much touristy stuff. Our hostel is ok, the room is quite small, they have a big screen tv and all the gaming consoles. They also have a fish tank – Which really really needs a clean, poor little fish!

The first day we were here we went to the cinemas and saw Iron Man 2 – it was the tinest cinema, the screen wasn’t even a third of the standard size screen. Nonetheless the movie was good and the cinema was fairly quiet.After the movie we went to the supermarket to get some dinner and when we came out it was pouring rain, and it wasn’t letting up, so we walked in it back to the hostel. We discovered that our shoes are no longer waterproof! We both ended up with soaking jeans and socks…So we dried everything off and had a dry and relaxing evening.

Thursday we headed out to a small town called Bourneville. It was in this town that the world famous Cadbury Chocolate was born! Walking from the train station past the factory to the Cadbury World you could smell chocolate in the air. The tour was good. There were lots of movies, interactive displays and even a ride! We got lots of free chocolate which was great. We watched a video on how they make Roses Chocolates and the Cadbury chocolate sticks.. It was really interesting. We got to write our names in chocolate and make a “chocolate creation”, which you just tell them which sweet (eg marshmallow, shortbread, wine gums etc) you wanted and they poured warm runny chocolate over it. It was quite tasty but very sweet after a few mouthfuls. There was an interesting film showing when they were first creating Cadbury and how close they were to giving up on it… I couldn’t imagine a world today with out Cadbury, in my opinion it definitely stands out as one of the best chocolates. Cadbury was one of the first company’s that gave their employees good benefits like sick days and holidays. I think they would be a great company to work for! We did have a few suggestions for their gift shop though, like squishy chocolates, or shot glasses. The shop was quite lacking in creative ideas, which we were quite disappointed about, considering it is meant to be the biggest Cadbury shop in the world! After we were all chocolated out we caught the train back to Birmingham.

We have had a quite day today, we went out for a nice lunch and Kath is playing the wii this afternoon and I am going to read my book (my last one)… I have read 4 books since being back in the UK.. they are so cheap over here.. Kath has  read more then me, but she is much faster at reading then I am.

We hope everyone isn’t freezing too much..

It is getting warm here and we love it, most days!

Chat soon

Cindy and Kath

Bristol and Cardiff

SOur trip to Bristol was quite short – we needed to change buses in Exeter… We slept for most of the journey. When we arrived in Bristol, we found our hostel very easily… unfortunately they close the reception and luggage room at 11am and we arrived at 11:05  – so no one was around. We had to cart around our big bags around till 2pm… we just went into KFC and sat on their comfy seats had lunch and stole subways wi-fi.  We then walked up and down the main shopping street to see what shops they had around.

At 2 we checked in and cindy made the beds – we were in an 8 bed female dorm… Cindy didn’t like the look of her mattress so we swapped them with a nicer looking one. After our beds were made we went to explore the shops. We went to Primarks (to look for new jeans for me as mine have big holes in them) didn’t find any good jeans so we went and looked in Mountain warehouse for shoes but they only had the exact same shoes we’ve already got. We went into a toy shop and bought a tiny snakes and ladders/ludo game.  Toys/Boardgames are so much cheaper here. We bought some books from a cheap bookstore… We went and saw Iron Man 2 at the movies that night – we enjoyed it – we snuck our microwave popcorn in. After the movie we got back and had our dinner and read our books.

The next day we walked around the city and along the river. We saw their really cool water features and went to the Aquarium. It was really good, Cindy liked the big nemo tank, the octopus tank and the seahorse tank. We saw a 3D film on sharks (it wasn’t great,but still quite fun to watch). We had some lunch then went back in and saw the staff feeding the octopus. After a while we got tired and walked back to the hostel. We chatted to 2 ladies in our room that night (1 polish and 1 German)… Cindy didn’t like her mattress so we swapped it for another one…

The next day we did the site seeing bus around Bristol and saw the SS Great Britain (an old boat that sailed to America, Africa and Australia), Cathedral, the Zoo, Clifton Suspension Bridge (which we got off and walked across, it’s an awesome looking bridge and very high up). We got some more books and went back to the hostel to read them.

On Thursday we caught the bus to Cardiff, Wales. It was a nice bus trip – the driver was quite nice. When we arrived, we met up with Colin and Holly who had come to pick us up… they saw the South African Rugby team get off their bus. We had a short trip back to Colin and Fiona’s house and met up with Fiona, Max and Rosie. They have an amazing house, with a lovely backyard. We put our bags in our room and settled in, we had some nice lunch and chatted with the kids. That afternoon, Colin took Cindy and I to Castle Coch (Red Castle).We got in half price with our Historic Scotland cards. It was a nice and little castle and the rooms we all decorated and even had a tiny little church in one of the towers.  After we finished looking at the castle, we met up with Colin and we went home. We had a nice quiet evening sitting outside and had yummy spaghetti for dinner.

On Friday we did our washing and late morning Colin took us to the Big Pit which is an old coal mine just outside of Cardiff. It was awesome, you got to wear a helmet and torch and you walk through the mine how it really was back in the day. The guides were great and it was really good. It was much better than the salt mines in Krakow that we went too. This mine was only 90m deep though but was still really good. We saw the bath rooms, a museum and an audio visual presentation which was great – what was insane was – it was all free! If anyone is going to Wales – I would say you should definitley go here because it was great!

On driving back home, we went past Caerphilly castle which is huge… apparently Merlin was shot here at one stage. If you watch Dr Who or Torch wood – They are shot here in Cardiff. That night, Colin and Fiona took us all out for dinner at Cardiff Bay – We went to wagamama’s – we all had massive meals and all were delicious. After dinner, Colin, Max and Holly showed us around the bay – we saw an old Norwegian Church, A lighthouse boat, some memorials,  Pierhead Building, we were also lucky enough to see some baby swans. Fiona, Cindy and I watched an old movie called the Jewel on the Nile with Kathleen Turner and Micheal Douglas – It was good, but the visual effects were hilarious to watch.

The next day, Cindy and I went into the city to have a look around. Wales was playing South Africa in Rugby that afternoon so everyone was out wearing their respective jerseys – there was alot of red around. We had lunch in a nice big pub. We walked around some shops and looked at things – didn’t really buy much – We saw that next weekend there is a ale and cider festival back here – so we are probably going to come back to go to it.

That night Fiona made us an amazing dinner – ham and leek pie. It was sooo good – I think I could have licked my plate. haha. We did the dishes and then said goodnight.

Today we hung out with the kids and helped them do drawings and build lego. Had a good time. In the Afternoon – Colin drove us in the city to our hostel. We thought we would stay in town for 2 nights to get the feel of the city life – we will probably go out tomorrow night.

The internet is great here – so we will try and skype tomorrow.

Hope all is well – talk soon.

Love us.