Return to the mother country....the UK

Another adventure....only this one went slightly more smoothly.

My friend Abby and I started our journey in Nimes, France where we were to board our flight to East Midlands airport. After some running around, we made it to the airport and then, to customs. The customs agents were especially thrilled by my passport....damn that being born in Alaska...I keep getting "you're from the same state as Sarah Palin looks."

Then, when we finally reached the East Midlands airport...which is in the middle of nowhere, England, it was bedtime. And since our flight wasn't until 7 the next morning, we settled down for the night. I found a "prayer room" and suggested that for our nook. It was quiet, carpeted, and I even saw some blankets in there. Unfortunately Abby vetoed that idea (a little presidential shout out to Obama!). So, I laid out, with my towel as a blanket and slept for a good couple of hours until rudely awoken by a large group of irish teenage footballers....ugh.

We finally arrived in Edinburgh! If you've never been...go. It's beautiful. Abby and I were meeting and staying with her friend Barry for the couple of days, but before we met up with him we did some sight seeing. Abby opted out of the Edinburgh Castle, because it was rather expensive, but I had to go in. It was worth it in my opinion. I saw some amazing views, walked on historic stones, and even saw the Scottish Crown Jewels and the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James! Abby and I also visited the Scottish National Museum and wandered the streets of Old Town on our first day. With Barry as our guide, we did some more wandering and grabbed some fish and chips with pints of Guinness. We crashed at Barry's house and his parents were wonderful. They fed and housed us, and even took us out to their local pub. They made us lots of tea and I even tried black pudding (blood sausage). It was gross. But our too short stay in Scotland was really fantastic, I'll have to go back to see all that I missed.

On Sunday, Abby and I boarded our megabus for London. Nine hours and some amazing countryside later, we arrived at Victoria Station. From there, we navigated the undergroud (Mind the Gap), and found our hostel for the night. It was in a semi sketchy neighborhood, but it was clean, and quiet, and cheap, and Abby and I had a room to ourselves. The next day, we starting our sightseeing. This included:
- A long walk up to Abbey Road and some photo-ops with angry motorists.
- Picadilly Circus
- Trafalgar Square
- The National Gallery : very very impressive. I saw a lot of great works including those by Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Botticelli. wow.

Then, we gathered our things to head down to my cousin Rachelle's place where again, we were fed and housed for free. We also had the company of William, Rachelle and Matthew's young son, who is about as cute as they come.

On our last full day in London, Abby and I visited:
- London Bridge (not actually falling down)
- Shakespeare's Globe (from the outside...too expensive)
- Tate Modern
- River Thames
- London Eye
- Anoop Jethwa - :)
- Parliament and Big Ben
- Westminster
- Oxford Street and the many shopping opportunities.

That night, we watched election coverage, tried to sleep, and woke to find out Obama had won, and I had to go catch a flight.

-Let's just say, I'm estatic about the results, but dead dog tired. Good night everyone.

Love,
Becca