Travel Journal Entry June 15 to 18, 2012 Or To part is great sorrow and so we will return someday
Goodbye Scotland.
Goodbye London.
I see you brought the tears again. You cried when we left Scotland while London was happy to see us and now London is sad to see us go too.
What a change two weeks can bring to a city. London’s covered even more in constructions. I pity the people working there. It is so chaotic, trying to get around. This weekend had the colors parade, followed by some March on Sunday. Both left getting around chaotic, delayed and frustrating.
4 more hours and I can start relaxing. By then the plane should have taken off. We are both exhausted. Early to bed, but then we got waken up by the upstairs people, well elephants who were showering and stomping and banging things for an hour. Then D couldn’t fall asleep and it took me a long while. Early to rise and now I am tired, D is cranky, and I just want to sleep. Sighhhh. Have to do Customs & VAT thing, check in, get breakfast, and wait. Joy!
Hopefully, the toilets at te airport are free. So weird to pay 20 to 30 pence to use one.
So it’s about an hour until land time. I should catch up with all of the last few days. While I love the book and I wanted to keep up, I just got caught in living the experience and then I got a head cold the last few days. I took a reactine this morning and the fact that I am still sniffling and coughing lets you know how bad it could have been. I didn’t want to be that sick on the plane.
So the 15th was a Friday and our last full day in Scotland. We got to meet up with Robbie. We first hit the National Museum and did the Scotland side, then met with Robbie who had just had his tooth pulled. He wasn’t doing so well – as was to be expected. We met at Café Nero and he recommended an Iced lemonade – Num! We talked for about an hour and then went our separate ways. After all, he had to recover. The next day was the start of the next country roads of Scotland tour.
Because it was a rainy day, we ended up back to the National Museum and did the other side. Rob had suggested an Italian place near the Museum for supper and it was delicious! I started with soup and D with garlic bread. Then we shared a Milano pizza, followed by dessert, where D had the chocolate cake and I had the Dulca dish. The fun part was watching them isolate a mouse who had made it into the restaurant (not unexpected since the front door was wide open) without freaking out the customers. They were very good, though their methods would end up with the mouse suffocating under the raised eating section… so not sure how that will work.
Saturday the 16th was another rainy day. We were up and out for train travel. It was a nice ride, though sad. We ended up in London Victoria around 2 and by 3 we were out the door for shopping. It was sunny in London, supposedly had rained most of the two weeks we had been gone. There was a Colors parade that day, which we missed, but we got stuck in the traffic, so we didn’t do the Goth shopping. We did Madam Toussard’s instead. It was interesting – not worth the cost (and we had gotten a discount) – the crowds we terrible, but it was still cool. We did not do the “scream” section. We did talk a bit with one of the artists, which was fascinating and cool.
Then the long bus tour back, which would have been great except the sound wasn’t working so we couldn’t get the info about what we were seeing. We ate at the last restaurant Prezzo in Victoria Shopping Centre (i.e. not McDs, KFC or the buffet place) which was Italian. I had soup and D had garlic cheese bread. Then I had 2 different pastas, both of which were good; D had lobster and crab tortellini. We didn’t do dessert as we were both getting ill. D drank the Peroni.
Sunday the 17th we were out and about for Goth shopping. We headed out to Regent Park by the hop on the bus and then a good walk to Camden market. What a place! Too many people. We couldn’t find the place and no one seemed to know them (not even other ‘Goth’ type stores.) We walked back to Regent and got off on Oxford Street to visit Hamley’s. That was fun and huge! Wow!
Then it was a maze to get on the next bus because there was a March of some sort going on and lots of roads were being closed. I pity people who live there. As I previously mentioned, the construction had increased by the time we returned.
It was an early evening – to pack and go to bed early. Dinner was at a local pub – I had the Sunday chicken roast with Yorkshire pudding. D had fish and chips (which wasn’t as good as we had had.) Dessert for me was apple crumble with ice cream and D had chocolate cake.
We went to bed at an early hour, but the people above us were loud from 11pm to midnight. Ick! Ugh! Hard to fall back to sleep.
It was up at 4:30 am this morning, followed by a rapid walk to the train and trying to find things in Gatwick. We couldn’t get the extra VAT back – no one was working. Sighhhh.
Goodbye London.
I see you brought the tears again. You cried when we left Scotland while London was happy to see us and now London is sad to see us go too.
What a change two weeks can bring to a city. London’s covered even more in constructions. I pity the people working there. It is so chaotic, trying to get around. This weekend had the colors parade, followed by some March on Sunday. Both left getting around chaotic, delayed and frustrating.
4 more hours and I can start relaxing. By then the plane should have taken off. We are both exhausted. Early to bed, but then we got waken up by the upstairs people, well elephants who were showering and stomping and banging things for an hour. Then D couldn’t fall asleep and it took me a long while. Early to rise and now I am tired, D is cranky, and I just want to sleep. Sighhhh. Have to do Customs & VAT thing, check in, get breakfast, and wait. Joy!
Hopefully, the toilets at te airport are free. So weird to pay 20 to 30 pence to use one.
So it’s about an hour until land time. I should catch up with all of the last few days. While I love the book and I wanted to keep up, I just got caught in living the experience and then I got a head cold the last few days. I took a reactine this morning and the fact that I am still sniffling and coughing lets you know how bad it could have been. I didn’t want to be that sick on the plane.
So the 15th was a Friday and our last full day in Scotland. We got to meet up with Robbie. We first hit the National Museum and did the Scotland side, then met with Robbie who had just had his tooth pulled. He wasn’t doing so well – as was to be expected. We met at Café Nero and he recommended an Iced lemonade – Num! We talked for about an hour and then went our separate ways. After all, he had to recover. The next day was the start of the next country roads of Scotland tour.
Because it was a rainy day, we ended up back to the National Museum and did the other side. Rob had suggested an Italian place near the Museum for supper and it was delicious! I started with soup and D with garlic bread. Then we shared a Milano pizza, followed by dessert, where D had the chocolate cake and I had the Dulca dish. The fun part was watching them isolate a mouse who had made it into the restaurant (not unexpected since the front door was wide open) without freaking out the customers. They were very good, though their methods would end up with the mouse suffocating under the raised eating section… so not sure how that will work.
Saturday the 16th was another rainy day. We were up and out for train travel. It was a nice ride, though sad. We ended up in London Victoria around 2 and by 3 we were out the door for shopping. It was sunny in London, supposedly had rained most of the two weeks we had been gone. There was a Colors parade that day, which we missed, but we got stuck in the traffic, so we didn’t do the Goth shopping. We did Madam Toussard’s instead. It was interesting – not worth the cost (and we had gotten a discount) – the crowds we terrible, but it was still cool. We did not do the “scream” section. We did talk a bit with one of the artists, which was fascinating and cool.
Then the long bus tour back, which would have been great except the sound wasn’t working so we couldn’t get the info about what we were seeing. We ate at the last restaurant Prezzo in Victoria Shopping Centre (i.e. not McDs, KFC or the buffet place) which was Italian. I had soup and D had garlic cheese bread. Then I had 2 different pastas, both of which were good; D had lobster and crab tortellini. We didn’t do dessert as we were both getting ill. D drank the Peroni.
Sunday the 17th we were out and about for Goth shopping. We headed out to Regent Park by the hop on the bus and then a good walk to Camden market. What a place! Too many people. We couldn’t find the place and no one seemed to know them (not even other ‘Goth’ type stores.) We walked back to Regent and got off on Oxford Street to visit Hamley’s. That was fun and huge! Wow!
Then it was a maze to get on the next bus because there was a March of some sort going on and lots of roads were being closed. I pity people who live there. As I previously mentioned, the construction had increased by the time we returned.
It was an early evening – to pack and go to bed early. Dinner was at a local pub – I had the Sunday chicken roast with Yorkshire pudding. D had fish and chips (which wasn’t as good as we had had.) Dessert for me was apple crumble with ice cream and D had chocolate cake.
We went to bed at an early hour, but the people above us were loud from 11pm to midnight. Ick! Ugh! Hard to fall back to sleep.
It was up at 4:30 am this morning, followed by a rapid walk to the train and trying to find things in Gatwick. We couldn’t get the extra VAT back – no one was working. Sighhhh.
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