London Calling!

Beefeater picture!

Our last adventure and second trip to London with my (Dakota's) family was great. We started the day getting on to a cheap Megabus (great company with inexpensive tickets) really early in the morning and we were to London in 2 hours... Sadly traffic was so bad that it took us another two to get to the bus station once we were in London! We couldn't stand it, we were literally within 15 minute walking distance of the sites we wanted to visit but we couldn't get off the bus! When we finally did reach the bus station we hurried to the London Underground station and got a day pass. Mom was horrified of riding on the tube and her eyes were extremely wide as we flew through the tunnels beneath London. It didn't help mom's nerves either that the lights on the subway flickered on and off a lot. We realized that they did this when we came to stops so it wasn't quite as nerve racking after that. We arrived at the Tower of London and found ourselves queuing (fancy word for standing in line) forever! So if you go to the Tower be absolutely sure to pre-purchase tickets (which cost a fortune)!  

After another half hour of waiting in line we finally got our tickets and headed into the tower. We waited to go on a tour guided by a Yeoman Warder, better known as a beefeater. It was enjoyable having him guide us around and tell stories about people being tortured and executed, and it would have been even better if there wasn't a crowd of a hundred people doing just the same! He was an enjoyable fellow though and we had our picture taken with him later when our tour was over. We proceeded to go through the White Tower which was turned into a museum housing weapons and armor of the kings and the country through history. It was a very interesting museum, but once again would have been more so if there weren't so many people crowded into it. We moved on from the White Tower to the Crown Jewels, which were quite spectacular. Those gems are more radiant than anything you have ever seen. The best part was as we were leaving the display there was a donation box, which had tons of money in it. It was like saying now that you have seen all of our priceless gems and gold, give us some money to keep them! Overall, it was cool to see but much too busy and expensive.

 We left the Tower of London and moved on to another tower, the Monument (what a creative name). We all enjoyed going up all 311 spiral steps of the tower and were quite dizzy when we reached the top, which gave a spectacular view of London. Jed especially enjoyed climbing the tower. I think one of his favorite things while he was here was climbing up spiral staircases! When we came back down at the bottom we even got special certificates saying that we had climbed it. Harper and I plan on having my artistic brother, Jasper, write our names in calligraphy on our certificates.

       

     From the Monument we took the Underground to the Museum of Natural History, mom was a lot calmer this time and there was space for us to use seats which was much nicer. We got inside of the Museum of Natural History and there was hardly anybody there so we were able to walk right into the Dinosaur exhibit. Jed really liked the giant animatronic T-Rex and I'm not sure who wouldn't -it is awesome! We headed back to the bus and boarded for our trip home. However the trip was quite sketchy, the driver kept swerving back and forth and driving over the rumble strips for long periods of time. If that wasn't enough the microphone was broken so it kept turning on making loud noises as we rode home. We had an enjoyable time in London, even if it was a little busy and strange... but we were quite relieved to arrive safely back in Bristol!

Bath

 

No -as you might have guessed from the title of this post -we did not all get in a bath and play with rubber duckies.  Bath is a small town about 10 minutes from Bristol by train.  Named Bath for the Roman Baths that are the main tourist attraction, it is a charming little town and we had a relaxing day with the Wallens there. 







Jed took this picture!

We began by visiting the Roman Baths and museum surrounding them.  They were huge and old and we wished they were still in use so that we could try it out.  The main bath was outdoors and had no roof over it, but there was a spring of warm water coming from the hot springs that flowed into it.  It would have been nice to soak in -except apparently no one thought of cleaning out the old Roman Bath which was covered in pond scum and looked very dirty! They do have a modern Bath Spa in the town, but the price was not very friendly to our budgets.  There were lots of other baths in the complex as well.  Some were just for men, others for women, some warm, some cold.  Many of the floors were broken down and only stacks of flat stones, that had held up the floor from the foundation, were left.  In the museum area there was a fountain with water from the spring that you could drink.  Jed was very eager, but as soon as he got a taste he wanted to spit it out.
 
And I have to admit -it was gross water! It was warm and had lots of strange mineral tastes in it.  One of the best parts of the Roman Baths was the audioguide, well at least the kid's version of the audioguide, which we were all listening to by the end.  There were funny stories and sound effects making you laugh the whole way through -including a dying goat which sounds morbid now... but hearing the fake bleating and the fake cutting out of entrails and stuff was really funny.... okay now I just sound creepy but believe me it was funny!

Moving on, for lunch we got some pasties and then we went next door to Bath Abbey.  After admiring the beautiful interior of the Abbey, we started our tour going up the tower.  Climbing windy spiral staircases with very narrow steps we got to see the bellfrey, the rafters, and behind the clock! Dakota even got to ring the tenor bell! 

 



Next we walked to the Bath Aqua Glass factory where they make a special aqua blue colored glass.  We watched as the glass makers bent hot glass into vases and glasses -it was amazing! Then me and Jed got to blow big glass bubbles!!!!







We spent the rest of the day lounging around Bath, walking to the nearby parks and of course eating ice cream! We found a balloon man -which I (Harper) was really excited about I really wanted something balloon! He had a bunch of people around him but he made Jed a sword, and then Neal an alien man.  I gave him some change (he was working for donation) and he gave me a balloon flower which made me so happy! =) He was pretty skilled, we even watched him making an octopus!


 


After visiting a tea shop called the Mad Hatter's -complete with Alice in Wonderland tables and chairs- we headed home from our unusually relaxing day. 


 

P.S. If you are ever visiting Bath and you are going by train, be sure to check out the 2 for 1 deals through First Great Western. Almost everything in Bath is 2 for 1!

Adventures in Bristol

Our adventures aren't all far away from our home here in Bristol -there is plenty to do in this city as well! We are living in a city that has a population of almost 450,000 making it the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom.  It has lots of interesting history, with people living in the area since the Paleolithic Era and it received a Royal charter in 1155 making it a town.  Bristol, among other feats, is the home of Wallace & Gromit, the first chocolate bar, the harbor that John Cabot sailed out (the first European to touch the soil of North America, with the exception on Leif Erickson and his vikings), Brunel (who has the awesome first and middle names Isambard Kingdom), the invention of lead shot, home to the street artist Banksy, the first city map in England, and the inspiration for many of the people and places in Treasure Island.  Needless to say there is lots to do in the historic city and when we weren't going around to other places with the Neal, Tammy and Jed (Dakota's parent's and little brother) we were busy zipping around to the sites in Bristol.

            

 Aargh! Our Pirate Walk with Pirate Pete was Perfectly Plunderous! We gleaned lots of interesting piratey facts about Bristol.  Such as that the Hole in the Wall Pub is the basis for The Spyglass Inn in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. If that isn't enough the landlord of the establishment had one leg! Remind you of anyone? (The correct answer is yes, Long John Silver!) The Pub gets its name from a cubby in the corner where you can sit and look through small slots looking down streets to see if Press Gangs were coming to impress men into the Navy. We also visited the Llandoger Trow a Pub that's been in business since the 1600's! This is the place where Daniel Defoe met Alexander Selkirk and the novel Robinson Crusoe was born! Pirate Pete joked at us that the crooked floors were made that way so they would seem level after you had a few drinks! Jed carried a Jolly Roger around everywhere we went and Bristol natives hollered Aargh! to our guide the whole time. We also paid a visit to some caves where prisoners were stored and had to stand up on stones so that the rats didn't eat their feet, as well as a pub with an entrance to a tunnel in it, and the home of Edward Teach also known as Blackbeard the Pirate!

           

 The next site we had our eyes set on seeing was the Bristol Zoo.  Like every zoo, it houses lots of animals, but the Bristol zoo has some special highlights including; an especially large gorilla family, fur seals, snakes, and lots and lots of monkeys! We went to see the fur seals being fed and learned that 'fur seals' is a misnomer because the animal is actually a sea lion! Sea lions can move around almost as if their flippers were feet and they are much more agile than seals.  We watched as the trainer had the male sea lion catch fish from the air and hop back and forth on rocks.  It was incredible -he actually used his flippers like they were feet and walked on them.  The trainer had a trick up his sleeve to get us all wet and let the seal belly-flop into the water, splashing us spectators -especially Jed.  We also got to see the gorillas getting fed, watching them chomp down on vegetables, we noticed one had a little baby clinging to her arm -super cute! =) One of the highlights of the day was feeding the lorikeets with little cups of juice.  They flocked to your arms and one even attacked Jed's head! His shampoo must have smelt fruity or something! 

       

  

   We also went to Bristol Aquarium which has lots and lots of interesting fish! They have sea horses, puffer fish, fish that have glowing cheeks, an octopus, unicorn fish and a million more! Dakota and I loved it so much we got season passes and have already been back three times. 

            One of the best places to find out about Bristol's amazing history is the M-Shed; a museum on the harbor that is all about Bristol people, places and things.  They have great hands on exhibits including an entire Double Decker bus you can sit in from the 1960's, a bomb shelter from WWII, a plane engine you can see in action and much more.  There are stories playing at different places in the museum, such as on the bus, so you can listen to people talk about moments in Bristol's history.  Sometimes they have steam engine rides outside the M-Shed and we got to go on one! Jed's favorite part of the museum was the double-decker bus; he ran up and down the stairs and aisles and made funny faces at us through the windows.  And there was an ice-cream truck right outside which made his (and Neal's) day!

 After learning about the famous engineer Brunel at the M-Shed we went on a cruise down the Avon River to see one of his more spectacular feats: The Clifton Suspension Bridge.  The bridge was finished in 1864 and spans 700 feet across the Avon Gorge standing 200 feet over the water.  Our cruise of the Avon Gorge began in the harbor and after going through the loch, which raised 20 feet to the water level of the harbor, then lowered us 20 feet to the water level of the river, we could see the massive bridge.  It truly is incredible... especially when you remember that it was built in 1864!

         

Jed holding up the S.S. Great Britain

   We also went to see S.S. Great Britain which was another of Brunel's projects.  The ship was one of the biggest of its day and on our visit there we got to see all sorts of artifacts about it.  Jed and Dakota even got to crank the propeller and everyone rang the old bell.  The museum moved the ship back to Bristol from a beach in the Falkland Islands where it was damaged and being kept to store coal.  It is now kept in a dry dock with an acclimatized chamber to keep the massive iron hull from breaking down.  We walked next to the hull in a chamber that has a ceiling made of glass and a thin layer of water over the top of it, which made it look like we were under water.  We also went on board the ship which is decorated like it was in the Victorian Era when it was one of the first great cruise liners.  They had different audio guides to choose from; you could be in first class, third class, an archaeologist, or a funny little cat.  There were even wax figures all around.  Dakota had the bright idea to hide next to one and stand really, really still until Tammy came into the room.  He jumped out at her and boy did she yell! 

Overall we had a great time in the wonderful city of Bristol with Tammy, Neal and Jed doing all these activities and more!  

Stone Circles: Stonehenge, Woodhenge & Avebury

We woke up at 3:50 on March 31st so that we could drive to Stonehenge. Harper and I managed to reserve spaces for us so that we could get inner stone circle access before opening. After a pleasant drive through the English countryside we arrived at Stonehenge. (Please note that the pleasant ride applied to everyone but my mom, who was horrified of driving on the left hand side, going sixty miles an hour on narrow windy roads lined with hedges and seeing signs for tank crossing). We arrived just in time for our entry and we were even delivered the guidebook we ordered upon our arrival at the site! We walked through an

underpass and up to the ancient monument.

            It was incredible! We took hundreds of pictures and wandered through all the stones. We were able to look at drawings of what the site looked like in its prime. We could see where stones used to be and where wooden posts were. We were also able to look all around the monument and see Barrows where people had been buried long ago; I (Dakota) spotted at least twenty-eight from Stonehenge. Although it was deathly cold out (compared to the 70 degree weather we had been having) we enjoyed our visit and stayed there for our entire hour time allotment. Even Jed enjoyed viewing the ancient monument; you would be surprised how many facts he remembers about the site. He even read portions of the guidebook and compared a map of the landscape long ago with what it looks like today. The highlight, (at least for me) was finding my initials carved in one of the Sarsen Stones by somebody hundreds of years ago!

            The guard who took us out to the stones told us some stories about the monument. He said that some days when they take people out to the stones it smells inexplicably of roses. It may have been the power of suggestion but shortly afterwards we all thought we smelt roses! He also told us that there is supposed to be the ghost of a monk near the site and different employees claim to have seen him slowly walking towards Stonehenge and then disappearing as he gets close to the stones... creepy! Although the site was spectacular we were quite relieved to get back into the warm car!

            From Stonehenge we started driving towards the Avebury Stone Circle but realized that Woodhenge and Durrington Walls (two other monuments) were right along the way, so we did a quick turn-around and went up to walk into Woodhenge. As we drove up the driveway to Woodhenge a car honked at us and we realized we were driving on the right (wrong!) side of the road! None of us even noticed until the other car honked at us. OOPS! We got out and looked at Woodhenge, which isn't very impressive anymore, now they put in some short concrete columns where wooden posts used to stand. We did see a Druid doing some sort of ritual though, a man walked around the circle several times and then walked down the aisle to the center and placed some sort of offering on the child's grave in the center. Durrington Walls is just a big ditch now, but during the Neolithic (Stonehenge times) it was a village.

            Once again we hopped in the car and headed for Avebury.  On the way we saw a few giant chalk horses that were cut into the hillsides as markers in the Neolithic, some Iron Age hill forts and numerous barrows, and finally we arrived at the giant stone causeway to Avebury. The Avebury Stone Circle's size puts Stonehenge to shame, although it has no lintels (stones across the top) it is several times the size and the boulders composing it are much larger. Not to mention it is big enough that much of the town of Avebury is located inside of it! We wandered amidst the stones for quite a while, and then I found a coin inside a hole in a rock! So we all went in search of coins and found several in different holes in the rocks. We concluded our expedition by walking through an old estate with thatched roof barns and then visiting the local church. By the end of the day we were quite exhausted from getting up so early and then gallivanting about the countryside so we were glad to be home where we could get some rest.

London Day 1

After getting up at 5:15 to catch our bus, we were an hour late in getting to London (busses go very slow in London traffic! It took us over an hour to go a space that we could have easily walked in 20 minutes.  They are a lot cheaper though!)

A short walk took us to Buckingham Palace where we got as close as we could to the gates to wait for the Changing of the Guard to start.  We were a good 45 minutes early, but we still weren’t at the front so it was a little difficult to see.  The ceremony was fun to watch; every time a guard took a step you could see the fur on their hats bounce up.  They wear the funniest uniforms! When we were there they were in their gray winter coats instead of the more well-known red coats.  The ceremony itself lasted about an hour and a half! After a while the grandeur starts to wear off as you watch guards march back and forth 4, 5, 6 times.  It starts with a 20-30 guards and more march in slowly until there are 50-75 plus the guards playing in the band.  The best part was when the band played Thriller… unfortunately they did not do the dance to accompany it, but it was still hilarious!

After the guards marched off we bought tickets to a city sight-seeing bus tour.  It turned out to be an amazing idea as our bus had a hilarious tour guide constantly commenting on all of the monuments, streets and passengers.  Plus it was double-decker which Jed (Dakota’s 8-year-old brother) loved! At one point we pulled up next to another open air double-decker that was a rival sight-seeing company and he teased that they didn’t look like they were having fun at all and proceeded to tell lots of jokes to brighten both busses’ passenger’s faces!

We dismounted the bus at Westminster Abbey and entered the huge church full of very famous dead people.  Royalty and nobles of Britain have been buried there for centuries and it also houses memorials to famous writers such as Charles Dickens, Chaucer, and Shakespeare.  The monuments are huge and many are very ornate.  Be warned though it is very expensive!!!

Right next to Westminster Abbey is Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament which we took photographs of and across the river you can see the London Eye as well. 

Our next stop was the Sherlock Holmes Museum where we observed lots of period artifacts and funny wax figures reenacting scenes from some of the stories.  All the people in the museum were dressed as maids and police officers from the time too.  And of course it was all located at 221 B Baker’s street!




Jed and Neal’s favorite thing to do while they were here in England was to eat ice cream; at least a cone or two a day.  Strangely, the weather was in support of it being warm and sunny (instead of the usual cold rain).  But, we found out London is not the place to support the ice cream habit –Jed got a cone and it cost 4 pounds –so $6 dollars! That is an expensive snack!




We ended the day by rejoining the tour bus and we were glad to end up back with the hilarious guide we had on the first bus.  We rode it around looking at lots of the famous sights in London hearing quirky little tidbits about each:

·         The lions in Trafalgar Square, we learned, were designed by a man who had never actually seen a lion! Instead he modeled the way they are lying down after his Labrador –so if you ever think they are sitting like a dog you are right! 

·         Arizona (the state) tried to buy the most famous bridge in London.  They meant to buy Tower Bridge which is the one leading to the Tower of London with blue suspension cables and towers on it.  But Arizona mistakenly thought that it was named London Bridge which is a bridge a little ways down the river and purchased that bridge instead! So instead of the famous Tower Bridge they got a relatively plain bridge to put over a body of water in the States… Although I’m not sure why, because Arizona is not particularly known for its bodies of water… 

·         Most of the clocks in London –and England- have an
       incorrect numeral 4 on them.  Instead of IV they have IIII!
      This is because King Louis the XIV (14^th) of France banned clocks having IV on them because it was part of his name!

Return to Cardiff

            My (Dakota's) parents and little brother arrived in Bristol on my birthday after a flight cancellation fiasco.  We celebrated my ancientness with chocolate cake and spaghetti and of course presents. Yay! And after not nearly enough rest for my jet-lagged family, we left the next morning for Cardiff.

            Upon arrival our first order of business was to go to Cardiff Castle (our second time but my families' first). We did a little research before we left and learned that we could get season passes for the same price as our ticket! So we took advantage of that opportunity, especially since we will be returning there when Harper's family comes in June. Hurray for saving money! This time instead of taking a guided tour of Cardiff Castle we got free audio guides and listened to all sorts of facts about Cardiff Castle from its Roman beginnings to its use as a bomb shelter in World War II. Surprisingly my 8 year old brother Jed listened to all of the adult tour and enjoyed it just as much as we did! Since when do youngsters listen to lengthy historic facts? And more than that remember them!?

            The highlight of the day was our trek up the stairs to the top of the tower on the keep. Jed loved that experience and all 5 of us (us, Jed and my parents) counted the stairs from the bridge to the keep to the top of the tower, in total we reached somewhere between 104 and 109, our results varied depending on if some "extra steps" counted. The weather was splendid in Cardiff once again so we were perfectly comfortable eating an ice cream treat in the Castle lawn. Jed and my parents felt strongly that dairy products in England (or at least Wales) were far better than at home! After our treat we went into the Wartime Museum in the Castle visitor center, where we took turns trying on war uniforms. Jed's favorite part was putting on WWI outfits and posing with machine guns; one staff member took a liking to all of us Americans and had us try on different period outfits. The best part was when my dad put on a full Red-Coat outfit, a little ironic being an American!

            Craig, a really friendly guy who worked at the museum, proceeded to give us facts about all sorts of artifacts. One of the most interesting facts was about horse hooves found throughout the display cases. Cavalry members cut of their horses foot after it had died as proof to their superiors that there horse had died and they were in need of a new one. Many of these hooves were turned into decorative ashtrays, how pleasant!

            He also showed us an American flag which was captured in the War of 1812. It was one of very few American flags that have ever been captured and they sure are proud of that flag they caught!

            After 5 hours at Cardiff Castle and a couple more at the Cardiff Museum we headed home to get some proper sleep!