Random Musings of a Wandering Traveller

Ok, so I haven't been completely honest with you guys... *takes a deep breath* Ididn'tloveLondonatall.. Whew.. It feels good to have gotten that out! Okokok... Wait.. Before you get upset with me, let me explain... It wasn't so much that I didn't like it... There are *things* about London that I DID really like (The cute little brick townhouses, the historical buildings, etc.)... It was more that I was dissapointed. For every beautiful historical building there were five skyscrapers and for every person there seemed to be 37 cars... *Shrugs* Aside from the few standout pieces, it basically felt like every other Canadian or American big city I've ever been to... So I appologise for not being completely upfront with you before, but I didn't want anyone (Hi Mama) to be dissapointed and think that I wasn't having the time of my life... I did enjoy the time I had there, I guess I was just expecting more of a change from back home and to be honest, it just didn't feel a whole lot different... Then I borded the train to Glasgow..

Wow. You know, it's funny... There are colours that exist in nature here that I've never seen outside of a Crayola box back home. So many shades of green.. Rolling hills (My god.. I finally understand what they mean when they say that!)... I was absolutely overwealmed. After the train got about an hour out of London, and the suburbs and bustle had died away the change was immediate, the view changed from houses to countryside, telephone poles to trees and people to sheep. The roads became beautiful rolling hills of a thousand shades of green partitioned by waist high fences to divide the land or keep the said abundant sheep in check... Now these fences in themselves were amazing, not made of wood or (god forbid) barbed wire, but stones. No morter was used, no cement... Hundreds upon thousands of stones, all different shapes and sizes fit together like the worlds largest tetris puzzle, every one relying on the stone next to it for stability. Now, some of these fences were constructed on steep hills, it was absolutely amazing to me that someone (or given the length of most of these fences most likely someones) had been able to build them without everything toppling every few minutes. Everything was beautiful, and the entire ride was an attraction in itself. Thank god I didn't take the night train.

Now, aside from having beautiful scenery, the ride was also amusing in other ways. For one, the train had one of those "on board" radio stations that you could listen to by pluging your headphones into the armrest (like on planes), and after my MP3 player's batteries died (I was listening to The Hobbit), I gave it a go. The problem with this scenario, is that the CD they had playing was skipping BADLY... So rather than music coming out of the headphones what I got was "NexNexNexNexNexNexNexNex, N-n-n-n-now there children"... To be perfectly honest, it was really quite creepy, seeing as how the woman was speaking in a rather low and monotonous tone... So after listening to this repeat itself a few times (and throughly creeped out), I unplugged my headphones from the jack just as two younger girls (probably 19 or 20) got on the train and sat down at my table in the midst of a very loud discussion. Now, I was slightly stuck... I didn't want remove my headphones for fear that they would think I was doing so as to listen in on their conversation, so my only real option (without appearing outwardly rude) was to leave the headphones in my ears and eavesdrop in secret. They talked about everything from wanting to go holiday (although their only reason for this seemed to be to be able to buy make-up at the duty free shops), the weight they'd lost during summer (and then the weight they had since put on), the size of their thighs and therefore inability to wear white pants or skinny jeans, and Girl #2's sister, who apperently had a problem with "annorexia", and ate crap and junk food all day and night and never gained a pound (Girl #1 hated people like that). All in all, it kept me entertained for a half hour or so, and I have to admit, I was a bit dissapointed when they got off.

My train finally pulled into Glasgow (the ride was about 5 hours, but it was so beautiful that it didn't seem like that long at all), and Dad met me at the station and walked me back to where we are staying, which is apperently a ridiculously posh hotel. It was a great trip, and what little of Glasgow that I've seen so far is great. We're in the old part of the city, with its old character filled buildings and beautiful "George Square". I'm about to leave now and go out exploring, but I will try and get the pictures of London up now before I go, and hopefully I'll be able to get the pictures of the train ride (which aren't NEARLY as lovely as the ride itself) up tomorrow sometime. Love you, and thanks for reading!

I love the tube... I *HATE* metro workers-union strikes!!! But let me start at the beginning. So I went out to Hammersmith proper on Sunday night to explore a little bit and get some supper, I ended up eating at this little Indian place, it was really quite good. Anyway, after that, I came home.. Took a shower and then went back to my room to lay down and read for a little bit before I went to sleep.. Well, I get into the room, lay down, and I guess maybe I was disturbing a little rendez-vous one of my roomates was having.. But I was too tired to bother leaving so too bad for them.:P Anyway, I got up yesterday morning at about 730, had some breakfast and set out to explore London with my first full day. I went to the British Museum, which is a special kind of big... I mean collosal! (I'll post some pictures later tonight) After spending about 4 hours in there (there were so many amazing exibits.. Not wall art.. Artifacts etc.) I went to check out St. Paul's cathedral which may very well be the most beautiful building I have ever seen... It's so funny, all the public buildings seem to be HUGE, but the residences are tiny... (probably because the public buildings are taking up all the room. Anyway.. The cathedral and it's grounds were so amazingly beautiful and grand, I could definitely have stayed there all day just hanging out (as it appeared many people do...) There were tons of people on the steps eating their lunches etc, which remided me that I was hungry so off I went and found a nice little pub and had half a pint of bitter (Adnams to be exact) and a vegetable wrap (minus the cheese) for lunch. Mmmm.. Yummy! I was tempted to go home because my feet were so sore from walking around for about 7 hours, but I saw that the Tate Modern was just across the Thames (Which was the colour of chocolate milk...) so I decided to fit that in before I went back to the hostel, it was really interesting... A lot of it wasn't really to my taste, but there was some very cool stuff, including an exhibit of Dali's work that I would have LOVED to go see, but I couldn't justify paying £11 pounds (about 24$) so I skipped it. Either way, it was worth checking out, but, after that I was definitely done and ready to go home. So I walked back over the Millenium bridge and back up to Blackfriars underground station only to find it closed... Weird... So I kept walking onto the next station, it was closed as well... At this point I'm getting a little nervous, since the District line is the only route I know back to the hostel... Anyway, I keep walking until I get to the next station (which at least had the doors open), and I went inside to ask what was going on. Turns out the union that does the maitenance on most of the tubes and underground cars themselves have gone on strike. That means that 9 of the 12 underground lines aren't running (which includes my blessed District line) and Picadilly is only running part of it's route. So I figure my best bet is to take the Picadilly line out to Picadilly Circus (which for those of you that are wondering does not mean a fair or tent with large exotic animals, but rather a very large intersection..) which at least should have a lot of buses... Now, I have no eartly idea which bus to take, or even the exact address of my hostel.. But I know the general area I'm going to and proceed to ask the people around me for help. Well, with help of a nice older woman and a younger punk rocker I managed to find my way back to the hostel at last, Yay! Needless to say, my feet were SUPER sore (I had been on them 13 hours at this point.. In shoes I *MAY* have forgotten to break in), but I was really glad to be home, I changed, fell into bed and proceeded to get a great nights sleep.. However, because the tubes are out, and I didn't want to mess with the buses (which are SUPER packed because they are basically the only form of public transport left) I spent the day in the general area of the hostel, went to the supermarket, did some laundry.. A nice relaxing day. Tomorrow after check out I am off to the London Euston train station to catch a train up to Glasgow to meet with dad. I am really looking forward to the ride, as I'm sure there will be some really pretty scenery. Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling.. Love you guys.

I left Vancouver at 9pm last night (my plane was delayed an hour...) and arrived into Gatwick at 3pm today (due to an 8 hour time change) i was lucky enough to get to sit next to a super cool guy on the plane named Cameron (Hi Cameron!) and he and I yammered the entire way into Victoria station. It was nice to have someone to talk to and he's good people. Anyway, London is super beautiful... It's weird, some of it is soooooooooo "big city" and then the rest of it is really "village-y" It's great, and I could definitely live here. Anyway, I'm off to take a shower and then go walk around and maybe get some supper. Love you guys! :X