We spent our last day in Ireland going to Belfast with Ronan, but when we were there, we quickly found that there wasn’t much to do there. Ronan didn’t really know the city that well, and the guide book wasn’t that much help. We saw that there was a Titanic (The Titanic was built in Belfast) museum of some sorts, but it wasn’t completed until 2012. Other than that, the city didn’t have much to offer. So our advice: don’t go to Belfast until you really love the Titanic, and visit after 2012 (If the world doesn’t explode)
At 18:30, we said our farewells and went into opposite directions. We would like to thank Ronan and his family for their warm welcome and allowing us to stay at their house! Hopefully, our paths will cross again at Berlin on April 23 for the Frontrunners party. (http://fr6.frontrunners.dk/)
We went to the Belfast port to catch the 21:00 ferry to Britain. From what our guide book told us, the Stena Line Ferry Terminal was only 300 Kilometres away from where we were. We stopped at the front gate, and asked for directions. The man (who was wearing a priest collar) told us that if we wanted to catch it, we’d better run! Apparently, the Port gates was 300 Km away, but the Stena Ferry Terminal was 803561 Km (Estimated amount) away! The guy offered us a ride, we hopped into his car with two toddlers’ backseat attachments, and we got to the terminal in 10 minutes. Surely if it wasn’t for him, we would have missed our ferry!
Later, we realized we stumbled into the “The Mission To Seafarers” building (http://www.missiontoseafarers.org/) Man, we couldn’t believe our luck!
After the 2:50 ferry boat ride, we arrived at a port town in UK called Stranraer, and since it was 23:50, everything was closed, and we couldn’t catch a bus to Edinburgh, where we wanted to go. We didn’t have a choice, so we stayed in the Stranraer ticket terminal centre with one other weird guy who was stuck overnight too. The guy was kinda creepy-looking but he left us alone.
We passed the time by playing Blink card games. Tyler opened his lead at 4-2, but Joshua then got hot and led 16-11 before retiring to bed on a row of chairs. Right when we were about to go to bed, two policemen came in and went to that kinda creepy-looking weird guy and talked to him for 10-15 minutes, then escorted him out of the building. No idea why. 20 minutes later, he returned, once again, no idea why.
We finally caught the 10:00 bus to Edinburgh, and once we were there, we wasted no time exploring the tiny city, going to the Edinburgh Castle and walking the Royal Mile from the castle to the Holyrood palace. Edinburgh had a small town with a royal feeling with old buildings and many sights. At Holyrood palace, there was a Holyrood park with the famous King Arthur’s seat, where at the summit you could feel like you were sitting on his seat. We would have liked to go up there, but the weather was not looking good, so we passed (wait until we make another trip to Europe)
Looking for a place to eat, we checked the guide book, and it recommends “Monster Mash”. Thank you Lonely Planet for taking us there. Monster Mash was delicious! Joshua had a layer of Mashed Potatoes, Turnip and Haggis bottom to top, and Tyler had “bangers” which was a monster heap of mashed potatoes with sweet chilli mixed in and sausage on top.
After a long day around Edinburgh, we caught the overnight bus to London, and arrived the city at 7:30. Half-awake, we started to spend a full day of touring the “New York of Europe”
First off, we went to nearby Buckingham Palace to check out the famous stoic Buckingham guards. We couldn’t get a close look as the gates were closed, but we noted that at 11:30, the changing of the guards would occur, so we would come back.
From there, we took a walk alongside the Thames River from the Westminster Abbey and Parliamentary Palace & Big Ben, to the London Bridge. Along the way, we saw the London Eye, Shakespeare Globe, St. Paul’s Cathedral, OXO, London Tower and many more sights! When we reached the London Bridge, it was 10:30. It took us almost 1:30 to walk alongside the Thames river, and we only had one hour to rush back to Buckingham Palace! So we took off at top-speed and barely made it at 11:25, it was worth it as we witnessed the marching of the guards, which was a worthy sight to see.
Once we stopped, we realized we waked almost four straight hours without stopping or food, and the exhaustion caught up to us fast! We sat down to eat at our favourite spot in London, the St. James Park and enjoyed our meal.
From there, we checked out Trafalgar Square for some people-watching and searching for an internet café to get in touch with our friend Matthew Norman. He told us to meet him at the Victoria Station (where we arrived) at 17:00, and it was only 15:00! We limped back, and went home after a long day
We didn’t rest on the next day, as we explored two of the best museum London had to offer: the National Gallery and British Museum. Before going to the museums, we passed by the Duke of Wellington Arch and Piccadilly Circus on the way. Both museums were great, we enjoyed the exhibits and seeing that D.C. isn’t the only place with good museums.
After constant touring, we needed a break, so on March 23, we had our first “off day” of the trip, and what a coincidence, there was the Biggest Real Ale & Cider Festival (http://www.jdwrealale.co.uk/) at Wetherspoon’s Pub. With over 50 Wetherspoon locations participating, we hit up three of them, tasted various ales, and compared tastes. It was good way to unwind: by drinking good beer and chatting.
Yesterday, we checked out Chinatown and explored Central West London to the Victoria & Albert museum and the National History Museum. It wasn’t as good as the other museums, but it was a nice way to kill time. We then got lost and walked through Chelsea and stumbled through the Royal Boroughs. We definitely felt out of place after we saw all the Lamborghinis, BMWs, Audis, Maseratis and Volvos vehicles parked along the street. There was a Lamborghini dealership we wanted to go into, but to enter, you had to ring a bell, and you had to have an appointment lined up. All we could do was window-shop and gaze at the sweet-looking cars for few minutes.
Britain has treated us well, but today at 22:00, we will catch our last bus ride to Amsterdam, Netherlands and finally reach the Europe Mainland. There, we will start using our 3-months Rail Europe pass and train across Europe! We would like to thank Matthew and his friend Dylan for being such great hosts for us in Europe!
P.S. If you have any feedback about our blog, please let us know! If you want to hear more about sights, stories, people or whatever it is, we will try our best to make our blog readers happy. We would love more comments too. Thanks for reading!
