Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
EUROPE TRAVELS
Hello all!
i've been very busy since arriving back in london from australia.
i started a new job the day after i flew back into london. This job is great. I'm working in a regular primary school with a 5 year old boy.
It was "bank holiday" weekend over here last weekend, so jono and i hired a car and drove up to newcastle and edinbrugh and met up with josh for the weekend. we had some very long car trips; thankfully we could share the driving and the navigating (we didn't manage to get too lost!).
we spent the first night in newcastle (a nice comfy youth hostel with a great cooked breakfast). then we had a bit of a look around the city centre and admired the many bridges there. we didn't notice anything else there that was particularly riveting (hope we didn't miss something!)
we carried on the journey towards edinbrugh; following the coast line. it was very exciting to see the sea and we had to have a couple of stops on the way just to get a close look at it and breathe in the salt air!
we also got sidetracked in a small village called Alnwick. There was a big castle here, which the family still live in during the summer time. We had a look through the castle (the tickets kindly given to us by another couple!). Then we had a look through a gigantic tree house that the owners of the castle had had built; complete with swinging bridges. needless to say we had a bit of fun on here! It was a really beautiful spot, with big gardens and water features. we finally pulled ourselves away from here and hit the road again.
jono discovered a cause way which we could drive over at low tide to an island; sadly it was high tide when we attempted this, and we didn't have a 4wd.
when we finally arrived in edinbrugh we had some fun finding our way around; trying to dodge the "bus and taxi only" lanes and one way streets. josh had kindly organised our accommodation for us; it did take us a few tries to find the right youth hostel though! (you can ask josh about that story!) this accommodation wasn't so pleasant. i don't think the beds had been changed and i had to share a room with 7 other people, 2 of which decided to come to bed at 2 in the morning, clearly drunk and talking and laughing at the tops of their voices; i think the boys had a better sleep in a different room!
well, edinbrugh was just magnificent! the views of the city were just amazing and fascinating. We walked up the Royal Mile on Sunday morning and then spent our time looking around Edinbrugh Castle and enjoying the view. We did some "hill walking" after lunch and climbed to the top of Arthur's seat. Again, this was a brilliant view of Edinburgh. During the evening we went to a fire festival being held on top of one of the hills. We weren't particularly impressed with this. it seemed to include some amateurs throwing fire sticks around; some strange dancing which we could barely see because it was dark (anyway, you kind of get the picture). we decided to call it a night; got some hot chips from the corner shop and headed back to our comfy, clean youth hostel for a great night sleep!
had breakfast at the Elephant Castle this morning then jono and i headed back to London the long way.... we decided to go via Lake District. We eventually got there after missing the turn off! can't remember who was navigating at that point?! we hired a small boat for about an hour and took it around the lake. it was a really big day of driving and sights and we finally arrived home at 1 in the morning and straight back into work the next morning.
- comments