Well, I have really screwed up big! I was messing around with a new blog this evening and decided I did not need it, so I went to delete it and accidentally deleted my entire travel blog! Luckily, Grandma Baker has been printing them off and still has a copy of all the ones that I have lost. I am not going to have her send them to me here, because I do not have time to retype them all, but at least I have not lost them for good which is good news. I am sorry if you have not been following until recently and will be missing a huge chunk. Also, one of the posts that got deleted was my new address:
Justin Baker
105 Inverness House
Lomas St.
University of Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1QU
Sorry for the inconvenience, but please keep checking back for updates.
Cheers,
Justin
Monday, April 23, 2007
Well the EuroTrip is offically over...
Well, as many of you know, EuroTrip '07 has ended. We actually arrived back in Wolverhampton on last Sunday, but with all the craziness of coming home (and getting a new laptop!) as well as catching up with friends. I am just now finding the time/sanity to sit down and write. You may have also noticed that I did not write after Switzerland and this was due to lack of time and computers in the cities after. So I will just start from there and work my way though the rest of our trip. Sound good? No? To bad...
After an amazing time in Switzerland we made our way to Florence, Italy. It was really amazing to take the train from the Swiss Alps to the Tuscan country and watch the scenery change in front of us. Unfortunately I think I watched a little to closely, because when we I arrived in Florence I was sick! I will spare you all the details, but let me just say that we had to make a few "unexpected" stops on the way to the hostel. However, I finally made it to the hostel and was temporarily feeling better. The hostel we stayed at was definitely an experience. Upon walking into the hostel, we were greeted by about 10 people who were lounging around with the owner, Marco. Marco was nuts for lack of a better word. He was about 30 and his only calling in life was to open a hostel, which with out his business partner I am not sure could have happened. I was clear that Marco was the "customer relations" (maybe in more ways than one) and his partner was the brains. But I must say that this hostel is what made Florence memorable for us. We met and spent much of the 3 days with the people from the hostel and really felt like we knew them when we left. After spending the first day and a half in bed (I think I had I touch of food poisoning) we finally began to see the city. We started on Easter Sunday morning by going with a bunch of the people from the hostel to a tradition in Florence where they have fireworks exploding off this giant cart in front of the Duomo, the beautiful cathedral. We spend the rest of the day wandering the city and fighting our way through the crowds of tourists. I must say now, that this city had more tourist than anywhere we have gone, but Easter weekend is also one of the busiest times for Florence. That night we went t dinner with a bunch of the other Americans we had met and had a great (and cheap!) Italian meal.
As for much of our Florence trip, we woke up Monday with no set plans. We lounged around the hostel for a bit and had a coffee with Marco and the other hostellers. We then headed out to the city again to continue our wandering through the endless leather markets and street vendors. I must say that this is one of the first cities that sold some really nice stuff on the street for cheap. All the leather was Italian and very nice for VERY cheap. After a morning a walking to went back to hostel to meet up with everybody before dinner and to do some much needed laundry. This is when the hostel showed its true craziness… We walked in to find one of the staff piercing the nipples of one of the guys from California and the lip of the other and one girl’s ear in front of the whole hostel. (Note. She was a professional!) It was one of the absolute craziest moments of our trip! That night Marco made reservations for everybody in the hostel to go to dinner at really nice, authentic Tuscan restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but worth every penny for the experience and the food! We sat at a table with about 15 people and ordered a family style meal that consisted of bread, pasta, wine and tabletop grills piled full of all kinds of fresh Tuscan meats. It was AMAZING! It was so nice to have great grilled food, which I had not had since leaving the States.
Our last day in Florence was Tuesday, but we had most of the day, because our train to Munich was an overnight train and did not leave until about 10pm. We woke up early to get in line for the Academia, an art museum that is home to the famous Michelangelo statue of “David”. We stood in line for about 1 hour to pay 9.50 euro and enter the single crappiest museum I have ever paid to enter. This was a museum that was solely focused on the statue, which was most certainly impressive, but it is no excuse to let the rest of the museum fall apart. There were places where painted used to hang, and clearly their purpose was to cove the holes and chips in the wall. It was really sad to see how poorly it was maintained. Not to mention the artwork (other than David) was really depressing and ugly medieval art, when they still did not know how to paint with any perspective. Basically, what paintings would look like if I was blindfolded and handed a paintbrush. After, being half trampled by tourist trying to get a picture of David’s bum or wee-wee and feeling ripped off, we headed back to the hostel to regain our composure. We decided we needed some lunch then get the hell out of Florence and see a little bit of the Tuscan countryside. We first stopped at the city market, which is a HUGE indoor farmers’ market and supposedly the largest in Europe. It was amazing to just walk through because all the butchers and shops were freshly preparing their goods and everybody in there was a local. We decided that it was about time for lunch and that some fresh food sounded wonderful. We quickly found a small deli counter that had a small sign advertising sandwiches, but we realized that was all we understood, but luckily a nice Italian woman noticed the despair in our faces and helped us order. We ended up getting an entire lunch with all fresh Tuscan foods and local bottle of wine. So we headed to the closest park to enjoy our amazing lunch and relax in the sun. After lunch we caught the first bus out of town to a small village, Viesole. It was cute little town that offered great views of the countryside and Florence. After a nice walk around the out skirts of town, we headed back to Florence to make some dinner and enjoy our last evening with the friends we had made before heading to the train station.
That night we made our way to the train station to catch our first experience of sleeping on a train. Let me just say that I feel the need to describe this experience in some detail, because there is no question that we have NOTHING like this in the states. So we boarded the train to find our sleeping compartment, which was a 6 person “couchette”…should have been called a 6-person sweatbox. It consisted of two sets of bunk beds stacked three high with enough floor space to stand sideways with no hope of turning around and enough body heat to roast a turkey or a old lady... like the one in our car with enough BO for 15 people. However, we did get some minimal sleep and arrived in Munich at about 6:30 Wednesday morning.
Although it was very early, it was so amazing to go to sleep in one place/culture and wake up in a completely different one. After waking up a bit, we made our way to our hostel. Although we could not get into our room until 3, we were able to drop our packs, take a much need shower, and get a free breakfast. Surprisingly, by the time we finished breakfast I was feeling very good and ready to hit the city. We decided we would start by taking a tour of Dachau, a huge Nazis concentration camp outside the city. Although it was free to visit, we decided the tour might be a better experience and a little more time efficient. We met up with the tour guide who was an Irishman living in Munich and was an awesome person to talk to. After standing with him for about 10 minutes he told us he would not be able to take us because he needed a minimum of 5 people. However, instead of just leaving us, he offered to show us some famous (and relatively unmarked) around Munich then if we still wanted to go tomorrow he would take us even if it were only us. What a great deal! We spent about 2 hours following him to all the famous Nazis sites that had not been destroyed, including Hitler’s office, which is now a music and dance school…a little ironic. It was really amazing to see these sites and hear an outsider’s perspective on why they are so under marked. After he left us, we made our way to the English Gardens, a huge park in the city. We wandered around a bit until we found our first of the many Munich landmarks…a beer garden! We quickly found a table to eat our lunch and drink our amazing beer and people watch. We then headed back to the hostel to get into our room and take a quick nap. That night we wandered a bit in the Old Town and found a, just another, beer garden to have some dinner. I had bratwurst and sauerkraut…amazing!
The next morning we headed back to meet our tour guide to go out to Dachau. After about a 10-minute train ride, we arrived in the town of Dachau and caught a short bus ride to the camp. I am really at lose of words for what this experience was like, because nothing I say can do it justice. Just try to imagine walking through the same gates as tens of thousands of people, but the only difference was that they were forced to walk through and most did not ever come back out. I honestly feel that every single person should have to visit a camp, because it does not just move you, it changes you. I knew what happened in these camps, but until you see it, it means nothing. Seeing the ovens that thousands of bodies were burned in and the places where they slept just made me sick to my stomach. I wish I could say more about it, but I just don’t know what else to say. It is something I will never forget.
After arriving back in Munich we wandered a bit until making our way to beer hall recommended by our guide, because we were looking for some inexpensive authentic food. We arrived at the Augustiner Brewery, which is one of the most famous beers in Munich and was a great place filled with locals. We had a great dinner and some great beer before getting on another night train to Prague.
When we arrived in Prague, we were about 90 minutes late, which was not really a big deal, but got us off to a rough start. We finally found our hostel, which was more like a five star hotel, but I was not complaining. Although we were in Prague for 3 days, we spent most of the time wandering and people watching. It is a great city to spend just taking random streets and popping into small shops. It was really a beautiful city though. One thing about Prague that I have never experienced anywhere else is the phenomenon of the beer being cheaper than a bottle of water. I am not kidding, a 0.5L of beer was about 25 Cz (about $1.25) and 0.5L bottle of water was about 40 Cz (about $2.00). Our second night in Prague was wonderful, because we found a hole in the wall Czech restaurant that served great authentic Czech cuisine. The last day in Prague was a great day to end our trip. As we were wandering the city after a morning of museums, we found our self back in Old Town Square, where we had spend a lot of our time. As we turned a corner, we noticed a bunch of people looking at something and some huge lighting. As we got closer, we realized it was a movie set with Adrian Brody (the guy from The Pianist). Since everybody was getting yelled at to keep walking, we decided to sit and have a coffee at the café right beside where they were filming…front row seats! Overall, Prague was a great city with a lot amazing views and great for just walking, unlike some of the other ultra touristy cities.
Well, after looking back on our trip it is hard to believe it is over! I had some of the greatest experiences I have ever had and met people from all over the world. I was not sure how I would feel at the end of this trip, but I can now say I feel like I could have kept going for several more weeks and cannot wait to do it again. It is a very humbling and amazing way to see the world and changes you in ways you could have never imagined. It is an amazing thing to see the world as a traveler rather than a tourist. I have a left this trip learning one thing, it would be that is a very very small world and no matter where you are there is always something to learn.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. I know it is insanely long, but I could have easily written this much for every city. Thank you so much for your support during my trip and my time in England. I have also posted my pictures from this trip and some other day trips that had not been posted due to a lack of a computer. They can be found at the “NEW Pictures Website”. Please feel free to comment on this post or shoot me an email. Thanks again for patience and support!
Cheers,
Justin
After an amazing time in Switzerland we made our way to Florence, Italy. It was really amazing to take the train from the Swiss Alps to the Tuscan country and watch the scenery change in front of us. Unfortunately I think I watched a little to closely, because when we I arrived in Florence I was sick! I will spare you all the details, but let me just say that we had to make a few "unexpected" stops on the way to the hostel. However, I finally made it to the hostel and was temporarily feeling better. The hostel we stayed at was definitely an experience. Upon walking into the hostel, we were greeted by about 10 people who were lounging around with the owner, Marco. Marco was nuts for lack of a better word. He was about 30 and his only calling in life was to open a hostel, which with out his business partner I am not sure could have happened. I was clear that Marco was the "customer relations" (maybe in more ways than one) and his partner was the brains. But I must say that this hostel is what made Florence memorable for us. We met and spent much of the 3 days with the people from the hostel and really felt like we knew them when we left. After spending the first day and a half in bed (I think I had I touch of food poisoning) we finally began to see the city. We started on Easter Sunday morning by going with a bunch of the people from the hostel to a tradition in Florence where they have fireworks exploding off this giant cart in front of the Duomo, the beautiful cathedral. We spend the rest of the day wandering the city and fighting our way through the crowds of tourists. I must say now, that this city had more tourist than anywhere we have gone, but Easter weekend is also one of the busiest times for Florence. That night we went t dinner with a bunch of the other Americans we had met and had a great (and cheap!) Italian meal.
As for much of our Florence trip, we woke up Monday with no set plans. We lounged around the hostel for a bit and had a coffee with Marco and the other hostellers. We then headed out to the city again to continue our wandering through the endless leather markets and street vendors. I must say that this is one of the first cities that sold some really nice stuff on the street for cheap. All the leather was Italian and very nice for VERY cheap. After a morning a walking to went back to hostel to meet up with everybody before dinner and to do some much needed laundry. This is when the hostel showed its true craziness… We walked in to find one of the staff piercing the nipples of one of the guys from California and the lip of the other and one girl’s ear in front of the whole hostel. (Note. She was a professional!) It was one of the absolute craziest moments of our trip! That night Marco made reservations for everybody in the hostel to go to dinner at really nice, authentic Tuscan restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but worth every penny for the experience and the food! We sat at a table with about 15 people and ordered a family style meal that consisted of bread, pasta, wine and tabletop grills piled full of all kinds of fresh Tuscan meats. It was AMAZING! It was so nice to have great grilled food, which I had not had since leaving the States.
Our last day in Florence was Tuesday, but we had most of the day, because our train to Munich was an overnight train and did not leave until about 10pm. We woke up early to get in line for the Academia, an art museum that is home to the famous Michelangelo statue of “David”. We stood in line for about 1 hour to pay 9.50 euro and enter the single crappiest museum I have ever paid to enter. This was a museum that was solely focused on the statue, which was most certainly impressive, but it is no excuse to let the rest of the museum fall apart. There were places where painted used to hang, and clearly their purpose was to cove the holes and chips in the wall. It was really sad to see how poorly it was maintained. Not to mention the artwork (other than David) was really depressing and ugly medieval art, when they still did not know how to paint with any perspective. Basically, what paintings would look like if I was blindfolded and handed a paintbrush. After, being half trampled by tourist trying to get a picture of David’s bum or wee-wee and feeling ripped off, we headed back to the hostel to regain our composure. We decided we needed some lunch then get the hell out of Florence and see a little bit of the Tuscan countryside. We first stopped at the city market, which is a HUGE indoor farmers’ market and supposedly the largest in Europe. It was amazing to just walk through because all the butchers and shops were freshly preparing their goods and everybody in there was a local. We decided that it was about time for lunch and that some fresh food sounded wonderful. We quickly found a small deli counter that had a small sign advertising sandwiches, but we realized that was all we understood, but luckily a nice Italian woman noticed the despair in our faces and helped us order. We ended up getting an entire lunch with all fresh Tuscan foods and local bottle of wine. So we headed to the closest park to enjoy our amazing lunch and relax in the sun. After lunch we caught the first bus out of town to a small village, Viesole. It was cute little town that offered great views of the countryside and Florence. After a nice walk around the out skirts of town, we headed back to Florence to make some dinner and enjoy our last evening with the friends we had made before heading to the train station.
That night we made our way to the train station to catch our first experience of sleeping on a train. Let me just say that I feel the need to describe this experience in some detail, because there is no question that we have NOTHING like this in the states. So we boarded the train to find our sleeping compartment, which was a 6 person “couchette”…should have been called a 6-person sweatbox. It consisted of two sets of bunk beds stacked three high with enough floor space to stand sideways with no hope of turning around and enough body heat to roast a turkey or a old lady... like the one in our car with enough BO for 15 people. However, we did get some minimal sleep and arrived in Munich at about 6:30 Wednesday morning.
Although it was very early, it was so amazing to go to sleep in one place/culture and wake up in a completely different one. After waking up a bit, we made our way to our hostel. Although we could not get into our room until 3, we were able to drop our packs, take a much need shower, and get a free breakfast. Surprisingly, by the time we finished breakfast I was feeling very good and ready to hit the city. We decided we would start by taking a tour of Dachau, a huge Nazis concentration camp outside the city. Although it was free to visit, we decided the tour might be a better experience and a little more time efficient. We met up with the tour guide who was an Irishman living in Munich and was an awesome person to talk to. After standing with him for about 10 minutes he told us he would not be able to take us because he needed a minimum of 5 people. However, instead of just leaving us, he offered to show us some famous (and relatively unmarked) around Munich then if we still wanted to go tomorrow he would take us even if it were only us. What a great deal! We spent about 2 hours following him to all the famous Nazis sites that had not been destroyed, including Hitler’s office, which is now a music and dance school…a little ironic. It was really amazing to see these sites and hear an outsider’s perspective on why they are so under marked. After he left us, we made our way to the English Gardens, a huge park in the city. We wandered around a bit until we found our first of the many Munich landmarks…a beer garden! We quickly found a table to eat our lunch and drink our amazing beer and people watch. We then headed back to the hostel to get into our room and take a quick nap. That night we wandered a bit in the Old Town and found a, just another, beer garden to have some dinner. I had bratwurst and sauerkraut…amazing!
The next morning we headed back to meet our tour guide to go out to Dachau. After about a 10-minute train ride, we arrived in the town of Dachau and caught a short bus ride to the camp. I am really at lose of words for what this experience was like, because nothing I say can do it justice. Just try to imagine walking through the same gates as tens of thousands of people, but the only difference was that they were forced to walk through and most did not ever come back out. I honestly feel that every single person should have to visit a camp, because it does not just move you, it changes you. I knew what happened in these camps, but until you see it, it means nothing. Seeing the ovens that thousands of bodies were burned in and the places where they slept just made me sick to my stomach. I wish I could say more about it, but I just don’t know what else to say. It is something I will never forget.
After arriving back in Munich we wandered a bit until making our way to beer hall recommended by our guide, because we were looking for some inexpensive authentic food. We arrived at the Augustiner Brewery, which is one of the most famous beers in Munich and was a great place filled with locals. We had a great dinner and some great beer before getting on another night train to Prague.
When we arrived in Prague, we were about 90 minutes late, which was not really a big deal, but got us off to a rough start. We finally found our hostel, which was more like a five star hotel, but I was not complaining. Although we were in Prague for 3 days, we spent most of the time wandering and people watching. It is a great city to spend just taking random streets and popping into small shops. It was really a beautiful city though. One thing about Prague that I have never experienced anywhere else is the phenomenon of the beer being cheaper than a bottle of water. I am not kidding, a 0.5L of beer was about 25 Cz (about $1.25) and 0.5L bottle of water was about 40 Cz (about $2.00). Our second night in Prague was wonderful, because we found a hole in the wall Czech restaurant that served great authentic Czech cuisine. The last day in Prague was a great day to end our trip. As we were wandering the city after a morning of museums, we found our self back in Old Town Square, where we had spend a lot of our time. As we turned a corner, we noticed a bunch of people looking at something and some huge lighting. As we got closer, we realized it was a movie set with Adrian Brody (the guy from The Pianist). Since everybody was getting yelled at to keep walking, we decided to sit and have a coffee at the café right beside where they were filming…front row seats! Overall, Prague was a great city with a lot amazing views and great for just walking, unlike some of the other ultra touristy cities.
Well, after looking back on our trip it is hard to believe it is over! I had some of the greatest experiences I have ever had and met people from all over the world. I was not sure how I would feel at the end of this trip, but I can now say I feel like I could have kept going for several more weeks and cannot wait to do it again. It is a very humbling and amazing way to see the world and changes you in ways you could have never imagined. It is an amazing thing to see the world as a traveler rather than a tourist. I have a left this trip learning one thing, it would be that is a very very small world and no matter where you are there is always something to learn.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. I know it is insanely long, but I could have easily written this much for every city. Thank you so much for your support during my trip and my time in England. I have also posted my pictures from this trip and some other day trips that had not been posted due to a lack of a computer. They can be found at the “NEW Pictures Website”. Please feel free to comment on this post or shoot me an email. Thanks again for patience and support!
Cheers,
Justin
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
London...yea baby!
Well another successful trip is in the books, both historically and my checkbook! Overall we had a fabulous weekend and saw much more than I think any of us thought we would. London is a beautiful, but very expensive, city even with student discounts.
We started our trip early Friday morning, since my normal Friday class was canceled, on a bus ride to London. For the first time since I have been here, I had a comfortable bus ride, the seats had extra leg room reclined to an almost flat position! After about a four hour journey, we arrived at Victoria Station in London. We were quickly confronted with a bus/train station about as big and busy as Grand Central Station in NYC. We made our way through the crowd following the signs to the Underground, or Tube as it known. Let me take this moment to just say that this is one thing England cities do fairly well, although they may not have adopted the idea of obvious street signs, on every corner it seems there is post with arrows pointing to every possible point of interest with in a 3 mile radius. This makes a stressed, confused, and lost traveler (ME!) very at ease when you are fumbling with your map that does not show a single street near you, if you are lucky enough to find the name of it. Anyway, we made it to the tube station and were greeted by 300 tourist/travelers, in a space made for 50, all trying to buy tube passes, lovely right? We finally got through the queue and bought our 3 day rail pass so would not have to go through this mess again. At last we were on the tube headed in the general direction of our hotel. When we emerged from the station I realized I had no idea where our hotel was and every map we had did not have a close up of this region...so we began to walk in the general direction arriving about 15 minutes later. (We later found out that we were only maybe 5 minutes away and just walked in a giant circle!) Upon arriving at the hotel, we found out that check-in was not until 2, which they conveniently failed to mention to me, so we dropped our bags and found some lunch at the local KFC. (If you are following my posts, you are beginning to see a trend) By the time we ate it was about 2 and headed back to the hotel to check-in. The room was perfect...4 beds for 4 people and a 13 inch TV hooked up to the gutters outside if I were to guess. We quickly dropped our stuff to head back to the tube, the quick this time, and start checking off the tourist sites while we had some time. It was really one of the most breath taking things, to walk out of the tube and see the London Eye and Big Ben right in your face. I don't know what I was expecting, but let just say that Big Ben is really big! We quickly snapped some pictures and headed to Westminster Abbey. It was unreal to be standing in the same room where hundreds of Kings and Queens have been crowned and buried. I am talking about things that are older than the discovery of the Americas. It was hard to process how important that place is to English history. Unfortunately, they do not allow pictures of the inside, so I guess you will have to just check it out yourself. After walking through the crowded rooms of the huge, beautiful abbey, we made our way to Buckingham Palace through one of the many beautiful parks of London. You think at this time of year, that the parks would be dead and quite, but quite the opposite was found. Flowers and people were everywhere along with tons of wildlife! But we finally arrived at the most popular of the Queen's homes. I must say, I was expecting more than there was, but it was beautiful none the less. It was more of a let down to find out that she only spends about 2 days/week there, she is old and it is loud in the city, so I guess it makes sense. Once we had taken several pictures of the palace and the guards (not dressed in red!) we moved on the Piccadilly Circus, which is not a circus with elephants or anything, but rather a large shopping area similar to Times Square in NYC, but not nearly as big and flashy. We did not stay long and jumped back on the tube to Bloomsbury, the borough which hotel was, and met up with Dan, a friend from high school, who was studying in London. We walked around the city awhile with him looking for a place to eat and found our selves in Chinatown, thinking we could get some good and affordable chinese food...oh we were WRONG! Possibly the worst attempt at chinese food I have ever had and at £10 it was not cheap! But lesson learned and we headed back to Dan's flat to chill out and spend the night catching up and comparing stories.
The next day we woke up early to catch breakfast, which was a major plus to our hotel. They served a full English breakfast, which we had not experienced although seen advertised in every window. A full English Breakfast is fairly standard in that it has some form of eggs (we had a choice of fried, scrambled or boiled), bacon, sausage, baked beans, a fried tomato, toast and tea/coffee. I must say I really enjoyed it. I would have never imagined eating baked beans for breakfast, but it complimented the eggs and meat very well, not to mention the benefits on a cold day or crowded train ;) After breakfast we headed took the tube to the Tower of London, which I thought was a tower...nope...its fortress/castle. It is famous as being a prison and where many kings, queens and other traitors were housed before being tortured and/or being executed. We took an hour long "Beefeater" tour, which was quite fun and interactive as well as gave us a great history into the tower. After the tour we wandered around the grounds and saw the Crown Jewel of England, which was amazing! They are kept in a vault on the grounds that you can walk through. They have the worlds largest and most perfect diamond, as well as hundreds of other gem encrusted crowns, swords, rings, and any other thing your could imagine covering in gold and jewels. They look fake because they sparkled in the light so brilliantly. Once we had sufficiently walk the grounds we walk along the river for what seemed like days till our feet hurt so bad we had to find a tube station. We then made our way to the Globe Theater, the same one that Shakespeare preformed. It was beautiful with its thatched open roof. I would have loved to seen a play, but tickets tend to be at a premium. At this point everybody was about to fall over, so we walked some more to what we thought was the closest tube station, it was not, and headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. It was a much needed break, especially since I got to watch the rugby game, even though England got slaughtered by Ireland. After the game we headed back over to the Tower Bridge area to meet some friends, from Wolverhampton who were in the city as well, for dinner. We wandered up and down the same street for at least 45 min being turned away by the extreme prices, till we finally settled on a small Italian restaurant that we first looked at. We all ordered pizza, which was very good, and relaxed for awhile till we headed back to the hotel for the night.
Sunday, our last day in the city, was reserved for checking out some of the museums in the city that we had heard good things about (not to mention they are free!). We started at the Imperial War Museum, which was maybe the best museum I have ever been in. It had all sorts of British, German, and American tanks, planes, bombs, missiles and everything else, and this was just the lobby. Once you enter the exhibits, organized by conflicts, you were over whelmed with all the different items they had on display. My favorite exhibit was called "The Children's War", which was an exhibit dedicated to the life of British children and families during WWII and the way they had to live. It offered a completely new perspective to me on life during WWII and really humbled me to see what families had to go through. It is something as Americans we don't learn about, because we did not see it on our homeland. I could not imagine the feeling of have your entire country bombed and fearing more could come at any time and living through that. After walking through all the major exhibits for about 3 hours, my feet were hurting worst than they ever have. So we decided to head back to Bloomsbury to grab some lunch and meet up with Dan to see the British Museum. This is the biggest museum I have ever seen! You could spend 3 full days inside and not see it all, luckily after about 2 hours it all starts to look the same. It is a museum filled with artifacts and relics from all over the world that Britain has taken during conquests and other trips to these countries, some of which is still very controversial. The coolest thing we saw, which I did not even know was there, was the Rosetta Stone. It is unreal to see the one thing that allowed us to understand ancient Egyptian writing as well as other languages. After about 2 hours we could hardly stay on our feet so we parted ways with Dan and found a place for dinner to relax until our bus home.
Overall this weekend was a great taste of London, but I was ready to get back without question. I must say that my feet have never hurt so bad and I did not know a city could have so many stairs, sometimes we took stairs down to go up. I think they just thought that would be funny. Anyways, although it was expensive, it was worth every dime we spent. Please check out at my pictures, but I am sorry to say that they are in no particular order, because that is how they got uploaded. As of right now we have no plans for next weekend, but that does not mean we won't through in a day trip, but we are trying to save a bit of money for when our friends from Keene visit in two weeks and we go to Edinburgh, Scotland. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope all is well!
Cheers,
Justin
We started our trip early Friday morning, since my normal Friday class was canceled, on a bus ride to London. For the first time since I have been here, I had a comfortable bus ride, the seats had extra leg room reclined to an almost flat position! After about a four hour journey, we arrived at Victoria Station in London. We were quickly confronted with a bus/train station about as big and busy as Grand Central Station in NYC. We made our way through the crowd following the signs to the Underground, or Tube as it known. Let me take this moment to just say that this is one thing England cities do fairly well, although they may not have adopted the idea of obvious street signs, on every corner it seems there is post with arrows pointing to every possible point of interest with in a 3 mile radius. This makes a stressed, confused, and lost traveler (ME!) very at ease when you are fumbling with your map that does not show a single street near you, if you are lucky enough to find the name of it. Anyway, we made it to the tube station and were greeted by 300 tourist/travelers, in a space made for 50, all trying to buy tube passes, lovely right? We finally got through the queue and bought our 3 day rail pass so would not have to go through this mess again. At last we were on the tube headed in the general direction of our hotel. When we emerged from the station I realized I had no idea where our hotel was and every map we had did not have a close up of this region...so we began to walk in the general direction arriving about 15 minutes later. (We later found out that we were only maybe 5 minutes away and just walked in a giant circle!) Upon arriving at the hotel, we found out that check-in was not until 2, which they conveniently failed to mention to me, so we dropped our bags and found some lunch at the local KFC. (If you are following my posts, you are beginning to see a trend) By the time we ate it was about 2 and headed back to the hotel to check-in. The room was perfect...4 beds for 4 people and a 13 inch TV hooked up to the gutters outside if I were to guess. We quickly dropped our stuff to head back to the tube, the quick this time, and start checking off the tourist sites while we had some time. It was really one of the most breath taking things, to walk out of the tube and see the London Eye and Big Ben right in your face. I don't know what I was expecting, but let just say that Big Ben is really big! We quickly snapped some pictures and headed to Westminster Abbey. It was unreal to be standing in the same room where hundreds of Kings and Queens have been crowned and buried. I am talking about things that are older than the discovery of the Americas. It was hard to process how important that place is to English history. Unfortunately, they do not allow pictures of the inside, so I guess you will have to just check it out yourself. After walking through the crowded rooms of the huge, beautiful abbey, we made our way to Buckingham Palace through one of the many beautiful parks of London. You think at this time of year, that the parks would be dead and quite, but quite the opposite was found. Flowers and people were everywhere along with tons of wildlife! But we finally arrived at the most popular of the Queen's homes. I must say, I was expecting more than there was, but it was beautiful none the less. It was more of a let down to find out that she only spends about 2 days/week there, she is old and it is loud in the city, so I guess it makes sense. Once we had taken several pictures of the palace and the guards (not dressed in red!) we moved on the Piccadilly Circus, which is not a circus with elephants or anything, but rather a large shopping area similar to Times Square in NYC, but not nearly as big and flashy. We did not stay long and jumped back on the tube to Bloomsbury, the borough which hotel was, and met up with Dan, a friend from high school, who was studying in London. We walked around the city awhile with him looking for a place to eat and found our selves in Chinatown, thinking we could get some good and affordable chinese food...oh we were WRONG! Possibly the worst attempt at chinese food I have ever had and at £10 it was not cheap! But lesson learned and we headed back to Dan's flat to chill out and spend the night catching up and comparing stories.
The next day we woke up early to catch breakfast, which was a major plus to our hotel. They served a full English breakfast, which we had not experienced although seen advertised in every window. A full English Breakfast is fairly standard in that it has some form of eggs (we had a choice of fried, scrambled or boiled), bacon, sausage, baked beans, a fried tomato, toast and tea/coffee. I must say I really enjoyed it. I would have never imagined eating baked beans for breakfast, but it complimented the eggs and meat very well, not to mention the benefits on a cold day or crowded train ;) After breakfast we headed took the tube to the Tower of London, which I thought was a tower...nope...its fortress/castle. It is famous as being a prison and where many kings, queens and other traitors were housed before being tortured and/or being executed. We took an hour long "Beefeater" tour, which was quite fun and interactive as well as gave us a great history into the tower. After the tour we wandered around the grounds and saw the Crown Jewel of England, which was amazing! They are kept in a vault on the grounds that you can walk through. They have the worlds largest and most perfect diamond, as well as hundreds of other gem encrusted crowns, swords, rings, and any other thing your could imagine covering in gold and jewels. They look fake because they sparkled in the light so brilliantly. Once we had sufficiently walk the grounds we walk along the river for what seemed like days till our feet hurt so bad we had to find a tube station. We then made our way to the Globe Theater, the same one that Shakespeare preformed. It was beautiful with its thatched open roof. I would have loved to seen a play, but tickets tend to be at a premium. At this point everybody was about to fall over, so we walked some more to what we thought was the closest tube station, it was not, and headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. It was a much needed break, especially since I got to watch the rugby game, even though England got slaughtered by Ireland. After the game we headed back over to the Tower Bridge area to meet some friends, from Wolverhampton who were in the city as well, for dinner. We wandered up and down the same street for at least 45 min being turned away by the extreme prices, till we finally settled on a small Italian restaurant that we first looked at. We all ordered pizza, which was very good, and relaxed for awhile till we headed back to the hotel for the night.
Sunday, our last day in the city, was reserved for checking out some of the museums in the city that we had heard good things about (not to mention they are free!). We started at the Imperial War Museum, which was maybe the best museum I have ever been in. It had all sorts of British, German, and American tanks, planes, bombs, missiles and everything else, and this was just the lobby. Once you enter the exhibits, organized by conflicts, you were over whelmed with all the different items they had on display. My favorite exhibit was called "The Children's War", which was an exhibit dedicated to the life of British children and families during WWII and the way they had to live. It offered a completely new perspective to me on life during WWII and really humbled me to see what families had to go through. It is something as Americans we don't learn about, because we did not see it on our homeland. I could not imagine the feeling of have your entire country bombed and fearing more could come at any time and living through that. After walking through all the major exhibits for about 3 hours, my feet were hurting worst than they ever have. So we decided to head back to Bloomsbury to grab some lunch and meet up with Dan to see the British Museum. This is the biggest museum I have ever seen! You could spend 3 full days inside and not see it all, luckily after about 2 hours it all starts to look the same. It is a museum filled with artifacts and relics from all over the world that Britain has taken during conquests and other trips to these countries, some of which is still very controversial. The coolest thing we saw, which I did not even know was there, was the Rosetta Stone. It is unreal to see the one thing that allowed us to understand ancient Egyptian writing as well as other languages. After about 2 hours we could hardly stay on our feet so we parted ways with Dan and found a place for dinner to relax until our bus home.
Overall this weekend was a great taste of London, but I was ready to get back without question. I must say that my feet have never hurt so bad and I did not know a city could have so many stairs, sometimes we took stairs down to go up. I think they just thought that would be funny. Anyways, although it was expensive, it was worth every dime we spent. Please check out at my pictures, but I am sorry to say that they are in no particular order, because that is how they got uploaded. As of right now we have no plans for next weekend, but that does not mean we won't through in a day trip, but we are trying to save a bit of money for when our friends from Keene visit in two weeks and we go to Edinburgh, Scotland. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope all is well!
Cheers,
Justin
Monday, February 19, 2007
Liverpool...
Well, I made my second trip through the International Office on Saturday to Liverpool, England...home of the Beatles! Overall it was a cool city, but we did not have nearly enough time to explore and/or see everything. We started the day by going to "The Beatles Story" which was a audio guided (like everything in Britain) tour of recreations of the life and legacy of the group. It took you through narrow crowed hallways lined with documents and pictures while playing every song you can think of by the group. It was quite cheesy and corny at times, but some things were interesting. I think much of my problem with it was that it did not have a lot of real artifacts and it was much to crowed for the space. I guess I was expecting something along the lines of Graceland, and found that it was nothing even close! However, it was the only Beatles experience we had time for, so at least I could say I was there.
After we left the cave (the Beatles Story), we made our way towards the city center for some lunch at a place I had read about. After a long and confusing walk, we arrived at the sandwich/coffee shop. The prices were very reasonable and the sandwiches were excellent, but that was all quickly over shadowed by the crappy service and extremely smoky room. After spending much more time than we would have liked at lunch we moved on to the Liverpool Cathedral, which turned out to be the best part of the day by far! The cathedral is very new (for European standards), started in 1902 and not finished until 1978, but it was breath taking never the less. It has the highest arches and the largest/heaviest bells in the world! It was with out a doubt the biggest open space I have ever been in! After wandering the vast open space, we made our way up to the top of the main tower. It was unreal! There was not a cloud in the sky and we could see for miles! It was really amazing to be able see Liverpool from such a great view point! Once we took our pictures from every angle of the top, we made our way down and to the park/graveyard the surrounded the cathedral. It was a very cool looking park, because the walls were lined with old headstones like it was once a graveyard, but the cathedral forced the headstones to be moved.
After the cathedral we made our way towards our last stop before heading back to the bus, the Tate Liverpool modern art museum. I was really looking forward to this stop, because I had read that it held several Warhol and Picasso works as well as being free admission. Well, that was a lie! Luckily, the admission was free, because I think I might have demanded my money back other wise! It is unreal what some people consider art! The first exhibit we went to was nothing more than a pile of rocks, wood and coal. Then another was a pile of small dead Christmas trees with a TV playing random clips of naked people and another just flash nothing! Ahh it was awful! So we quickly made our way up stairs to what we thought would be the artists we would recognize...nope! Just more wacky paintings are "art". I did finally find ONE Andy Warhol painting, but nothing like I thought and defiantly no Picasso. But at least it was free!
Overall it was a good trip and a very cool city, but I really would have liked to seen more of the Beatles sites, ie. Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields and the Cavern Club. However time just did not allow. Maybe at some point I will go back and explore some more. This weekend we are making our first trip to London! It should be a great weekend! Thank you for reading and I hope all is well!
Cheers,
Justin
After we left the cave (the Beatles Story), we made our way towards the city center for some lunch at a place I had read about. After a long and confusing walk, we arrived at the sandwich/coffee shop. The prices were very reasonable and the sandwiches were excellent, but that was all quickly over shadowed by the crappy service and extremely smoky room. After spending much more time than we would have liked at lunch we moved on to the Liverpool Cathedral, which turned out to be the best part of the day by far! The cathedral is very new (for European standards), started in 1902 and not finished until 1978, but it was breath taking never the less. It has the highest arches and the largest/heaviest bells in the world! It was with out a doubt the biggest open space I have ever been in! After wandering the vast open space, we made our way up to the top of the main tower. It was unreal! There was not a cloud in the sky and we could see for miles! It was really amazing to be able see Liverpool from such a great view point! Once we took our pictures from every angle of the top, we made our way down and to the park/graveyard the surrounded the cathedral. It was a very cool looking park, because the walls were lined with old headstones like it was once a graveyard, but the cathedral forced the headstones to be moved.
After the cathedral we made our way towards our last stop before heading back to the bus, the Tate Liverpool modern art museum. I was really looking forward to this stop, because I had read that it held several Warhol and Picasso works as well as being free admission. Well, that was a lie! Luckily, the admission was free, because I think I might have demanded my money back other wise! It is unreal what some people consider art! The first exhibit we went to was nothing more than a pile of rocks, wood and coal. Then another was a pile of small dead Christmas trees with a TV playing random clips of naked people and another just flash nothing! Ahh it was awful! So we quickly made our way up stairs to what we thought would be the artists we would recognize...nope! Just more wacky paintings are "art". I did finally find ONE Andy Warhol painting, but nothing like I thought and defiantly no Picasso. But at least it was free!
Overall it was a good trip and a very cool city, but I really would have liked to seen more of the Beatles sites, ie. Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields and the Cavern Club. However time just did not allow. Maybe at some point I will go back and explore some more. This weekend we are making our first trip to London! It should be a great weekend! Thank you for reading and I hope all is well!
Cheers,
Justin
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Bath & Stonehenge...
Well, as many of you may have known, I made my first weekend trip out of Wolverhampton this weekend to Bath and Stonehenge. Overall it was a very successful trip and a much needed get away, but it defiantly had its fair share of interesting moments.
On Saturday morning we began our journey by trekking to the bus station on through the wet, sloppy, snow covered streets of Wolverhampton. It is really remarkable how they can get a considerable snowfall and not even touch the roads or sidewalks. You can go to the store and buy a £5 sled, but not a show shovel within a hundred miles! Anyways, the bus was on time (except a short delay in Birmingham) and we made it to Bath without a problem. Our first mission was to find the hostel and dump our bags. When we arrived at the hostel it was a little confusing where to check in, seeing that the open door was to the PACKED bar down stairs, till we finally saw the sign "check in at the bar". It was the second round of the rugby tournament, and to our welcome was a bar FULL of people watching the game, which we had to fight through to get checked in. Once we got checked, we found our 12 person dorm room and dumped our stuff to go get some food and check out the town. At this point it was raining a considerable amount, which we have not experienced since being in England! We all were all little road weary and very hungry, so we found the best thing to easy our minds...Pizza Hut! I have been making a conscious effort to avoid any American fast food, because I knew there would come a time when it would just sound soooooo good to have something familiar, that time was now! We took our time eating and drying off before we continued to wander the streets, which we lasted only an hour or two before we were ready to stay inside. We made our way to the pub below our hostel relaxed for a bit then retired upstairs to watch a couple of movies and hit the sack. I must say though that living in a hostel made my small and crappy room here feel like a mansion! If it were not for my iPod (which saved my sanity on more than on occasion this weekend), I am not sure I would have slept at all, but I guess it is all part of the experience (at least that is what I keep telling my self!).
On Sunday we began the day about 9am with a free continental breakfast (ie. toast, cereal, tea and something they called coffee) and headed off to see the sights...in the rain. We started our day off with a tour of the Roman Baths (pretty creative in naming towns) which are spas built by the Romans around natural hot springs located in the town. It was really unbelievable to see how huge the complex was and the importance of these springs to people of Bath throughout history. The complex is filled with the artifacts found in the baths and pieces of the original structure. What amazed me the most was that during Roman times the floors were heated! The floor was raised so the springs could flow under them, they said that it would get so warm that could not walk bare foot on them! We also got to taste the water, which is supposed to bring good health, but it tasted like crap and Sarah ended up sick all weekend with a cold, so it is debatable how "good" it really is. After the baths, we wandered the streets and got some lunch for a bit before our next tour. After lunch we met up with Mad Maxx Tours, which does tours around the area and to Stonehenge. Bath is not the closest town to the rocks, but it is about only one worth making a weekend out of. We choose a half day tour which took us first to Lacock. I am still not completely sure why they brought us to this town, but it was cute none the less. It was a very very small town in the rolling hills of the English country side known as the Cotswolds famous for woolen goods. Once we took some pictures and wandered around a bit then continued on to Stonehenge. After about a 40 minutes drive through the country side we arrived to the rocks. Let me first say that I was expecting something much similar to the excitement of Plymouth Rock, which is nothing more than a large pebble, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the size of it. It is situated in the middle of a field with nothing more than a tourist center, a major highway and a flock of sheep around it. Like everything in England it was not free to walk (about 35 feet) around it and receive a free audio tour that I managed to listen to for no more than 2 minutes. I must say though it is quiet unbelievable that this was built before the invention of the wheel in England and many of the stones were brought from hundreds of miles away! Once we took pictures from about every angle and stone we made our way to the gift shop to thaw out, which turned out to be quite comical. You can by almost anything with a picture, model or name of Stonehenge on it! Once we circled the gift shop a couple hundred times we made our way back to the bus and back to Bath. That night we dinner in pub down stairs and wandered the streets for a bit, till we retired to watching a movie and going to bed.
Monday was our last day in Bath and was reserved for seeing some sites and doing some shopping. We got up early to eat before we had to check-out and catch a free walking tour of the city by 10:30. The tour lasted about 2 hours took us past many of the popular sites that we had not seen and gave us some of the interesting history of Bath. Once our tour finished we made our way to the Bath Abbey which is in the center of the city and where most believe the first King of England was crowned! We got in for free, because the man collecting "donations" felt bad for us poor college students and we wandered the church for awhile. After the brief tour of the abbey we grabbed some lunch at Burger King (yes, two American fast-food joints in one weekend!) and hit up some of the shops which turned out to be much to expensive for our taste! By 3:00 we were completely bored and very tired, so we grabbed some pre-made sandwiches from the supermarket for later and headed to the bus station to catch and early bus back to Bristol (which has a brand new station) to wait for our bus back to Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Once the bus finally arrived and loaded at Bristol, about 30 minutes late, the 2.5 hour bus ride from hell began! Lets just go through the list:
- switching seats with a couple with a baby
- kids screaming and jumping over the seats
- a group of people (who made the bus late to begin with) yelling across the bus at each other
- after be so nice to switch seats, the drunk Scottish ex-con woke up and talked the whole way (even with headphones on!)
- 20 min smoke break after being on the road only an hour
- not getting to Birmingham to catch another bus till 10:30pm
But, we finally made it home safe and sound to our beds which could never have looked sooooo good!
Overall, I could not have been happier with our trip, but such as many things here and in life, it was a true learning experience! I am going to be doing this a lot more in the next few months, so I might as well get use to it now and learn to enjoy it! It is all part of this once in a life time experience! Thank you for taking the time to read all this, I know it was long, but it was a long weekend! Please check out my pictures. They do not all have titles yet, because I took almost 200 pictures this weekend and it is very time consuming to label them all, but enjoy! Happy Valentines Day!!!
Cheers,
Justin
On Saturday morning we began our journey by trekking to the bus station on through the wet, sloppy, snow covered streets of Wolverhampton. It is really remarkable how they can get a considerable snowfall and not even touch the roads or sidewalks. You can go to the store and buy a £5 sled, but not a show shovel within a hundred miles! Anyways, the bus was on time (except a short delay in Birmingham) and we made it to Bath without a problem. Our first mission was to find the hostel and dump our bags. When we arrived at the hostel it was a little confusing where to check in, seeing that the open door was to the PACKED bar down stairs, till we finally saw the sign "check in at the bar". It was the second round of the rugby tournament, and to our welcome was a bar FULL of people watching the game, which we had to fight through to get checked in. Once we got checked, we found our 12 person dorm room and dumped our stuff to go get some food and check out the town. At this point it was raining a considerable amount, which we have not experienced since being in England! We all were all little road weary and very hungry, so we found the best thing to easy our minds...Pizza Hut! I have been making a conscious effort to avoid any American fast food, because I knew there would come a time when it would just sound soooooo good to have something familiar, that time was now! We took our time eating and drying off before we continued to wander the streets, which we lasted only an hour or two before we were ready to stay inside. We made our way to the pub below our hostel relaxed for a bit then retired upstairs to watch a couple of movies and hit the sack. I must say though that living in a hostel made my small and crappy room here feel like a mansion! If it were not for my iPod (which saved my sanity on more than on occasion this weekend), I am not sure I would have slept at all, but I guess it is all part of the experience (at least that is what I keep telling my self!).
On Sunday we began the day about 9am with a free continental breakfast (ie. toast, cereal, tea and something they called coffee) and headed off to see the sights...in the rain. We started our day off with a tour of the Roman Baths (pretty creative in naming towns) which are spas built by the Romans around natural hot springs located in the town. It was really unbelievable to see how huge the complex was and the importance of these springs to people of Bath throughout history. The complex is filled with the artifacts found in the baths and pieces of the original structure. What amazed me the most was that during Roman times the floors were heated! The floor was raised so the springs could flow under them, they said that it would get so warm that could not walk bare foot on them! We also got to taste the water, which is supposed to bring good health, but it tasted like crap and Sarah ended up sick all weekend with a cold, so it is debatable how "good" it really is. After the baths, we wandered the streets and got some lunch for a bit before our next tour. After lunch we met up with Mad Maxx Tours, which does tours around the area and to Stonehenge. Bath is not the closest town to the rocks, but it is about only one worth making a weekend out of. We choose a half day tour which took us first to Lacock. I am still not completely sure why they brought us to this town, but it was cute none the less. It was a very very small town in the rolling hills of the English country side known as the Cotswolds famous for woolen goods. Once we took some pictures and wandered around a bit then continued on to Stonehenge. After about a 40 minutes drive through the country side we arrived to the rocks. Let me first say that I was expecting something much similar to the excitement of Plymouth Rock, which is nothing more than a large pebble, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the size of it. It is situated in the middle of a field with nothing more than a tourist center, a major highway and a flock of sheep around it. Like everything in England it was not free to walk (about 35 feet) around it and receive a free audio tour that I managed to listen to for no more than 2 minutes. I must say though it is quiet unbelievable that this was built before the invention of the wheel in England and many of the stones were brought from hundreds of miles away! Once we took pictures from about every angle and stone we made our way to the gift shop to thaw out, which turned out to be quite comical. You can by almost anything with a picture, model or name of Stonehenge on it! Once we circled the gift shop a couple hundred times we made our way back to the bus and back to Bath. That night we dinner in pub down stairs and wandered the streets for a bit, till we retired to watching a movie and going to bed.
Monday was our last day in Bath and was reserved for seeing some sites and doing some shopping. We got up early to eat before we had to check-out and catch a free walking tour of the city by 10:30. The tour lasted about 2 hours took us past many of the popular sites that we had not seen and gave us some of the interesting history of Bath. Once our tour finished we made our way to the Bath Abbey which is in the center of the city and where most believe the first King of England was crowned! We got in for free, because the man collecting "donations" felt bad for us poor college students and we wandered the church for awhile. After the brief tour of the abbey we grabbed some lunch at Burger King (yes, two American fast-food joints in one weekend!) and hit up some of the shops which turned out to be much to expensive for our taste! By 3:00 we were completely bored and very tired, so we grabbed some pre-made sandwiches from the supermarket for later and headed to the bus station to catch and early bus back to Bristol (which has a brand new station) to wait for our bus back to Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Once the bus finally arrived and loaded at Bristol, about 30 minutes late, the 2.5 hour bus ride from hell began! Lets just go through the list:
- switching seats with a couple with a baby
- kids screaming and jumping over the seats
- a group of people (who made the bus late to begin with) yelling across the bus at each other
- after be so nice to switch seats, the drunk Scottish ex-con woke up and talked the whole way (even with headphones on!)
- 20 min smoke break after being on the road only an hour
- not getting to Birmingham to catch another bus till 10:30pm
But, we finally made it home safe and sound to our beds which could never have looked sooooo good!
Overall, I could not have been happier with our trip, but such as many things here and in life, it was a true learning experience! I am going to be doing this a lot more in the next few months, so I might as well get use to it now and learn to enjoy it! It is all part of this once in a life time experience! Thank you for taking the time to read all this, I know it was long, but it was a long weekend! Please check out my pictures. They do not all have titles yet, because I took almost 200 pictures this weekend and it is very time consuming to label them all, but enjoy! Happy Valentines Day!!!
Cheers,
Justin
Monday, February 05, 2007
Birmingham...
Well another weekend is sadly over, but it was quite a good weekend overall. On Saturday we made our first trip to Birmingham, which is about 20-40 minutes (depending on your mode of transportation) to the south-east of Wolverhampton. It is the second largest city in England, second only to London. It is a very industrial city, much like Wolverhampton, but is great place to make day trip to. We left Wolverhampton about 2:30 by the tram that runs directly into Birmingham every 8 minutes for only £3.80 round-trip. Although Birmingham is mostly a industrial city, it has more shopping than any place I have every been. Its main attraction is the Bullring Market, which is an ultra-modern 3 part shopping mall. I personally was not so intrigued by the shopping as I was the fact that it had a KRISPY KREME!!! Talk about feeling like you are home! It also had a shop that sold every American food that we can't get in the local supermarkets, such as Fluff, Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup, Jelly Belly's and much more! However, we refrained from purchasing any of these indulgences, because they came for a price! They wanted £2.80 for the small jar of Fluff, which that is about $5.50! Anyways, it was nice to know it was there in case I come down with a sudden/dying urge for Fluff. They also had several Starbucks which is always nice to see. After we finished in the mall, it was sadly dark, but we continued our journey towards the heart of the city. We found Victoria Square which was beautiful at night, so I can't wait to go back during the day and take some more pictures. However, the highlight of my trip was when we found a giant TV in the square that was showing the England v. Scotland rugby game! People were gathered to watch it everywhere! It is really nice to be able to finally watch a sport that I love so much without having to pay for it. We then continued on to find some place reasonable to eat dinner, but the problem we kept running into was that most of the places had stopped serving food in order to get ready for the busy night life. We finally found a place we had eaten before in Wolverhampton and knew we could get a decent inexpensive meal. After taking our time eating and having a drink, we made our way back to the train/tram station to head back. It was a good first visit, and I am sure I will be back again soon.
On Sunday, Sarah and I made our way to a local sports bar to watch the Ireland v. Wales rugby game (Which I had heard about during the game we saw in Birmingham). I was very cool to see how passionate people were for a sport that most in the US don't even understand, which I really enjoyed. Last night I also made an attempt to stay up and watch the Superbowl on my computer (keep in mind the game did not start till 11:30 here!). I made it till the end of 3rd quarter and began to doze off, I woke to the celebration of the Colts. Oh well, there is always next year to watch it start to finish.
Well, that's about all I got this time. I posted some more pictures, which I have labeled by the day I updated them. Thanks for all your comments and support!
Cheers,
Justin
On Sunday, Sarah and I made our way to a local sports bar to watch the Ireland v. Wales rugby game (Which I had heard about during the game we saw in Birmingham). I was very cool to see how passionate people were for a sport that most in the US don't even understand, which I really enjoyed. Last night I also made an attempt to stay up and watch the Superbowl on my computer (keep in mind the game did not start till 11:30 here!). I made it till the end of 3rd quarter and began to doze off, I woke to the celebration of the Colts. Oh well, there is always next year to watch it start to finish.
Well, that's about all I got this time. I posted some more pictures, which I have labeled by the day I updated them. Thanks for all your comments and support!
Cheers,
Justin
Friday, February 02, 2007
First week of classes...
Well, the first week of classes is officially over and I think I will survive! I am taking three classes which I have on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday so that means I have Mondays and Wednesdays off! The way classes work here is much different than what I am used to, because each class only meets once a week for three hours and your grade is typically based off only two assignments. My math and engineering class should be very easy for me, but my American Literature class will be a different story. I am not used to having to read a novel a week in my math classes and to make it worse, I did not recognize a single book title in the course! I must say though that this professor is the most energetic/crazy/drug induced one I have ever had. At the first class he proceeded to read the module guide by screaming every other word and then continuing to lecture while giggling at himself the whole time as well as making a farting noise with his hands as he paced the room! Luckily, there is a girl from Northern Arizona University in the class with me, so hopefully we can brave the madness together! On Fridays mornings I have to the Telford Campus (a couple of towns over, about an hour by bus) for my engineering class. Well today I managed to spend more time on the bus than in a class room! When I arrive to the class, the professor was running late and proceeded to only read the module guide and excuse us. In any other place I would have been thrilled, but not when it takes you an hour to get there and you have to wait an hour for the next bus! Anyways, after the first week of classes I am feeling optimistic.
As far as the rest of my life goes, I am doing very well. Mom and Dad surprised me yesterday by purchasing a "Slingbox", which is a device that hooks to their cable in Memphis and allows me to watch it via the internet here in England. It really is amazing! When I arrived, I thought that there would be a place to relax and watch TV with the people on my floor, but I was sadly mistaken. With all the free time in my schedule I was finding my self watching the same DVD's over and over again, so the Slingbox is really allows me something to break up my day, which I am sooo thankful for! I will also allow me to watch the Superbowl on Sunday even though it will not start till 12:30 here! (Good thing I don't have classes on Mondays)
Tomorrow we are making a day trip to Birmingham for the first time with some of the other international students, which should be a good day. It is only about 40 minutes by train/metro and is pretty easy city to get around from what we have heard. Next weekend Sarah, Heather and I are making a trip to Nottingham to visit the home of Robin Hood! I am sure I will post again before then though.
Anyways, I need to go make some dinner for myself before we head out for the evening. Please feel free to post a comment on here (you do not need to register, just choose "other") or shoot me an email. I will try to get some new pictures up in the next week, including some of my room and dorm. Lastly, here is a nice website if you are interested in seeing what is in Wolverhampton and some information about it... http://www.wolverhamptoncity.co.uk/
Cheers,
Justin
As far as the rest of my life goes, I am doing very well. Mom and Dad surprised me yesterday by purchasing a "Slingbox", which is a device that hooks to their cable in Memphis and allows me to watch it via the internet here in England. It really is amazing! When I arrived, I thought that there would be a place to relax and watch TV with the people on my floor, but I was sadly mistaken. With all the free time in my schedule I was finding my self watching the same DVD's over and over again, so the Slingbox is really allows me something to break up my day, which I am sooo thankful for! I will also allow me to watch the Superbowl on Sunday even though it will not start till 12:30 here! (Good thing I don't have classes on Mondays)
Tomorrow we are making a day trip to Birmingham for the first time with some of the other international students, which should be a good day. It is only about 40 minutes by train/metro and is pretty easy city to get around from what we have heard. Next weekend Sarah, Heather and I are making a trip to Nottingham to visit the home of Robin Hood! I am sure I will post again before then though.
Anyways, I need to go make some dinner for myself before we head out for the evening. Please feel free to post a comment on here (you do not need to register, just choose "other") or shoot me an email. I will try to get some new pictures up in the next week, including some of my room and dorm. Lastly, here is a nice website if you are interested in seeing what is in Wolverhampton and some information about it... http://www.wolverhamptoncity.co.uk/
Cheers,
Justin
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Exploring Wolverhampton and Stratford-upon-Avon...
Well, it has been a couple of days since I last post and I have experienced so much! I have now seen much downtown Wolverhampton and university as well as traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon. I will try to tell you as much about it all as I can remember, but the last couple of days have been very busy! Here we go...
Once I finally got over my jet lag, things began to really fly! I did not have much of a chance to meet many people on Tuesday, because of the traveling, but Wednesday was much better. We
had several meetings to attend and I was quickly overwhelmed with the amount of exchange students there were, at least 60. This made it also tough to meet people, but later that night we attended a traditional English tea party where we met a ton of students from all over the world! That night we went out with them and managed to even stay in touch with out mobiles (cell phones). I have spent most of my social time with these students and it has been very nice to have people to call to go do something with. On Thursday we explored much of Wolverhampton with our fellow exchange students and even got mobiles together!
Wolverhampton is a city maybe the size of downtown Hartford or Memphis. It is not really a suburb of Birmingham like I initially thought, because it is a large city on its own. It really has anything you would want to do or see, and has some great history! There is a main pedestrian street with all kinds of shops and vendors, even STARBUCKS!!! I must admit that a good cup of coffee was much needed! Overall, I think it will be a very fun city to live in and I still have a lot of exploring to do!
I also got my first taste of English soccer this morning! My dorm room is just down the street from the stadium, and this morning I got woke up to the fans chanting and singing in the stadium. It may have been the loudest sporting ever I have ever heard! It was loud because of cheering, rather it was 30,000 people singing and chanting! There were people everywhere too, it was quite shocking to wake up to. They have another home game next weekend which I think I may try to go to.
Yesterday, I took my first trip out of Wolverhampton to Stratford-upon-Avon...the birthplace of Shakespeare! Although I never really enjoyed Shakespeare, the town was beautiful and very nice place to visit. When we arrived, we got an hour long walking tour, which took us through the town past his birthplace, school, tomb and even his favorite pub! We did not go in any of these places, other that the church where he is buried, because you had to pay for each one. This tour also took us along the river and canals, which was my favorite part. The longboats and locks were very neat to see and the river was so beautiful. We also walked through a park where there were the most ducks and swans I have ever seen! There was one swan that was the size of a small child!
Well, that is about it for now. Classes start tomorrow, although my first class is not till Tuesday, but it will be nice to see the campus come alive and meet some of the British students. I have also finally unpacked my luggage, which I had been avoiding, but it is nice that it is done. I have also added some pictures from this first week into Photobucket (the link is on the right) so please check those as well.
Cheers,
Justin
Once I finally got over my jet lag, things began to really fly! I did not have much of a chance to meet many people on Tuesday, because of the traveling, but Wednesday was much better. We
had several meetings to attend and I was quickly overwhelmed with the amount of exchange students there were, at least 60. This made it also tough to meet people, but later that night we attended a traditional English tea party where we met a ton of students from all over the world! That night we went out with them and managed to even stay in touch with out mobiles (cell phones). I have spent most of my social time with these students and it has been very nice to have people to call to go do something with. On Thursday we explored much of Wolverhampton with our fellow exchange students and even got mobiles together!
Wolverhampton is a city maybe the size of downtown Hartford or Memphis. It is not really a suburb of Birmingham like I initially thought, because it is a large city on its own. It really has anything you would want to do or see, and has some great history! There is a main pedestrian street with all kinds of shops and vendors, even STARBUCKS!!! I must admit that a good cup of coffee was much needed! Overall, I think it will be a very fun city to live in and I still have a lot of exploring to do!
I also got my first taste of English soccer this morning! My dorm room is just down the street from the stadium, and this morning I got woke up to the fans chanting and singing in the stadium. It may have been the loudest sporting ever I have ever heard! It was loud because of cheering, rather it was 30,000 people singing and chanting! There were people everywhere too, it was quite shocking to wake up to. They have another home game next weekend which I think I may try to go to.
Yesterday, I took my first trip out of Wolverhampton to Stratford-upon-Avon...the birthplace of Shakespeare! Although I never really enjoyed Shakespeare, the town was beautiful and very nice place to visit. When we arrived, we got an hour long walking tour, which took us through the town past his birthplace, school, tomb and even his favorite pub! We did not go in any of these places, other that the church where he is buried, because you had to pay for each one. This tour also took us along the river and canals, which was my favorite part. The longboats and locks were very neat to see and the river was so beautiful. We also walked through a park where there were the most ducks and swans I have ever seen! There was one swan that was the size of a small child!
Well, that is about it for now. Classes start tomorrow, although my first class is not till Tuesday, but it will be nice to see the campus come alive and meet some of the British students. I have also finally unpacked my luggage, which I had been avoiding, but it is nice that it is done. I have also added some pictures from this first week into Photobucket (the link is on the right) so please check those as well.
Cheers,
Justin
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
New address and email...
As promised, I have got my new mailing address and email address.
Justin Baker
014 Hereford House
Lomas St.
University of Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1QU
justin.baker@wlv.ac.uk
In the mailing address, I am not sure if you need to include England, but I would ask the post carrier (West Midlands is the county). Also, I don't anticipate much mail, so if you could let my parents or myself know that you are sending something, so I will know to check my mail. It is very very expensive to send any kind of package, so please do not feel obligated in away to send anything! Lastly, I will still check my KSC and Gmail emails regularly, so feel free to send anything to those. This email will only be valid while I am in Wolverhampton, so do not delete the others!
Cheers,
Justin
Justin Baker
014 Hereford House
Lomas St.
University of Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV1 1QU
justin.baker@wlv.ac.uk
In the mailing address, I am not sure if you need to include England, but I would ask the post carrier (West Midlands is the county). Also, I don't anticipate much mail, so if you could let my parents or myself know that you are sending something, so I will know to check my mail. It is very very expensive to send any kind of package, so please do not feel obligated in away to send anything! Lastly, I will still check my KSC and Gmail emails regularly, so feel free to send anything to those. This email will only be valid while I am in Wolverhampton, so do not delete the others!
Cheers,
Justin
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I am here...
Well, after one very very long day of traveling and more than 24 hours without sleep, I have arrived in Wolverhampton, England! I can honestly say that it feels a little weird to be here, but I am sure that is due to my lack of sleep and/or the stress of wondering around airports in countries you don't live. But if your wondering why I mention the stress of airports, let me elaborate...
We (myself, Sarah, Heather) started the day off great by making incredible time into JFK and made it to our gate without a hitch. The same continued for the flight, which went by much faster that anticipated and was a rather pleasant flight. However, it was running 10 minutes late to Dublin...
This is when all hell broke lose! When we arrived in Dublin, we were told to go through customs/immigration and make our way to our connecting gate (keep in mind that we only had an hour lay over to begin with). Easy, right? Well, customs was no problem and I received my first stamp in my passport, but that is were the fun ended. Before and after customs we had no choice but to follow the line, which we thought would eventually take us to the terminal, rather it took us to baggage claim. All the sudden I had my first moment of panic! We quickly (thank god for English!) figured out that we needed to go through security and make our way to the gate, which was conveniently not on our boarding pass. As we briskly moved through security I glanced up and found our gate number...so I thought. When we arrived at the gate I was relieved to see people still standing in line, but quickly was filled with terror when the gate agent handed my ticket back to me saying, "We're not Aer Lingus." I had managed to look at the only other 6:30 flight to Birmingham and missed the flight numbers. At this point we have no idea where we are supposed to be, since the monitors in each terminal only show its flights. We are in a dead sprint back through the terminal when we round the corner only to find our selves back at baggage claim! Which at this point we all about lost it! We took a deep breath and made our way to the ticket counter to be rescheduled for the 9:30 flight. Only to add insult to injury, during the now 2 hour wait, I managed to spill an enitre cup of coffee on Heather and sit in the single coldest terminal I have ever been in! But needless to say, it was truly my first European adventure and I am here safely!
This afternoon we had lunch at our first English Pub (which we later found out was one we should steer clear of) and did a little shopping. Overall it was a looooong day, but I all ready have some great stories and experiences.
Hopefully this week I will have a mailing address and some other contact information, but for now feel free to email me or leave a comment. Check back here offten for new posts, pictures, and such.
Cheers,
Justin
We (myself, Sarah, Heather) started the day off great by making incredible time into JFK and made it to our gate without a hitch. The same continued for the flight, which went by much faster that anticipated and was a rather pleasant flight. However, it was running 10 minutes late to Dublin...
This is when all hell broke lose! When we arrived in Dublin, we were told to go through customs/immigration and make our way to our connecting gate (keep in mind that we only had an hour lay over to begin with). Easy, right? Well, customs was no problem and I received my first stamp in my passport, but that is were the fun ended. Before and after customs we had no choice but to follow the line, which we thought would eventually take us to the terminal, rather it took us to baggage claim. All the sudden I had my first moment of panic! We quickly (thank god for English!) figured out that we needed to go through security and make our way to the gate, which was conveniently not on our boarding pass. As we briskly moved through security I glanced up and found our gate number...so I thought. When we arrived at the gate I was relieved to see people still standing in line, but quickly was filled with terror when the gate agent handed my ticket back to me saying, "We're not Aer Lingus." I had managed to look at the only other 6:30 flight to Birmingham and missed the flight numbers. At this point we have no idea where we are supposed to be, since the monitors in each terminal only show its flights. We are in a dead sprint back through the terminal when we round the corner only to find our selves back at baggage claim! Which at this point we all about lost it! We took a deep breath and made our way to the ticket counter to be rescheduled for the 9:30 flight. Only to add insult to injury, during the now 2 hour wait, I managed to spill an enitre cup of coffee on Heather and sit in the single coldest terminal I have ever been in! But needless to say, it was truly my first European adventure and I am here safely!
This afternoon we had lunch at our first English Pub (which we later found out was one we should steer clear of) and did a little shopping. Overall it was a looooong day, but I all ready have some great stories and experiences.
Hopefully this week I will have a mailing address and some other contact information, but for now feel free to email me or leave a comment. Check back here offten for new posts, pictures, and such.
Cheers,
Justin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)