Edinburgh: Close Encounters of the Royal Kind

Any visit to Edinburgh, must include Edinburgh Castle, so that is where my adventure starts.  I had tried to start it down at Holyrood Palace, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it...) they were getting it ready for the Queen's arrival. 

Edinburgh Castle

So I happen to be at the Castle at just the right moment, because they were also preparing for the Queen's arrival, but these were preparations that they tourists of Edinburgh could watch.  The Castle was preparing to Greet the Queen and Prince Phillip with a 21 Gun Salute, which I then had a great view of!  Those guns are LOUD!  And there was an awesome little band that played God Save The Queen upon her arrival at the train station.

21 Gun Salute!

So then we take our touristy activities to the next morning and the opposite end of the Royal Mile.  I just happened to be walking down the street (no really) and I came upon people (weird, I know).  Apparently, today is the day that the Queen opens Scottish Parliment!  The Scottish Parliment building, by the way, is the ugliest building ever.  This picture is of probably its best angle...

Scottish Parliment

So I join these people and wait for the Queen to arrive!!  There really weren't that many people because apparently this wasn't advertised, and so since she does this every year, the locals knew, but not many tourists did.  But I was perfectly fine with this, because this meant I was right up against the barricade across the street from the entrace to parliment!  So suddenly, a few of us look up and see a few cars coming out of the Palace gates. What? 

Cars leaving the Palace... I wonder who it could be?

And so we look harder..... And we see the Queen!! Not 10 feet way in her bulletproof car!!!  She is driving up the street to the Queen's Entrance to the Parliment building, so she can go do her speech-y stuff and open Parliment.

The Queen and Prince Phillip!!

So then, after that excitment, we are looking around again, looking for more things/people to take pictures of, and we look up to see:

Two Guys on the roof looking for terrorists.

Two guys on a roof in assault gear with binoculars.....  Ok guys, seriously, I'm not a terroist.


And then we have most of the rest of the Scottish regiments lining the streets, march off somewhere. (I couldn't see where they went...)  I loved the kilts!  And then there were these guys with long bows.  Wait, long bows? YES!  These guys are called the Archers (the Scottish man next to me was so helpful in explaining all of this!) and they are pretty much a ceremonial band.  They have to be asked to become apart of this troupe!  And I believe its a lifelong thing, because the guys in the front, were rather elderly.....

The Queen's Band of Archers

And then came the Scottish First Minister.  You can tell which one is him because he is waving and also because he is the fat one (another lovely explanation from my newfound Scottish friends).  He is how we knew to get our cameras ready for more pictures of the Queen, because obviously if the First Minister has left the building, the program is over..... 

Scotland's First Minister

Unfortunately, a police officer was standing right in front of my view of most of the Queen's procession through the line of Archers, so I pretty much was only able to get this shot of her back. 

The Queen!

And then I went a got some tea.  And where better than the place that Harry Potter sprouted from J.K. Rowling's mind?  Maybe I'll get some inspiration and write a best selling novel! (not likely.....)

The Elephant House

And my adventures in Edinburgh don't end here!  Look for my next installment: A Parade and the Hike that Never Ended!

Cheers!
KM

If at first you don't suceed, try, try again....

So off I went to the West End, to procure Ruth and myself some tickets to something.  Preferably Les Mis, but on arrival at that Theatre, the only tickets they had available were either 50 pound box seats or 10 pound standing tickets, and I was neither going to pay for those box seats nor stand for 3 hours, when I can buy them for much cheaper online for a different day.  Apparently Les Mis doens't do Day Tickets....  So I then went next door, and got two tickets to see Lend Me A Tenor!!  
Goal for Today: Accomplished. 

And now for the rediculously touristy sightseeing!  I started at Westminster Abbey.  This gave me a wonderful break from the thunder storm that had just sprung up out of nowhere!  It is so beautiful inside!  And they still had a lot of displays and information on the Royal Wedding!

Westminster Abbey

 And then a took the tube a few stops down, so that I could walk across the Millenium Bridge.  Why did I want to do this? Well, no reason, I just wanted to....

The Millenium Bridge

 Through the woods and over the bridge, to the Globe Theatre I go!  The Globe just happened to be on the other side of the Millenium Bridge...  I was going to go through the exhibition, but there was a matinee that had just started, so you couldn't actually go into the theatre, which was a bummer, so I'll have to come back another day!

The Globe Theatre

After all of these adventures, I made my way back to the flat, so that I could meet up with Ruth and go to the Theatre!  And Lend Me A Tenor was wonderful!! I highly recommend it to anyone in London that wants to laugh for 2 1/2 hours.  I'd never heard the music before, but it was surprisingly catchy, so I'll probably invest in the soundtrack when it comes out!!

Tomorrow I'll be taking the train from King's Cross up to Edinburgh for my adventure through Scotland!!

Cheers!
KM

Hanging out and watching Wimbledon!!

After recovering from our game of Cricket, a lazy Monday was just what the doctor ordered.  After waking up late, and eating breakfast at more of a brunch time, we proceeded to watch the Murry/Gasquet Wimbledon match at noon! And then the Venus Williams match vs. the girl from Bulgaria... I don't actually remember her name.  And then a bit of Nadals match vs. Del Potro...  So it really was a lazy day of Tennis watching!  All of them were great matches, except Venus's match, because that was just awful.  It was kind of like she no longer cared about being there after her sister lost.... 

But after a bit of Tennis, and then Dinner, Ruth and I headed back to London, so that she could go back to work on Tuesday, and I could go find us some theatre tickets in the morning! 

Tomorrow night, is theatre night!!

Cheers!
KM

Cricket, Pimms, and Nintendo Wii

We started off the day well, by sleeping in!!  But were soon up for breakfast as the sun was actually out! (What happened to England?)  After a bit of lunch and having the rules of Cricket explained to me a few different times, we ajourned to the garden for a friendly game of modified Cricket.  I am offically the worst Cricket player ever.  It doesn't help that I still don't really know what was going on.....  But after a day of Cricket, Tennis, and endless games of Wii, I have come to the conclusion, that children are exhasuting.  Especially when  they are 7 and 10.  Little bunches of energy, that don't seem to ever need naps.  What is that about?  So by about 5pm, we all wanted to go back to sleep again... 
But instead of going to sleep like intelligent people, us "young adults"  stayed up far later than necessary watching The Matrix.  I'd never seen it before!! And let me tell you, as much as it doesn't make sense when you are fully awake, it makes even less sense when you are exhausted....

Tomorrow, back to London and maybe a bit of Tennis watching?

Cheers!
KM

Bath Spa!!!

I think the sign says it all:

The sign at the entrance.

I think a journey to the Roman Baths is completely worth it for anyone interested in Roman history, or history in general.... After paying for entrance, you start out your tour on this balcony overlooking the biggest spa in the entire complex.  This is also one of the few spas that still has water in it.

 From here, you prceed to the mini museum.  And by mini, I mean small rooms that are packed with historical artifacts, so kind of like the British Museum in mini form.....  Most of the artifacts were found by excavating the site over the years.  They have found gravestones, statues, sacrificial alters, and the list goes on.  This picture displays what would have decorated the space above an entrance to a building.  This was particularly cool, because as there are only a few pieces of stone left, they have recreated in black and white what it would have looked like completed and projected it on the remaining stones.  And then they overlay it in color, so we can get an idea of how it would have been painted when the Romans actually lived there.

And then on the way out, you go by the Pump Room.  We were going to try to have tea here after the tour, but the line was out the door and into the next county, so we decided against it and went on to M&S for tea there.



Tomorrow we'll be staying at Ruth's Aunt's house and hopefully have a relatively lazy Sunday!

Cheers!

KM

Everybody needs a bit of down-time....

This morning was heaven!  I woke up at 10am (in stark contrast to yesterday's 6:30am) and lounged around a bit while waiting for lunch time!  Ruth and I then went off in seach of lunch before meeting some friends to go see Bridesmaids in Leicester Square.  Bridesmaids, by the way, is HILARIOUS.  I'm pretty sure we were laughing the entire time.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes we were laughing and cringing at the same time, but laughing none the less.  Ruth had also, the night before, found a theatre in London that was doing a Harry Potter midnight premiere of the movie, so on returning to Ruth's flat, Miriam and I bought our tickets!! SO EXCITED!  I thought I was going to have to wait until the next day, but nope, we got tickets!!  And this is one of those fancy movie theatres that assigns seats and everything, so we are in the rear circle of an IMAX theatre.  And its also 3D, this should be EPIC!!  After cooking a hodge-podge of different things for dinner, Ruth and I have settled onto the couch to watch HP7 part 1 (notice an HP theme?). 
Other than this, today wasn't very touristy.  It was mainly focused on recovering sleep from the last few days, which was very much needed!

Tomorrow, Ruth and I will be traveling to Bath for a daytrip and picking up her little brother on the way!

Cheers!
KM

Wimbledon and "The Queue"

This morning, I woke up at 6:30am to go off to Queue for Wimbledon.  It should be noted that this could seem like a late time to get up to Queue (to those out there that know what i'm talking about) as some poeple (quite a few actually) set up tents and stay there overnight!  But be that as it may, I go off to the underground with about an hour long journey ahead of me.  That is, until the Tube had a power failure on the line to Wimbledon.  Could you think of a worse time during the year for that specific line?  There are only two weeks out of the year where THOUSANDs of people go to Wimbledon everyday, and the power failure had to happen then?!?! Well, as the Tube was no longer feasible means of travel, we were sent off in search of a series of buses.  And by we, I mean about 200 people on the same train as me.  This doesn't count the people on the trains before and after me.... Can you spell nightmare?  Well at any rate, after finally getting on the right buses and about an hour later, we find Wimbledon.  So now, the only obstacle is finding where to enter.  I find a steward, and ask them where to enter the Queue.  They tell me that the entrance to the Queue is in Carpark 10... and I''m next to Carpark 5..... crap.  So a mile down the road and much panicing later, I arrive at Carpark 10 to find a hoard.

Part of the Queue when I arrived. It was hard to capture the entire thing.

But we hurry towards the stewards and they inform us that they haven't reached capacity yet, so we should be in the clear! EXCELLENT!  We are given our Queue Cards and enter the gigantic serpentine line.  There is a reason that when one sees anything about the Wimbledon Queue, it is capitalized.  This is because the Queue is an adventure just by itself.  Apparently, Wimbledon is the only major tennis tournament where people queue up to enter.  When you enter "The Queue"  you are given a "Guidebook" on how to queue.  You also receive a Queue Card that informs you of your Number.  I was number 6247 out of the 7500 they were selling Grounds tickets to.   
You know those people I was mentioning earlier that bring tents and everything?  Well here is a photograph of about 50 tents that had already been set up as of about 10 or 11am, so they could queue for the next day. Now that is dedication.

The line of Tents

Advertisments during the Queue

After about 2 1/2 hours of being in the Queue in the park, our line finally moved!! We exited the park and continued back towards the entrance to the tournament grounds.  After about another 1/2 hour, we finally reached security, and were within sight of the entrance!!  After going through security, and entering the grounds, it about about 12:30, or in other words about 5 hours after I set off on my journey!  I then spent the next five hours happily wandering around Wimbledon, watching tennis, watching people, and just reflecting in the fact that I was actually there.

Nadia Petrova

This was the first match I watched of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v. Nadia Petrova.  I didn't stay for the entire match, so I'm not quite sure who won in the end.







 And then after a stop in the giftshop before it got super busy and having a lovely lunch of some scones and the Wimbledon classic of Strawberries and Cream, I went off to indulge in some more brilliant tennis!

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez

One of the matches I watched for a while was that of Karol Beck v. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.  It was a pretty good competitive match.  So much so, that when Guillermo Garcia-Lopez finally lost, he smashed his racquet on the ground enough to essentially bend it 90 degrees on one side.  What happened to sportsmanship?  Needless to say, the racquet is no longer usable.....

Karol Beck

He had a wicked serve!

This was in warm-ups (obviously, because of the jacket), but this actually ended up being a really exciting competitve match with Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez & Sonchat Ratiwatana v. Sofia Arvidsson & Andreja Klepac.  One side would win one game and then the next one the other.  They usually also got to deuce.  Very exciting to watch!





All in all, I watched about 6 different matches!
Karol Beck v. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
Julien Benneteau & Nicolas Mehut v. Lukas Lacko & Lukas Rosol
Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez & Sonchat Ratiwatana v. Sofia Arvidsson & Andreja Klepac
Marcel Granollers & Tommy Robredo v. Santiago Giraldo & Pere Riba
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v. Nadia Petrova
Iveta Benesova & Barbora Zahlavova Strycova v. Dominika Cibulkova & Petra Kvitova

It was kind of a bummer that I didn't get to see any of the US players still in the running, but Serena Williams did walk right past me on her way back to the Clubhouse.  I was too much in shock, to react quickly enough to get a picture. :(

Tomorrow will be a relaxing day tomorrow! A sleep-in maybe and then off to see Bridesmaids with four other MOHOs!!
Cheers!
KM

Into the Future! (And Beyond....)

As you can see from the following picture, I'm about to enter the time vortex that is Doctor Who.

Me and the Tardis in a time vortex....

You start off by going into the "Experience" where you get to participate in a mini Doctor Who episode! You get to fly the Tardis and you get attacked by Daleks! And Matt Smith as the Doctor is as hilarious as ever! After you finish your mission for the Doctor, you get to go into the Exhibition where there are bunches of props and costumes. Some are from the previous Doctors, but most of the were from the current and last few seasons! Very cool! Possibly the most important of these costumes was one of the suits that David Tennant wore during his tenure as the Doctor!

David Tennant's Costume!!!

Second to this was the Tardis and a rather creepy waxwork of the newest Doctor, Matt Smith!!

A rather creepy lifellike waxwork of Matt Smith and the Tardis!

And then finally, and probably most impressively, you get to see the set of the Tardis used for the 9th and 10th Doctors! (It really is biggeron the inside...) :)

It really is bigger on the inside!!!! :)

Tomorrow I will be venturing out to Wimbledon to hopefully score a grounds ticket!
Cheers!
KM

London is Calling.....

After waking up obscenely early to catch my flight back to London, I arrived Berlin Airport for check-in.  This is were I decided that Berlin Airport is officially my least favorite airport.  Because as nonsensical as I found Dublin Airport, Berlin Airport is down right idiotic.  I arrive as if I'm traveling internationally (which I am), so about 2 1/2 hours early only to find that you can't actually go through check-in and security until they say you can, which is about 1 1/2 to 2 hours before you flight leaves.  So you end up with bunches of people milling about in the entrance to the airport.  Does this sound like a security problem to anybody else?  Because it does to me.  It seems like it would be much safer if you just got everybody through security....  And then once you get through security, they don't tell you what gate you are at, until about 5 minutes before boarding.  So yet again, this leaves people wandering about because no one knows where they are supposed to go.  There are also very few seats around because you are forced to wait in the hallways of the airport, so most people are sitting on the floor.  So then, after another hour, your gate number pops up on the screen and you hurry off to your gate, only to arrive to realize that its 5 minutes to your boarding time, and your plane hasn't arrived yet.  You are then ushered into a room where there are about 30-50 seats for an airplane of 150..... The lucky few that got seats are given dirty looks as the rest of us are standing up and packed like sardines while we watch as 10 minutes later  the plane finally arrives and then another 20 minutes we start to board.... Moral of the story: DON'T fly out of Berlin Airport.

So I finally arrive in London, and I got my stuff back to Ruth's flat, I went off in search of some lunch and then planned on going to the tower of London!  I ended up getting a sandwich to go and went and ate it in the Rose Garden in Hyde Park.  It was beautiful!  Blooms are everywhere! :) 

I then made my way across London to The Tower of London!

Banner Proclaiming the Entrance to the Tower Of London from the Underground

Imposing, isn't it?

The Tower of London

This gate was the main means of transport inside the Prison.  Apparently, they were so afraid that the Ruffians who lived in London would try to set prisoners free and/or steal the provisions of the Tower, that both of these things entered the Tower by boat at the Traitors Gate. (You can kind of see that the Gate is in water.)  I learned this of my Beefeater tour! 

Traitors Gate

I was just walking down the street and then they came.....

Guards Supplied by the Queen to Guard the Crown Jewels

And I followed them to watch their changing of the Guards at the Crown Jewels.  I didn't get any good pictures of that though, so this will have to do.

Tomorrow I'll be going to the Doctor Who Experience!!

Cheers!
KM

Berlin Day 3: The Zoo and the Indecisive Penguin.....

This morning I woke up super happy because I was going to the Zoo.  Ask anybody that knows me, and they will tell you I LOVE the Zoo!  So I started off the day by finding my way to the Zoo train station and then down the street was one of the entrances to the Zoo!

The Zoo Entrance

 So, unlike American Zoos, you don't get a map, you have to buy one.  Fortunately they have about 4 big maps posted throughout the Zoo, but unfortunately those are in German and getting one in English requires finding Information, which I found next to impossible (meaning: I have no idea where is was, even after looking at the map in German).  So I ended up making my way along various paths hoping that I would see all of the different animals eventually.  I was lucky enough that I went at the primo time to see animal feedings! SO CUTE! 

This little (or I should actually say GIANT) guy quickly became my favorite new thing to take pictures of.  He decided to grace us with his presence when there was a zookeeper handing out snacks to the rest of the Orangutans.  Unfortunately he arrived a bit late, and the smaller orangutans had greedily snatched up most of the treats, but even so, he decided to hang around a bit and pose for some pictures.  It should first be said, that when looking in the enclosure, before he started moving, he was laying down and very much resembled a shag rug circa the 1970s.  But then he made his way closer to the fence and you could see that, in fact, he wasn't an enchanted rug, but a big fluffy Orangutan.     

This was the fluffiest Orangutan that I have ever seen.
And I've seen a lot of Orangutans... :)

 The Germans think they are soo clever.....

No shit Sherlock, WE ARE IN BERLIN....

 Only in movies do you actually see bears do this, until NOW! 

He kept doing this, like he wanted pictures taken.
It was SUPER cute!

I wonder what my Mom's response would be to me asking for a bear....



Aren't they usually predator and prey?

Two birds chilling on a rock.

As with all Zoos, it is now time for a section devoted to strange friendships.... well I really only have two pictures that show strange friendships, so here they are. 


The following is possibly the cutest penguin ever.  He just couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to get in the water.   And to make matters worse, he also couldn't decide which rock would be better to jump off of.  I only got a small clip of him doing this, as he had already been fretfully pacing for around 2 or 3 minutes, by the time I got my camera out. I will attempt to upload the video of this when I have better internet!

Adorable Penguin

I will conclude this post with the fretful penguin.
Tomorrow, i'll be saying goodbye to Germany and catching an early flight back to London!
(Which is probably a good thing, because Germany has far too much beer...)

Cheers!

KM

Berlin Day 2: A Bit of History

Item #1: Did anybody know that Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was the most important Concentration Camp in Northern Germany? I sure didn't. Although, don't feel bad that you probably didn't either, because for over 40 years it was "behind the Iron Curtain". Sachsenhausen was apparently the training grounds for the SS officers assigned to every other concentration camp! I'm not quite sure that there are words to describe some of the atrocities we learned about on our tour (or at least none that are in my limited vocabulary), so I'll just let some of the pictures speak for themselves.   

You start off the tour at Gate A:

Arbeit Macht Frei translates to Work Shall Set You Free.

You then make your way past a preserved section of the Neutrale Zone.  I'm not really sure that the German Nazi's knew the definition of Neutral.  If you stepped a foot into this zone, the Germans would shoot you without warning.  Not exactly my idea of neutral. 

The Neutrale Zone

Inside the two Jewish Barracks that are still standing, you can see the 3-tiered bunks that were used.

3-Tiered Bunk Beds

In one of the barracks, you can also see the fire damage from an attempt by Neo-Nazis to burn down the remaining Jewish Barracks about 10 years ago.

Fire Damaged Jewish Barracks

This quote was at the entrance to Station Z.  This was the facility that the Nazi's used to streamline the murder that they committed on a daily basis.  Apparently the Nazi's believed that if you entered the camp via Gate A (aka the beginning of the alphabet), you should only leave through Station Z (the end of the alphabet).  For the most part, Station Z no longer exists. The foundation is pretty much the only bit left because the Russian's blew it up after they stopped using Sachsenhausen as their own POW camp in the 60's.

Quote from Andrzej Szczypiorski, who was a prisoner of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.

We also went through the pathology building, but I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of that.
Behind the infirmary building were 6 mass graves.  These graves represented the 300 people in the infirmary that were unable to be saved after Sachsenhausen was liberated April 22, 1945. 

With this, our tour ended, and all of us walked quietly to the bus that would be taking us back to the train station.  Upon arriving back in Berlin, Katie and I made our way to the main train station, where Katie hopped a train back to Leipzig, and once again, I'm on my own....

On a happier note, I'll be going to the Berlin Zoo tomorrow!

Cheers!
KM

Berlin Day 1: The Touristy Stuff....

After waking up early this morning, to ensure us catching the train, Katie and I set off to Berlin! We arrived around noon and dumped our stuff off at the hostel. Puzzle of the day number 1: How to use the public transportation system of Berlin... If you haven't been here, you can't possibly imagine how strangely intricate the entire system is. You have the S-bahn lines, the U-bahn lines, the Regio lines, the trams around the city, the buses around the city, and then the normal trains that are at all of the city's train stations. (Of which, they have about 4 or 5) In addition to to all of these lines, all of the stations are multi-story and some of the escalators will get you to some platforms and some to others. Of course, this is completely dependent on whether or not you have found the right line to begin with. Another thing is the way that you buy tickets for all of these lines. It's one ticket for all of them, and you have to validate it by stamping it before you get on the trains. And you may, or may not have your ticket checked. But after finding a map and figuring out a plan of attack, Katie and I set off for probably the most famous tourist attraction in Berlin since 1989, the Berlin Wall.

Memorial Chunk of the Wall

Cool piece of Art along the Wall.

Or at least, whats left of it. 

The Brandenburger Tor

There is only about 1.3 km left of the wall still standing in its original position. And that 1.3 km is now an art gallery full of sanctioned politically based wall murals and some unsanctioned graffitti. Very cool!

Reichstag

After this an a well timed lunch, we trek back to the hostel to completely check in to our rooms and settle a bit. Then we head out again to the famous TV tower of Berlin, where we deemed the line far to long to wait in, and head back out, this time to the Tiergarten.

The Holocaust Memorial

The Tiergarten is this lovely garden surrounded by the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, various war memorials, and the Holocaust Memorial.

The US Embassy

(Not to mention, the US Embassy....) 


After a few on/off rain showers, Katie and I decide that we are yet again hungry, and we set off in search of a classic German meal of sausage, potatoes and saurkraut! After this satisfying meal (I'll probably weigh 300lbs by the time I leave this country!), we decide to crash early as we have a pretty busy morning tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Katie and I are off to see the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial!

Cheers!
KM