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