UK Farewell

Last time we left you we were just arriving in Edinburgh, Scotland. What a magnificent and beautiful city. Korinne and I arrived at the train station which is smack dab in the middle of the city around 9 am. With no place to stay we headed out in search of a hotel or hostel. After discovering that hotel rooms run upwards of $400 a night we decided on a nice five star hostel, a block from the Royal Mile. We dropped off our bags then took off to see the city. The castle is huge and on top of a hill right in the centre of town surrounded by cliffs. There are tons of monuments, statues, and churches in the city and all within walking distance of each other. Princes Street may be the most interesting street with modern shops, hotels, a beautiful city park, and The Scott Monument (a tall, black, gothic style tower). After napping and having a picnic in the park for lunch, we returned to the hostel for a drink and to check in to our room, which thankfully had its own shower. Later on we wandered back around the city streets in search of a pub with live music and found ourselves drawn back to the castle where live music was blaring from (we had seen them setting up for it right outside the castle gates). Unfortunately by the time we made it there, the concert (the band sounded very familiar but we couldn't hear the lyrics clearly) had ended so we followed the crowds of people down the Royal Mile until we found a pub with a 2-man band playing and suprisingly room to sit down. As the place started filling up, people (mostly our parents age) wearing t-shirts from the concert read 'Duran Duran'. It was too bad we missed that but it was a good night nontheless.

Day 2 in Edinburgh was a lot greyer and a lot wetter, it never quite poured but it was constantly drizzling. After wandering through the east part of the city the day before, Friday was dedicated to the west part which is totally different yet equally as insteresting. We stopped and had lunch at this tiny tea house (delicious) then continued on to the Palace of Hollyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament, which is one of the coolest buildings I've ever seen. It's got concrete, brick, wood, and glass making up the outer walls which stick out at various angles and different geometries. Afterwards, with quite a bit of persuasion by myself, we set off to hike the Salisbury Crags (in our flip-flops of course). The crags are literally right next to the palace and are these brilliant green, gradually sloping hills with steep cliffs on the other side. It was definitely worth the climb as the landscape and views of the city are amazing. We then hiked down and ventured back into the city where we made our way up Calton Hill, which has an unfinished Parthenon and other national monuments, as well as more sweeping views over the city. After being in the rain all day we decided to take it easy the rest of the evening. We went to see Harry Potter 6 (best Harry Potter movie yet), ate some dinner, picked up our train tickets for the overnight train we were taking to London, then returned to the hostel to collect our bags.

Day 3 began with a 7 hour train ride to London in "reclining" seats. I managed to sleep a few hours but Korinne wasn't as lucky. We arrived in London at 6:30 AM and not being able to check into our hostel until 10, went in search of a park to pass the time. There we both were, tired, dirty, carrying everything we owned around the streets of London, if I had seen us walking around I would've thought we were a couple of bums. We eventually navigated our way to Regent's Park where we found a nice grassy spot in the sun to make up for our REM sleep deprivation. Around 11 we picked up our stuff and headed to the hostel which was nearby. We checked in to our 6-bed mixed room to discover we were the only ones and hoped it'd stay that way (very wishful thinking). The rest of the day was spent walking around the different areas of London, we started back at Regent's Park where the Queen Mary's Garden has, no joke, over 60 types of roses in huge plots. It was Saturday so we walked down to Notting Hill and through the market on Portobello Road (queue the music from Bedknobs and Broomsticks) where we saw (queue drumroll)... Mickey Rourke looking at antique clocks. After all that excitement we continued on our way to Kensington Gardens where Kensington Palace is (Princess Diana's home) then had a picnic dinner next door in Hyde Park. Having had little sleep the night before we began the long trek back to our hostel, walking up Baker Street (ridiculous amount of clothing stores) and finally down Great Portland Street. We arrived back at our hostel to find we were still the only ones in our room, so we hopped into our bunk bed enthusiastically, preparing for a good nights sleep. At around 2 AM, the door flies open and in walks 4 of what have to be the loudest, most inconsiderate French people ever. I'm not sure if they were drunk or just plain dumb, but they spent no joke 45 minutes unpacking their stuff and getting into bed knowing full well we were trying to sleep.

We woke up the next morning and came face to face with the French invaders. After faking a few smiles (and throwing in a few scowls) we took off to King's Cross Station to catch the tube for Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard at 11. We got there just in time to find that 100,000 other people were running fashionably late as well. We managed to find an okay spot and watched most of the ceremony (not that great but worth seeing once). We wandered over to Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey was closed (Sunday = church day, wtf I'm Jewish). Crossed over Westminster Bridge, walked along the south bank of the Thames until we discovered a Colombian festival where we stopped to watch a 7-man, grammy-nominated band, Cimarron play for about an hour. After lunch we continued east past the Tate museum to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. We were both pretty pooped so we made our way back to the hostel via Victoria Station so we could buy our tickets for the Gatwick Express train for the following morning. After showering and changing in the hostel, we went in search of a local place to eat and found a small Thai restaurant which looked good (best Pad Thai I've ever had, no exaggeration). After dinner we called it a night and went to sleep in preparation for another French onslaught.

The next morning around 6 am we caught the train to the airport then flew to Torino, Italy. Stay tuned next time for part 1 of our Italian adventure.

Love to all,

Kevin