Sleeping In the Airport: Stansted

Stansted is famous for being a local budget airline hub. As such, hundreds of flights daily go in and out of this medium sized airport carting thousands of budget travelers to and fro around Europe. As such, this airport caters to overnight guests. There are lots of flights leaving before 8 AM and as such, it’s a tempting option to stay at the airport rather than booking at a local hotel or hostel in London as...

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Spending the Night on a Towel on a Concrete Floor

For those of you who didn’t know, I will be spending the next two weeks on a quick tour of the west coast of the Balkan peninsula. If you have no idea what that is, click here to read the wikitravel article for a bit of background. I will be starting in Zadar croatia and working my way slowly down the coast by bus through Bosnia & Herzegovinia, Montenegro and Albania before arriving in Greece.

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Finding Myself Re-evaluating my Position on London

I woke up at Rachel’s at 1 PM incredibly refreshed. I hadn’t slept on a bed that nice, or for that long since Valencia (almost 2 months prior) and I had my favorite kind of plans laid out for the day: none. And I started enacting that plan promptly. I walked to the grocery store to pick up some items, turned on VH1 on Sky and dumped the entire contents of my backpack out onto...

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London. And Pulling Myself Out of My Rut.

I've always hated London. I've only been about a half dozen times, so it's not really fair for me to be so negative about it. But I really didn't like the place any time I'd been before. So I wasn't exactly excited to be there. My plane got in late. About 11:00 PM. Then I had to catch the train out about 30 minutes away to get to the house that had been so GRACIOUSLY offered up by a friend while...

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The Bells were Ringing out on Christmas Day

Location: London, England, UK

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Ours has been a VERY relaxing one. We slept in this morning and started our day with a little Gone with the Wind and then a HUGE brunch at the Hilton complete with Mimosa's, every kind of meat imaginable, mince pie, bacon wrapped sausage, pralines, a truffle tree and raspberry cheesecake; not to mention all of the things I didn't get a chance to try. At each table, we had a little box present and a Christmas popper which contained balloons, a paper hat, confetti, those firework poppers and a little present. I got measuring cups :) Everyone in the restaurant was letting the poppers off, blowing up the balloons and then letting them go and fly and it was so loud and fun! Before the end of the meal, we were all covered in confetti and gifts. Santa also brought us some magic markers, but he made me and Andrea share because he said we were too old to be getting our own!!

After a quick rest, we jogged down to Kensington garden where we got some fantastic pictures of the sunset. There were these two swans swimming in the Spanish ponds that kept following us around and we got a lot of pictures of them as well. We walked in the dark to Prince Albert's Memorial which was huge and all lit up. We took a cab back to the hotel where we watched the end of the African Queen. Dinner tonight was at a very cute little Italian restaurant who had the most amazing tortellini. We're calling it another early night because we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow. The family is heading back to Tulsa and I am off to mainland Europe. It's also Boxing Day here in the UK which is a holiday that was originally started as a holiday where gifts are given to the poor. The name originates from the fact that on Christmas, collection boxes are sent around churches and then the next day, the "boxes" are divided and passed out. Now, its basically a huge day when no one has to work and everyone shops, so we think it's going to be quite busy around town.

Anyways, Merry Christmas again!! I'll try to get pictures up as soon as possible. I know I'm a couple days behind.

XOXO

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Now playing: Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas
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With all our Tricks we're making Christmastime

Location: London, England, UK

After I last updated, we found a fantastic little corner pub right next to our hotel called the Sussex Arms Pub. We knew we were going to like it after the first Guinness that my dad bought had a four leaf clover drawn on the top of it in the foam. It was a really cute little local place and by the time we got there, most of the people were quite toasted. By the end of the night it was like a group karaoke session. We were singing songs like "That's Amore" and doing pub-wide cheers to Christmas!! It was really fun.

This morning we woke up early to start sight seeing, hoping that we would be able to do tours in the globe theater, tower of London and the Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, all three of them were closed. We went to the globe theater first which was Andrea's favorite part. She was really involved in drama in high school so I think she had a little more personal attachment than the rest of us. The theater was very cool to look at though. After that, we went to St. Paul's cathedral, which is the one that Princess Diana got married at. My dad says that this is the location of every Royal wedding and funeral and we could see why. The building was huge and looked more appropriate as a state capital building than a cathedral.

We took the tube to the tower of London, hoping that we would be able to walk around inside, but unfortunately they were closed for the day. We walked around the outside and down towards the Tower Bridge and took a lot of pictures. The water was beautiful and the weather was nearly perfect. The sun kept peeking out from behind the clouds but remained behind enough for us to get perfect lighting for our photos.

After this we took the tube to the Westminster Abbey which was... surprise... closed. We walked around the outside and down around parliament which was just as amazing as the first time I saw it about a week ago. We decided to start heading back to the hotel to get ready for Christmas. We went to Harrods to get a couple board games to play tonight and to grab some food. The store was HUGE. There was this wonderful Egyptian staircase that ran through the center of the entire store with carvings on the escalators and hieroglyphics on the walls. Our favorite area of the store (besides the jewelry department... duh) was the toy store. There was the amazing snow (that we made my mom buy) that was a powder that turned to real snow when you added water to it. Like real wet cold feeling snow. I have no idea how it works, but it was amazing. Don't worry, we're bringing some home :)

After Harrods, we tried to make it down to Buckingham palace but it was getting dark too early so we headed home to start decorating for Christmas (My parent's don't know we did this yet so don't tell :) We hung stockings and Christmas lights and tinsel in our room and put candy and stocking stuffers in the little stockings. It's nothing special but we wanted to make sure it at least felt somewhat homey in our little Abbey court hotel room.

I put a picture up of our little home away from home :) After that break, we went to eat at a corner pub and have been sitting there since then. We actually left the parents there to come here and check email and update the blog, so I probably should get back to them; who knows what kind of trouble they are getting into without us!!

Anyways, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas Eve!! We enjoy all of the wishes and blessings you guys have sent to us on the message board and I appreciate all of you following along!!

I hope everyone has a safe holiday and I love you all!!

XOXO

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Now playing: Amy Grant - The Night Before Christmas
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Where you go, is where I want to be

Location: London, England, UK

Today was all train rides. We woke up relatively early to have breakfast and then get on the 10:30 train back to London. One thing I have realized is that travelling in groups over 2 people without reservations on a train is a BAD idea. It's just really hectic trying to find seats together and, expecially during the holiday season, its impossible to find someplace to put your luggage. I ended up tying my backpack to a luggage compartment and just letting it hang from the top because I couldn't find any other place to put it.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. We passed through almost all of England, through fog, rain, snow and ice. The only thing that was really noteworthy was when we passed through a town called Preston, England. See, I had a dream about 2 years ago, and the image from above was in my dream. I'm not sure if I had seen a picture previously, or if I was somehow pre-installed with this stock image, but I have seen this before; and as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly where that deja vous was stemming from.

Not sure if you signed up for tagging along for my philosophical divulgance into chicken before the egg, but unfortunately (or fortunately) for you, when you signed up to follow my physical journey, you also signed up to follow the emotional and spiritual development that I am sure to experience while I am over here. Consider yourself blessed to catch a glimpse at my inner workings ;)

All for now. We have arrived in London and checked into our hotel the Abbey Court in Hyde Park for the evening. We had some pizza and bruschetta at an Italian restaurant chain called "Ask" and now we are off to have a pre-bedtime brewsky at a local pub. Tomorrow will be busy, but at least it seems to be a little bit warmer here!!

XOXO

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Now playing: Dave Matthews Band - Where Are You Going?
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Cold was invented here

Location: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

After we arrived in Edinburgh, we spent a lot of time walking around and getting our bearings in the new town. We ended up at a cute little restaurant on Rose Street where we met a nice old man who showed us exactly where to go for some good authentic Lothian food. After having a nice meal (cranberry and brie stuffed bread... yum) we went to a local pub which had no name on the corner of York Place (which was the street our cute little hotel was on).

After a good nights sleep we went on a day full of running around. We started at Edinburgh castle which was so interesting. We did an audio tour so we could really learn about the history of the place. The things I remember the most about it were the dog cemitary (which was soooo cute) and the part about the Hanoverian horses. The castle itself was HUGE and we kept getting lost. We even got the chance to go into this really neat tower that was destroyed in some war in the 1500's but it has since been excavated and the rooms are still in tact. It's incredible to think that people actually lived here at some point. Of course, it was drizzling the whole time we were there, so it was a little chilly, but definitely a good experience.

After that we went to this all boys school called George Hariot's School. It's an active school so you can't actually go inside, but the buildings are incredible. After this, we walked back to little internet cafe called the Elephant Room which is the cafe where J K Rowling wrote the first edition of the first Harry Potter. It was a cute little cafe and they had great tea.

Afterward, we went to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the accompanying park which was my favorite part. The Palace is the place where the Queen goes to stay whenever she is visiting Scotland. The front gate was so beautiful and the palace itself was lie something out of your imagination. There were also some cute old houses in the park that you know had been there forever. We took a cute old cab back to the train station (it looked like a PT cruiser but older and way cooler - and it had fold down seats; 5 people could sit in the back seat facing each other). From here, we took a train to Leuchars where St Andrew's golf course is (the course where the British Open Gold Tournament is and the place where golf was invented). It was beautiful. The golf course was SOOO cold but it was really cool. We found the place where Van Der Velde shot the ball into the water on the 18th and ended up climbing in to shoot it out and blew his shot at the British open championship title. It was really interesting. Strange though because we got to just walk right out on the course. There were no boundaries or fences, it was just a public course, right off the road.

After we got back to Edinburgh, which took about an hour, we went to a really neat little restaurant in Old Town called Doric. It was a really cool little pub right off the main street. You could see the Ferris wheel, Sir Walter Scott's monument and the ice skating rink in the Loch from the front door. The food was also fantastic. We had a conversation inside about how we had always heard that Scottish, and all British food for that matter, left something to be desired, but this food was amazing. We had fish and chips where the breading on the fish literally melted in your mouth. The fish fell apart on your fork as you were trying to pick it up. After dinner we had this amazing desert with poached pear, in a raspberry sauce with clementine and starfruit slices on a scoop of vanilla cinnamon ice cream from the local dairy. Needless to say, mom had to command me and Andrea to not lick the plate because it was so good, and believe me... we wanted to.

Afterward, we headed back to the corner pub for one last local brew before heading to bed. Tomorrow, the train takes us back to London. I guess I'll give it a second chance!

XOXO

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Now playing: David Gray - Babylon
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