Going to wrap up my Britain experiences, before I have another journey to talk about as well.
York was also home to England’s National Railway Museum, which features a large number of actual trains from the country’s long history of… trains. I forgot to mention that before, but it was still worth mentioning.
From York, we bussed down to London, where we were able to stay with Johnny and his flatmates for three nights. For a number of reasons, we didn’t get to spend that much time with Johnny, but we’ll get to see him back in America, so that’ll be nice.
London’s home to a lot of very big museums, most of which are free, so it was a great opportunity to see a lot of wild and crazy stuff. The British Museum is home to a lot of imperial acquisitions, including the Rosetta Stone, which I was pretty jazzed about seeing.
While in London, we visited Greenwich, birthplace of the Prime Meridian, and GMT. In contrast to the big-city, busy busy feel of London, Greenwich was very pretty. We checked out the National Maritime Museum and The Royal Observatory. Before we left Greenwich, I purchased a compass, which we’ve since discovered is in no way accurate. It’s pretty, but now I’ll never know where North is.
Returning to the city, we saw the standard sights of London, like Big Ben, and Parliament (“Isn’t that Parliament? Isn’t that what they blew up in V for Vendetta?). We took a trip up in the London Eye, which is essentially a giant ferris wheel, except taken much more seriously. It offered a beautiful view of London, from around 130 metres (about 425 feet) in the air.
We also made special trips to Harrods, and Hamley’s, the UK’s biggest toy store. The sheer size of both of them made my head hurt, but good god was it fun to run around.
After London, we bussed our way to Bath, a former Roman city which still contains the ruins of ancient bathhouses. Bath is most well known, it seems, for its connections to the works of Jane Austen, and the image of aristocratic luxury associated with the area. Bonnie and I treated ourselves to breakfast tea in the Pump Room. In the evening, we took in the “Bizarre Bath” tour, which involved no real factual information, but did involve hilarity, and the drowning of a stuffed bunny. It was a strange tour, but a fun one.
Our last stop in Britain was the city of Cardiff, in Wales. Cardiff’s a coastal city, but weather and developing sickness kept us from enjoying it to the fullest extent. As such, we had a great excuse to take it easy on our last few days in Britain. We found an amazing little Indian diner across from our hostel, and spent our last evening eating ice cream in front of a TV, watching episodes of Friends, and a documentary on The Dark Side of Hippos. It was so nice.
In less-than-stellar condition, we returned to Dublin. Bus from Cardiff city centre to Cardiff Airport: 30 minutes. Downtime in Cardiff Airport: 2.5 hours. Duration of flight: 45 minutes. Bus ride from Dublin Aiport to city centre: 1 hour. Bus ride from city centre to UCD campus: 30 minutes. 12 days of traveling proved to be a bit more taxing on our health (and sanity) then expected, but we had an amazing time.
Next up: Amsterdam.