Paragliding

I was going to let Ewen put this up on his blog but he's taking too long so here it is. The fantastic paragliding adventure!

Back in London town

We leave for Scotland tomorrow so i thought i better catch you all up on our time in London the past few days. We got back to Nell & Simon's place at about lunch time on Monday and were relieved to finally have a nice hot shower after our past 3 days of either staying somewhere with no shower at all or having the option of boiling hot/freezing cold water. We spent that afternoon unpacking and relaxing.
On Tuesday we met up with Lisa who Ewen used to work with at Centrelink. we went to the Angel pub in Islington for lunch. After that we did a little shopping in Islington and i got another jumper to add to my small winter collection of clothes.
On Wednesday we went to Camden market. We walked along the canal from Islington to get there and it was a really nice walk. i hadn't realised there were houseboats here in London but there are. you could easily have thought you were in Amsterdam walking along the canal past dozens of house boats. they were a lot narrower than the ones in Amsterdam but still definitely house boats that people live in. The market was amazing i loved it. We spent about 4 hours walking around the different sections, the highlight was the Rave shop which was 3 levels of rave gear. they even had dancing platforms up above the customers on the top floor with a dancer on each platform and music pounding away just like in a nightclub, i have no idea how the people work in there everyday, they must wear earplugs.
On Thursday James arrived so we were up early to meet him at the train station and then spent most of the day showing him around to some of the sights. we went to the Tower bridge, had a look at the outside of HMS Belfast (too expensive to go on board), Borough market, Buckingham Palace (from the outside, its only open to tourists in summer). we also saw the changing of the guard which wasn't as impressive as i thought it would be. We did get to see three different types of guards though. I'm not sure of the correct names for each group but i will describe them as blue ones, fuzzy hat ones and gold hat ones. The amount of people was crazy and because we only got there just as it arrived we didn't get to see much but still managed to get some good photos. That night we had some drinks at Filthy MacNastys pub and then dinner at a different pub.
On Friday we met up with Andrew at the National gallery in Trafalgar Square (which they were beginning to fence off in preparation for putting up the Christmas decorations i cannot wait to see those!!!) and he gave us lots of ideas for places to go in Scotland then he had to go back to work. We had a quick walk around the gallery and then went to Covent Garden for lunch and a little bit of shopping. After that we wen to the British Museum which was good, we got some great photos of some of the different things on display. Once we had all achieved museum fatigue we walked to Leicester square and went to the movies, we saw Easy A which was OK. it had some funny parts but wasn't as good as i thought it would be. Then we went to a pub for dinner and drinks.
And that brings me to today which is Saturday. We spent most of today at Portabello market in Notting Hill. this is the second time me and Ewen have been there but I'm thinking i still want to go to back once more before we fly home. This time i got a couple of prints, one of a pug dog which is very cute. I also got a necklace, the same one i used to have years ago and loved and was devastated when it broke so i was very happy to find the same one today! I also got a couple of cheapo tourist magnets to add to my massive collection.

*I have run out of space on my blog to add in photos but i purchased more space, it's going to take a couple of days to go through though so keep checking back for all my photos from the past week*

Oxford

Oxford was a nice town with stunning buildings and people walking around in those black robes with the coloured sashes just like in the movies. I was put in a bad mood our first day though because it is a shocking town to drive in. you would think that a town full of academics could devise a better traffic system than the one they currently have in place.
Something Oxford does do well is museums. We went to two museums the first one was the Natural History museum where we got to pat some ponies and badgers, wallabies and cheetahs. they also had rocks that were pretty ancient, some were nearly 4 million years old and you were allowed to touch these. it surprised me how hands-on this museum was, i liked it. it made it much more interesting. they had displays of lots of different animals, both taxidermied and in skeleton form. We only looked through one floor of this museum as we had lots to do and not much time to do it all in.

T-Rex skeleton at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Ewen getting friendly with the local wildlife

A reindeer skeleton amongst others

Ewen and a badger

Next up was the Pitt Rivers museum, this museum was attached to the Natural History museum but was about 1000% more bizarre. The museum consists of three levels of things that a guy called Pitt Rivers collected during his travels from all over the world. This museum had pretty much everything you can think of on display including games from all over the world, magical items, tools, musical instruments, photos, weapons, clothes, statues, shrunken human heads (yep!) books, manuscripts, skulls, cooking utensils, etc. I just read that the collection of Pitt Rivers consisted of 18,000 items but now there are half a million items on display many of which were donated by other explorers and anthropologists.

This was in the Pitt Rivers museum. It was used for some kind of throwing game

A shrunken head in the Pitt Rivers museum

A fan with actual stuffed birds stuck on it

We went to Balliol college which was pretty. we saw a couple of students wandering around with hockey sticks. they also had two gargoyles one of a student sticking its tongue out while it took notes and one of a teacher reading from a book.

Balliol college

The next college we went to was Christ Church. this is one of the most popular colleges to visit in Oxford probably because some of the Harry Potter movies were filmed here. We went into a chapel, a hallway and a food hall (i think this is the room they used in the movies). Going to the colleges was very interesting but kind of annoying that you have to pay to get in and then are only allowed in a couple of rooms (at Balliol we couldn't go into any rooms) and maybe a quadrangle.

Me at Christ Church college

Ewen in the hall at Christ Church college

The last college we went to was Magdalene college. This college has gargoyles that were used as the inspiration for the stones statues in the Chronicles of Narnia. Also Oscar Wilde went to this college. They had a paddock of deer just behind the college.

Magdalene college

Deer at Magdalene college

Wales

We detoured into Wales for one night. On the way to Monmouth (where we stayed) we stopped at Tintern Abbey. There is a whole story behind why the abbey is in such bad condition these days but I'll let Ewen write about that when he does his blog. all you need to know from me is that it was fascinating to walk through the abbey and that occasionally you can still see where they had shelving or an oven or a fire place. in the entire building there were originally only three buildings where fires could be lit and monks were only allowed in one of these rooms to huddle around the fire and try to get warm.
We drove on to Monmouth and spent the afternoon walking around the town and then had a pub dinner. Our hotel was above a pub and we had a nice room with wifi, a TV and an ensuite BUT our bathroom only had a very very small bath and no shower. how do people cope without showers???????

You've got to love the Welsh language

Tintern Abbey

Ewen at Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey

Beautiful Tintern Abbey

Me at Tintern Abbey

Our hotel in Monmouth

Ewen on a bridge in Monmouth

Monmouth

Ewen's Welsh burger

My Welsh fish & chips

Exmoor National Park

We arrived in Exford (a town in Exmoor National Park) without any accommodation booked but luckily found something pretty easily even if it was a little out of our price range. we spent two nights here in luxurious comfort, i even got to have a bath (usually the baths are way too dirty and old and gross to even consider this) after our big day of sightseeing. Our first day we didn't arrive until the afternoon so after checking in we went to the tea room next door and had the most delicious apple juice of our lives. they make it fresh in the region (we ended up getting a few to take away over our time in Exford). we also had jacket potatoes and warm scones with butter. That night we had a bit of confusion, when we checked in the receptionist told us that if we wanted to eat there we had to book a table so we did this thinking we were booking a table for the pub, turned out we had booked a table in the super fancy restaurant and it took us way to long to realise the prices were nearly double what they were in the pub. we had sat there too long and already drank the free water on our table (we hoped it was free anyway) and were too embarrassed to leave so we ended up having nice but expensive steaks for dinner. afterwords we retreated into the pub where we felt much more comfortable.
The hostel was great but we were the youngest people there by about 40 years, it was interesting to watch and listen to the other people staying there, they all seemed to be there to hunt.
The next day we went on a drive to heaps of different places. we saw a couple of cool bridges, a waterfall, a castle (from the outside because it was closed), we saw lots of wild ponies when we drove to the seaside and we saw heaps of pheasants (including one that we accidentally hit with the car). pheasants are the most annoying animals in existence. they stand at the side of the road and just as your about to pass them slowly wander out onto the road in front of your car. at first this was funny but after about 10 times of this happening you quickly find it less and less funny and more and more annoying.
Our full day of sightseeing was incredible, the moors were beautiful and the rainy weather meant i got to use my leopard print umbrella. We had dinner in the pub that night and the next morning left for Wales. 

Our hotel

A very cool bridge in a beautiful area

The river running under the bridge

Stopping to check out the view

Another stop for a walk and a look at the views

Ewen practicing for his theater career when we get home

Me at a waterfall

Ewen at the sea side

Wild ponies in Exmoor

Another stop because we saw this giant cow from the road

Pretty pretty rainbow

Another stop to look at the lush countryside

Walking in the freezing cold

Sheep on the side of the road

Bath town

We stayed at St Christopher's Hostel in Bath which was a nice laid back place to stay. The dorm rooms weren't as nice as the ones in Paris but you still got a locker each and super cheap hot breakfasts so we loved it. We also had a yummy dinner in their restaurant our first night in Bath AND they had midori so i was happy to stay put for the whole two days. However we managed to drag ourselves away from the hostel to see the Roman Baths, there was a lot more to see than i thought there would be. It's not just a giant Bath, its a whole underground system and lots of artifacts that have been dug up as well as skeletons of Romans and included in the price is a glass of the ancient Roman spring water which was disgusting and very warm.
We spent the rest of our time in Bath walking around the streets and browsing through the shops. We saw the Circus and the Royal Crescent which are architectural areas. The Circus is a group of buildings that look like a key from above and the Royal Crescent which according to my google research is one of the worlds best known landmarks (although i didn't know about it until i was in Bath).

Ewen's big English breakfast

Roman Bath

Crazy face reconstruction

Me at the Roman Baths

Ewen drinking special Roman water

Ewen on a bridge in Bath

Ewen in Bath at the Royal Crescent

Searching for hedgehogs

Stones in England

I was really looking forward to Stonehenge but when we first saw it driving up the highway i was disappointed that the rocks were so small (they're not really small i just expected bigger) but then once you get out of the car and walk over to the stones (well as close as you're allowed to get) they are incredible. I loved Stonehenge. It is amazing to think that people moved the stones there for some reason that must have been very important to them. Also Ewen informs me that the stones came from Wales originally so they carted those stones a freaking long way even by todays standards! To top all of this off we got in for free because Nell and Simon lent us their National trust cards. If you're in the area go and see Stonehenge it's great. It's interesting even to see how highways go straight past it one is less than 100m from the main circle and one of the stones that's  a little away from the circle is right next to the highway.
After Stonehenge we went to Avebury which is a tiny little town not far from Stonehenge that has its own collection of ancient random stones dotted around the town. Avebury was cool in a completely different way to Stonehenge, it was less touristy and you could go right up the stones but it lacked the impressiveness of Stonehenge.  We had a pub lunch and after a couple of pit-stops went to Bath.

Me at Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Ewen at Avebury

Me in Avebury

Cute cottage house with thatched roof

Ewen's big pub lunch

Pit stop to go for a swing

Horse