Big Adventures, Little World

Mark, Sam, Katie and I went for a drive out of London to go to Lego Land in Windsor. Katie wasn’t too thrilled about going, but we all knew she secretly enjoyed it, and Mark, Sam and I were extremely excited having grown up playing with Lego. We got there early morning and were instantly amazed by everything being made from Lego. It is set out over 150 acres and has nearly 55 million Lego pieces throughout the park.

I think that the coolest part of the whole place though was Lego Miniland, which has landmarks from around Europe and the USA, and compromises over 40 million of the 55 million bricks throughout the park. It includes scenes from around London like Big Ben, the London Eye, Wembley Stadium, Trafalgar Square & Buckingham Palace, plus many more. Some of the other models it has are NASA and a space shuttle, the Sacre Coeur in France, the Moulin Rouge, Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, ABBA playing a concert in Sweden, the town of Verona in Italy and many, many more. I think me, Mark and Sam spent nearly 2 hours walking around Mini Land, and Katie was bored after she had quickly scanned over it all and sat down and waited for us to be amazed by every bit of it, and spending half the time saying we had been to many of the places featured.

Throughout the day we even managed to go on a few rides, although they were mainly focused around being for kids, we still had fun, and it was more the fact of seeing everything and being there that was enjoyable for us. We also got to see a 4D movie of the Lego hero Clutch Powers. It went for about 20 minutes and was in 3D with the 4^th dimension being water and smoke coming out at you in time with those occurrences in the movie. I think we must have looked like the biggest big kids through the day, taking photos of everything and going on the rides. I think between Mark, Sam and I we took over 1200 photos. We loved it, and didn’t get home until about 7pm that night. A long and fun day, except for Katie, but we knew she really did enjoy it.

After a month of pretty solid travelling it was good to be back in London and able to rest for a couple of weeks before heading off on my next adventure, though resting wasn’t really on the cards with the house filling up with visitors. First of all Katie came to visit from Kent since moving there not long before. We hung out for a few days before she was off to Paris. While Katie was visiting, Tania and Ross also came to visit for a few nights. The first night they were there, Dung Tania and Katie went out while Ross and me stayed at home and drank the 1 litre bottle of Jameson Signature Reserve that he had brought duty free with him, and then proceeded to order two 15 inch pizzas and pretty much finish them off as well with a token effort from Kate. Not a bad effort for one night.

Over the next few days, Mark & Sam returned from their Contiki tour, Luke arrived from Adelaide, and Katie came back from Paris, so once again we had a very full house. It was starting to seem more like a hostel! It didn’t bother us though, it was good always having people visit and made us not miss home. Since we had all these people in London, we decided to take them out for the day so off we went to take them around the Camden Markets. We wandered around, got some food and checked out some of the other shops around the place before heading back home for the day.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival had started a couple of days before we arrived, so the city’s atmosphere was electric. There were people everywhere, and stages setup around the city and people performing everywhere. It was great. We booked tickets to go see Jimeoin that night, and Kate and I got dropped off to go pick up the tickets while Bel and Dung went to park the car. Kate and I made our way down the Royal Mile, which is the main street in Edinburgh, and there thousands of people. There were people handing out flyers, street performers, people gathered around watching all the different performers, and people just walking the streets to see what was going on. We picked up our tickets then made our way to the ‘The Udderbelly’ where Jimeoin was playing. It was a stage with a giant inflatable upside down cow with all its udders showing, hence Udderbelly. The show was pretty funny, and it was really good to be able to see Jimeoin live, after only ever seeing him on TV before. After the show we just wandered the streets and checked out some of the other venues, all of them packed with people and having this really cool atmosphere, similar to the Adelaide Fringe at home, but on a much larger scale.

We decided to go on a walking tour with New Europe Tours again as they have them in Edinburgh as well, so we made our way to the meeting point in the morning. It was so huge, there was over 100 people there and they had to separate everyone into about 5 groups. I guess because the Fringe was on there was a lot more tourists around that wanted to do the tour. I thought at the start that our tour guide wasn’t going to be that good but she really got into and was one of the best I have had on the tours. She took us to Edinburgh Castle, St Giles’ Cathedral, The Royal Mile, Mercat Cross, Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetery) and Greyfriars Bobby, Site of Witch Burnings, The original ‘Hogwarts’ building, National Museum, Tron Kirk & The Scottish Enlightenment and finished off with a story of how the Scottish Stone of Destiny was stolen back from Westminster Abbey in England to be returned to Scotland by four Scottish students on Christmas Day in 1950. After the tour our tour guide took us to a pub for lunch where we all tried haggis. Surprisingly though it wasn’t too bad. It tasted kind of like a spicy sausage and was served with gravy like sauce and mashed potato. I’d definitely try it again.

That night we went out on the New Europe Pub Crawl and went to a few different bars and finished up at a club getting free drinks along the way. I think the best part of the night though was at the 2^nd bar we had Jaegerbombs and had a Jaeger Train of them all setup along the bar. (For those of you on Facebook you may have already seen it). There were about 40 of them lined up along the bar in a snaking train and it was awesome watching them all fall into the drinks. The rest of the night we just danced and partied, and even went to an Australian pub where we had Twisties and Burger Rings that one of the other Australians on the pub crawl had bought at the pub. It was great fun for our last night in Edinburgh before we headed back to the room and as we lay in our beds, talked and laughed about how shit the hostel was, and at the same time pissed everyone else off in the room. It wouldn’t have happened if they had just given us the 4 person room like they were supposed to.

We had one more thing to do in Edinburgh before leaving that night and that was go to Edinburgh Castle and go inside and see it all for ourselves, not just the outside of it like on the walking tour. So we made our way off in the morning to do that, after finally getting showers at the hostel as they had got the water back on. We made our way up to the castle, climbing all the stairs, and the sight from the top was just as spectacular from below. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo was also on because of the Fringe and had a big arena and stands setup outside the castle for when this was being performed. We went into the castle and wandered through checking everything out that we could, and even went to the building where they have the Crown Jewels kept. So we went through there, even though it took nearly half an hour just to wander through there because of all the people and tight corridors. They were pretty impressive though, with crown and sceptre as well as a huge sword. It also made it more fascinating knowing some of the stories that we had been told the day before on our walking tour, but there was so much information that went with them at the castle as well, like how they had been lost for over 100 years at one point before being rediscovered. We looked through most of the castle and before long it was time for us to drive back to Glasgow to catch our flight back home, and for our little holiday to come to an end. Edinburgh was an amazing city, and I can’t wait to get back there and see some more of it and do everything we missed out on doing, and especially would love to go back for the Fringe again but have more plans on going to see a range of shows as well.

The next morning we were up nice and early to catch the plane to Glasgow in Scotland. Not only were we going to Scotland, but we were also meeting Kate and Dung as well! Bel and I had organised a hire car once we got to Glasgow so we picked it up and went off for a drive to find our hotel. Eventually we found it after trying to navigate our way through the crazy roads they have and numerous one way streets. The hotel was a nice little place on the edge of the city so we got organised, sat down for a bit then jumped back in the car to go get the girls from the airport. We found them then back to the hotel it was before we got some food and drinks then went down the street to find a few bars. The first one we went to was setup like a frat house from the US so we sat in there for a while had some cheap drinks and ate some curly fries. Yum! After a while we headed off and made our way down the street stopping at a number of different bars and having a drink at each. Glasgow wasn’t too exciting and there wasn’t really much to do around where we were staying, so we headed back to the hotel about 1AM.

We were leaving Glasgow in the morning and making our way to Edinburgh, and as we had a car, we decided to stop on the way, or out of the way, at Stirling Castle. Stirling Castle incorporates a number of different buildings all from different periods of time, with some parts being there since the 1300’s. It is really beautiful and the gardens surrounding are really beautiful as well, along with some of the views out over the Scottish Highlands.

We were on the road again after Stirling Castle on our way to Edinburgh where we had to find somewhere to park the car and find our hostel to check into. When we got there we were put in an 8 person dorm instead of a 4 person dorm like we had booked, but there was nothing that they could do about it. Not only this, but there was no water to the hostel either, which was supposedly going to be fixed that afternoon. As it turned out it wasn’t, and then it was going to be the next day, and then the next night before it was finally fixed the morning we left. All in all, it was a pretty dodgy hostel, but made for an interesting story and we still had fun regardless.

Dublin was pretty awesome. It’s not a huge city, and everywhere is quite accessible by walking around, and being used to walking that we were after all the walking we had done throughout Europe, we walked. We were staying in the Temple Bar which is full of pubs and clubs with a lot of live music being played at many of them. It has a really awesome atmosphere, with people all around the streets, and buskers, and then the music coming from all the different pubs.

Our first day we went wandering a bit, and figured out what we wanted to do for the next couple of days and booked a few things online before finding our hostel. We were starting to get pretty hungry, so we found a place to eat where we had Irish beef burgers in an Irish restaurant. We had a really good waiter who even gave us some tips on where to visit so we went off and for a bit more of a wander through the city and then onto the Old Jameson Distillery where we got a tour and then a taste of Jameson whiskey as well. The tour is really interesting and there is quite an extensive process that goes into making the whiskey. After the tour we tried Jameson with cranberry juice and lime, which was surprisingly quite nice, and then we headed down to one of the other bars where we had Irish coffee (coffee with a shot of Jameson’s) and a Jameson Hot Chocolate which is just a normal hot chocolate with a shot of Jameson as well. They were delicious, though quite strong, which we weren’t really complaining about.

Our next day started with going on the Viking Splash Tour http://www.vikingsplash.ie/, which was recommended to us by our Irish cook Mark on the Topdeck Tour. I am so glad we did it as well. It was hilarious and so much fun. To begin with, once we got onto the bus/boat, we all had Viking helmets to wear, and then were told that as we were driving around we would do Viking roars as we drove past tourists (people looking lost with maps), tour groups, and the hop on/off buses that drive around Dublin. So whenever the driver would see anyone from these categories, he would count to 3, then everyone on the bus/boat would let out a loud roar towards them. For someone that isn’t a local, I am sure they would be wondering what the hell is going on! To tour went through the old Viking parts of the city with our driver pointed out different sights along the way. We even saw the president’s horse drawn carriage going through the streets for some reason. It then took us out on to the Grand Canal Basin, which links the Grand Canal to the River Liffey before heading back through the city to the starting point to drop us of. It really was a unique experience and very entertaining and also informative. Such a great way to see some of the sights in Dublin.

In the afternoon we visited the Guinness Storehouse, which is now a museum about the history of Guinness beer and how it is made. The building itself is in the shape of a giant Guinness glass and is 7 levels high. You make your own way around taking as much time as you want and finding out the history and processes of how Guinness is made. Included in the tour was a free pint of Guinness, which you had the option of pouring yourself. We did this, and now we have certificates to say we have poured the perfect Guinness pints. On the 7th level there was another bar, and surrounded by glass it gave some beautiful 360 degree views of Dublin city. The place was packed full of people though so we headed back down, and back to the hostel. We headed out around the temple bar area for a few drinks at a few different pubs and heard some live music. Some of the pubs were so packed you could barely move in there, it is just a popular area and has an amazing atmosphere.

Our last day in Dublin was really cool and a lot of fun. We went in the morning to do a one of the New Europe Walking Tours like we had done in London, and that I had done part of in Amsterdam as well. The tour took us to Dublin Castle, Dublin’s Medieval Walls, Viking Remains, Christ Church Cathedral, Temple Bar, The Ha’Penny Bridge, Spire of Dublin, City Hall, Trinity College just to name a few of the places. One of the funny things about it was that every time the Vikings from the Splash Tours that we had done the previous day, they let out their big roar and the tour guide thought it was funny but hated it at the same time, as he was trying to tell stories and would always get interrupted by them. It made it even funnier because Bel and I were doing the same annoying thing the day before! We stopped at a pub in Temple Bar for a break during the middle of the tour and we ate some more Irish stew. It’s delicious, and Bel especially couldn’t get enough of it. After lunch we finished the rest of the tour and then we went for a bit of a wander before having a bit of a rest as we had decided to go on a pub crawl that night.

The pub crawl took us mainly around the Temple Bar area which was great, and we went to 5 bars and then finished up at a nightclub. We got free beer for the first half hour at the first bar, and then everywhere we went we were getting free shots whenever we bought a drink, just because we were on the pub crawl. It was a lot of fun and we met some cool people. At one of the pubs they even had beer pong tables setup in the basement and you could get a jug of beer and ping pong balls and play beer pong. Bel and I played some Americans that had just finished college so thought they were pretty awesome at it, but we beat them, because we are awesome!