Tuesday, 10 April 2012

The Adventure (Part 1)

Over the next nine days, Kelsey and I will travel across the UK and then Paris.  From Paris, Kelsey will head back to Belfast for her field study and I will continue for the next two weeks travelling through Europe. Here´s what happens...

Day 1
Newton Stewart, Scotland

To get from Belfast to Scotland, we chose to take a ferry across.  We found before hand that the only hostel within a reasonable distance from the ferry port was in Newton Stewart, about a 30 minute bus ride out.  The ferry was HUGE.  It was almost more like a cruise, only without the sleeping rooms!  There was a cinema, a video game room, a restaurant, several cafes, a spa, etc.  Needless to say, we had all the comfort we could have asked for!  Along our travels, we met several interesting people.  Our taxi driver from the ferry to the bus stop sang, or should I say tried to sing, the Star Spangled Banner the entire way.  Another older gentleman rode with us, he was on the loopy side to be sure, but nothing compared to what we found at the bus stop!  First, we meet this guy from England, Joe, traveling to Newton Stewart as well.  He seemed like a nice guy, but he continually discussed how high his IQ was.  He even critized my major, Aerospace Engineering, to no end.  Other than those fo pa's, he was decent.  There was another older gentleman that contunally came up to us asking when the next bus would come.  Yet another guy asked me about the shirt I was wearing.  I happened to be wearing a sweater that had a London lisence plate on it, so he told me all about how his parents came from the same area as my sweater indicated.  He was a little off his rocker as well.

After all of this excitement, we made it onto the bus and on to Newton Stewart.  Newton Stewart is a very small Scotish town.  We grabed a quick supper then headed to our hostel.  Once we finally found it, we settled in a bit, then headed out to see what we could discover.  We walked through a graveyard where the oldest gravestone was from about 1764.  Also, we found that the old curch there, all of which remained we the walls, was built in about 176-.  A new church was of course built nearby.  After these explorations, we played in the river, skipping rocks and such, then walked through the park and around town a bit.  This night, we went to bed fairly early since there was little to do in this small town and we wanted to get up early to get a good start on our way to Glasgow.

Day 2
Glasgow, Scotland

After an early train ride up from Newton Stewart, we dropped our stuff off at our hostel and headed out.  On hindsight, this was the best hostel Kelsey and I had.  We ended up with our own room, and they provided towels for free, which was great!  Plus the room that we had was really spacey, so that was exciting and new.  They guy at the reception gave us directions, but they were awful.  We ended up just having to find our own way.  Luckily, we found that every couple of blocks, Glasgow has handy street maps for people to find their bearings.  After travelling all day, we were ready for some sustenance.  Once we figured out a place to go, we found that we were the only coustomers.  That worked out though because there was only one guy to take care of everything, from taking our orders to cooking them.  The food was pretty good, but the best thing about this particular place was the menu design.  They were so great, we even each asked to take one home!  After this, we just explored the city and shopped a little.  We enjoyed the rest of our day just getting the feel of the city.

Day 4
Cardiff, Wales


Day 5
Oxford, England




Day 6
Portsmouth, England

Days 7-9
London, England























Days 10 - 12
Paris, France















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