First off, we've updated our blog a bit... Beyond the slew of new posts recently, we've also updated our banner image as we're now out of Australia and in Europe...and we've posted a new map at the bottom of the blog homepage. Last - we added a neat new photo feature that lets us share more than only a few photos with you per post. Click on the image or hover over the bottom of the image in a post to view other images...
Also, it's important to note we've hit a big travel milestone...40,000 kilometers. We've crossed that point now, which in terms of sheer distance puts us beyond a trip around the earth! We've yet to fly over the Atlantic to complete our around the world travels, but we've already come so far!
Cheers for now - more to come about the fun in Dublin and the rest of Ireland.
We’re writing some blog posts from aboard our Virgin Train from London to Holy Head. And...the high speed train in cool. When we got to our platform the train was packed and so we were coming to terms with sitting apart from each other in a crammed car. However, as luck would have it, we were pleasantly surprised to find that one first class car is used for standard class travel in the summertime and we figured that out first! Our seats here are great - we have a table in front of us for the laptop, power, and a cool view as we travel along. Turns out this train is overbooked - but we got lucky in our plush seats. Actually, in the end we got tickets London to Dublin in First Class seats for only 27 quid each (quid is another term for pounds).
So, as we sit here now traveling along England by train - passing by a lot of sheep and some picturesque contrysides, we’re planning out our time in Ireland a bit more and getting excited to explore more of Europe.
We’ll be to Holy Head in just over an hour, where we board our ferry to Dublin Ferryport. Woohoo!
We found a company who could book us train and ferry tickets from London to Dublin so we were excited to take care of this transportation and booked that as well as a hostel for two nights in Dublin. We set out for the day in London and spent most of our time in the Tower of London.
The Tower was neat and showed how it had changed through the years. We saw the Bloody Tower inside where people were imprisoned and could still see carvings on the walls left by these captives. Several people were hung, drawn, and quartered in the square. London has some gruesome stories... Also in the Tower (which is cool because it had a draw bridge and moat) are the Crown Jewels. We saw so many crowns, gowns, and scepters but the Crown Jewels were the most stunning and priceless. We chatted with beefeaters dressed up in their garb and learned about the ravens that they keep on the grounds.
We took a cruise down the River Thames. The river itself is pretty brown and ugly but that’s only because of the mud kicked up as a result of the constant, quick river flow - the river is actually pretty clean they tell us - the cleanest in a city anywhere in the world. The bells from Westminster were ringing loudly when we got off the boat and a flag was flying in Parliament which was peculiar. Parliament takes a 12 week break and had been on it for two weeks but the flag signifies that parliament is in session. We asked an officer and he told us that the flag will also fly if it is a significant day and we were lucky to listen to bell music celebrating Princess Anne’s birthday.
We thought we would go to Kings Cross Station to see platform 9 3/4 where Harry Potter and his friends passed through the wall to get to Hogwarts. Next adventure: while there, we thought we’d fast print our tickets for the train/ferry to Dublin for the next day. The tickets printed with the wrong date! We called the company and the man could not help us. Trying to find internet to use skype was difficult and we ended up having to wait a while to call back so the company could replay our booking conversation to see if it was their fault or ours. We went to church at the Westminster Cathedral and continued to call this company only to hear the busy sound.
Unfairly, the company kept their phone on “busy” until they closed and we were screwed. We went to the train help desk for a second time to try to get their help but we didn’t go through them to book so there wasn’t much they could do. We went back to our new hostel and arranged to stay their an extra night. Luckily our accommodation in Dublin was able to switch our dates as well. So an extra day in London... it’s so expensive that British Pound!
On our extra day we walked all around the city and visited The National Gallery. We saw Van Gogh’s sunflowers and some of Monet’s finest artworks. The British Museum was enormous as well. They are lucky to have pieces from the Parthenon and a large Egyption exhibit. We walked through their special exhibit on Hadrian and his Roman Empire. Matt enjoyed learning about the Roman Empire under Hadrian - mostly because we’ll be in Rome in just over a week :-)!
Overall, London was great - just expensive. Off to Ireland next!
The morning after our interesting journey to beautiful London, Kristen woke up extra early to wash Matt’s clothes so he would feel clean for our first day out in the city.
We bought tickets using our UK pounds for the double decker bus tour and to get in to the Tower of London (which is next to the famous bridge, the Tower Bridge). Walking to our tour bus we saw so many cool vehicles: the taxis look like ones we’ve seen in old movies and there were smart cars everywhere.
Yes, we took photos in the red phone booths... they are on every corner!
A large chunk of our afternoon was spent finding internet since we have no phone and calling baggage claim reps...each time finding out that there was no update on where Matt’s bag was. However, we made the most of our day. The amount of history in London is overwhelming, but we did our best to soak in as much as possible. Here’s our attempt so list as much as we can remember from the tour:
We saw a filming site from Mary Poppins, Lewis Carroll and Elton John’s homes, Alice’s home who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland, we saw a brick building that was built the year that our country was being established, we saw embassies - including Australia’s which was used for filming of Harry Potter. (breath) We saw Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Trafalger Square with a massive statue of Admiral Lord Nelson, and The London Eye (a ferris wheel) built by British Airways that makes them 10,000 pounds each revolution.
We also saw the numerous statues of famous folks all over the city - funny story: they have statues of Abe Lincoln and George Washington - and apparently George Washington once said before he died that he would never set foot on British soil again, so the statue sits atop soil brought over from America. Neat.
The Marble Arch was cool as it had been at Buckingham a long time ago but the Queen did not like it so she requested her coach to be constructed too large to fit through the archway... so the arch was relocated. We saw the building where passengers bought their tickets to board the Titanic. Piccadilly Circus is a smaller version of our Times Square and it was neat to see all the broadway shows playing in this area.
We got off the bus to walk to Buckingham Palace. The long road we walked down reminded us of where Princess Diana’s funeral ceremony was because people lined the street we were on. Arriving at the Palace we were in a mob of people pushing against the gate to watch the changing of the guards. With their tall black hats, red uniforms, and riffles, they must have been hot! Two sets of guards walked from different places accompanied by a band playing regal queenish music. It was neat to watch and then we were back on the bus to check out Parliament.
Parliament and Westminster Abbey are near each other and attached is Big Ben. We learned that Big Ben is named because of the bell inside of it - the tower is not actually called Big Ben. But it’s huge. Also, the man who designed the bell was very short and stout and his nickname was Big Ben - hence the name of the bell.
That night we walked up to the ticket booth in Piccadilly and got wicked cheap tickets to see a broadway show! We sat 4th row from the front (we could see them spit - we were that close) and laughed out loud watching Avenue Q. After the show, we saw the city lit up at night, had some dinner, and noticed that at all of the pubs people would get their drink and stand outside the pub to socialize. Weird, but kinda cool.
When we returned to scouting central, and Matt’s bag had arrived!! Our second night in London just got way better.
We checked in our bags with Qantas and hopped on our plane in Melbourne, our first leg, to Singapore. We were nicely surprised to find that we would not have to collect our bags and then check in again in Singapore, rather, our bags would be checked through right to London. What a nice start.
The flight was complete with complimentary champagne and strawberries for the married couple and even came with a side of crying baby right in front of us. The flight was long, but eased by anxiety medication provided by local vineyards and breweries. Thanks to the Hunter Valley wine region, again. 7.5 hours later, we landed in Singapore .
That was a cool airport. It was simply massive. There were orchid filled waterfall displays in the middle of the terminal hallways, every flavour of shop and food you could ask for, and we had no idea where we were going. We landed at 9 or 10 pm local time (though our bodies were at 12-1 am), so there were still a few things open. We particularly enjoyed the contrast between people in the airport: from guards armed with fully automatic weapons walking around to a man playing the grand piano at 11pm.
We fell asleep for a few hours in the terminal as our next flight was not due out until 3:30 am (5-6 am body time, hooray) - this stunk. We both felt off as we were exhausted and still had 15 hours of flying ahead of us. Qatar Airways checked us in and we boarded for the next 8 hour leg of our journey, which would take us to Doha, Qatar.
The flight was uneventful, minus the crying baby which somehow followed us from the last flight (I think it might of been a different angry child, but it still proved to be obnoxious). We landed in the middle of the desert (Doha) at 7 am local time or so, still exhausted, but this time in a crappy little airport. Our plane parked in the middle of the tarmac and we walked down a set of stairs to get on a bus that took us into the terminal. The bus ride was almost 15 minutes - so we have no idea where our plane actually parked - but it was nowhere near all the other planes.
We only had another 2 hour layover until the last leg of our journey began. We spent it waiting in lines: security lines, lines for food, lines for security again to checkin, lines to wait for the bus to take us to our plane in East-Jebrew (Qatar), and lines to climb up the stairs to the plane again (in 110 degrees).
We finally got onboard this third and final leg of our journey - which was once again just over seven hours. This flight came with the angriest toddler we had yet to encounter. He or she cried like it was going out of style - most of the way.
The flight seemed to go on forever, but we finally made it - 1:30 pm local time in London. By Kristen’s count our bodies had been awake for weeks. Heathrow was once again a massive airport - but we diligently followed the signs for the baggage claim. Upon arriving at this lovely place, we waited for an hour and only got Kristen’s bag. Great.
After 30 hours of time in airplanes and airports, we only wanted to get to our accommodation and shower then sleep. This, of course, required clothing and toiletries, most of which were lost in ye ole reliable baggage system.
It took forever to file the baggage report - and after that we were referred up to the Qatar airways desk - which upon arriving, had no one working at the desk. Nearly four hours after arriving in London we finally gave up and headed towards the tube (the London Underground), where we we sure to “Mind the Gap.”
We arrived at the Meininger Youth Hostel in the Baden Powell House in Kensington (a part of London). (Apparently we were the only people who did not know that Baden-Powell founded boy scouts so our first morning at breakfast we dined with numerous little boy and girl scouts!)
Woo hoo - we were finally in London! Our first destination - bed.
It’s 6:40pm on August 12th. We’ve finished our Connections Trip, said goodbye to a few of our new friends, and spent the day doing a last Australia shopping run and other errands like Matt getting his hair cut. Now, we’re back in our hotel, waiting to go out for a last dinner with some of the Connections crew staying in Cairnes for an extra night. Matt’s checking his email while we wait.
Alright, there’s the backstory. The funny part starts when Matt reads a “Flight Reminder” email from Virgin Blue -- the airline we’re flying on tomorrow to get us to Melbourne. Somehow, though, this reminder says we’re flying out August 12th at 8:30pm. This can’t be right, there must be some kind of mistake. Matt checks the trip itinerary we’ve been living off of since we left - which says August 13th as suspected.
But...
That didn’t account for the International Date Line (or as we now like to call it, the International-Scramble-to-Catch-Your-Flight-Because-You’re-Leaving-Today-Not-Tomorrow Line).
Matt laughed hysterically, Kristen held her breath (and cried a bit on the inside).
We didn’t have much time - so we ran up to our room and packed up all of our stuff with the awesome help of Amy and Ashley (our Canadian friends), then ran downstairs to catch a cab to Cairnes airport. On the way we said goodbye to everyone who were waiting for us to come down to go out to dinner, not packed and heading to the airport.
Long story short, we made it to the airport, checked in, got through security and made it onto the plane successfully. Thanks again to Amy and Ashley for your help!
We arrived in Melbourne at midnight or just before - and had to find a place to stay for under $300, which we did - but it was craptastic. Kristen and I both agree that this hostel has been our worst yet. I don’t even remember what it was called as I write this on a train in England - but it was bad. There was no heat and Melbourne is close to Antarctica Kristen reminds me.
The next day we awoke disease free, got packed up for the long haul to London, and headed back to Melbourne’s airport.
We’ll save the juicy stories about our flights for the next post.
The next morning (also our last morning.... tear...) we headed out for the last group outing - which was up the the village of Kuranda, in the hills above Cairnes. To get there we took a skyrail (think Gondola) ride up the side of mountain and over the rainforest above. It took almost forty minutes - but it also showed us a lot of the rainforest and gave us a chance to take some really great photos.
In Kuranda we got the chance to eat lunch, explore some shops, and see a butterfly sanctuary that had thousands of butterflies. We got to see some really brilliant colors and take some equally brilliant photos of the butterflies.
On the way down from Kuranda, we stopped at a little roadside pullover to take our final group photo before heading to the airport to drop some of our group off. Then we headed back into town and said goodbye to Adam, Hewen, and Eliza.
We weren’t too bummed though, because most people were staying in Cairnes at least one extra night before heading out. So we planned to all get together on our own for a last dinner and night out, which we were all looking forward too. Once more night in Cairnes....
Welcome to Track the Newlyweds! Matt and Kristen got married on July 11, 2008 and started a four month trip days later. Tune in for updates on shennanagins and vagabonding!
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