A few more photos

Frightening Sha in London

We went to London today! We started off at Buckingham Palace and saw the Queen's mail being delivered by horse drawn coaches. We then ambled through Green Park to jump on the tube to take us to Oxford Road. Sha spotted an interesting shop or two :) We finally ended up at the British Museum to find out how many objects had been stolen by the British during the destruction of the Old Summer Palace. Strangely enough there were not many signs giving us this sort of information.

After seeing a few mummies we headed off towards Pollock's Toy Museum. Sha was expected some "cute, pink dolls", but ended up rather scared and shocked. The "toys" were old. Very old. There were paper cranes made by children in hospital in Hiroshima. "The belief is that if you make a thousand cranes your will will come true" - it didn't say what their wish was. There was also an interesting "Jack and Jill Put on Uniform" where "thousands of Jills are Land Girls today. Some are helping in the dairies, others in the fields ..."

We continued on to Baker Street to see the Sherlock Holmes museum. That was fun!

... and then back ... to have a great dinner with Emma, watch the TV with Alexander and then amble back (via the pub) to our hotel. Back to Australia tomorrow!

Sunburnt in Wales

I wonder how many people have a blog entry entitled "sunburnt in Wales"? Actually quite a few!! I've just googled it! Apparently a Female, Aged 26, got sunburnt in Wales ... so did James! Anyway, Sha and I had a wonderful time with grandma, Faith and Mel in Wales and have just had another wonderful time with mum, Emma, Peter and Alexander in London.

We saw lots of castles in Wales. Grandma made us walk for miles. Sha and Mel cooked! I drank beer.

We saw the London Marathon today. We didn't take part. We also saw a dodo. Apparently the London cucumber is better than the Barcelona cucumber. We ate at Wimpy.

So many images!

A few days ago we were in Barcelona. Mum, Sha and I ambled around the city seeing the sights, walking up the hill, looking in the Cathedral, eating Tapas (including cuttlefish) ... Now we've just got back from the Louvre, after yesterday visiting Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Between the two I drove about 1100km from Barcelona to Paris in a small, manual Ford Fiesta. Mum promised me that I'd have time to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road and with a manual car ... she helped by navigating us straight through the centre of Barcelona!

We stopped the first night in Bezier (after crossing the spectacular Pyrenees - which allowed me to remember how to do a hill start in a manual!) and stopping to splash ourselves in the Mediterranean. Bezier is frightening. The roads were clearly made about 800 years ago and haven't changed since. You drive down the cobbled streets dodging the parked cars, motorbikes, people and various random obstacles. Then you find the hotel. It has no parking spot. You end up parking in a small dingy garage (made only about 600 years ago) which involved a 200-point turn to get into. Then you drink a lot of beer.

The following day we drove across the highest motorway in Europe which stayed above 1km high for quite a long time! The scenery really was amazing. Then we arrived in Paris. We got stuck in a traffic jam. French drivers are ... ummm ... interesting. We didn't crash. We didn't even scratch the car! Finally we arrived to dump the car at the CDG airport which was closed. What a journey! Now we just have to find a way of getting to England, Wales and then back to Australia.

Barcelona to Paris

Just to say that a volcano has intervened in our holiday. Our flights were cancelled in Barcelona ("please come back in 4 weeks") and so we rented a car and I drove us to Paris. The journey was amazing ... 2 days across the Pyrenees, around the Med. and then along the highest motorway in Europe (including the highest bridge in the World). We're now in Paris and Sha and I are rather drunk.

Day 2: To Sant Cugat

I started the day by getting myself locked out of the pub at 6am. I'd popped downstairs to see if we could have breakfast early and discovered that I'd managed to lock a door behind me. There was no way of alerting Sha or getting back up ... so I sat in the dark trying to read the signs on the walls: "Leaking cocks must be attended to. A fine of sixpence for each Leaking Cock will be strictly enforced." Later, when it was a bit lighter, I discovered that that was a rule from the Somerset & Dorset railway. Finally the owner arrived and I got back upstairs. Sha hadn't noticed that I'd gone :(

We ate a huge cooked breakfast very fast. Then jumped in the taxi. Our Afghani taxi driver did his best to speak Chinese and asked me about the size of the Universe. The flight was fun. Unfortunately we didn't have window seats, but still managed to get great views of the Pyrenees covered in snow and then the beaches near Barcelona.

Our taxi driver in Barcelona was very talkative. I've no idea what he said, but he talked all the way from the airport to Sant Cugat. He waved his hands around a lot. A few times he actually touched the steering wheel. The scenery is spectacular. It was hot and dry.

The view from our hotel window is great!! We can see the ancient monastery. Sant Cugat is lovely. Lots of small, cobbled streets with all the signs in Catalan. Lots of pig legs hanging up in the shop windows. We had lunch in a small cafe. We couldn't understand anything on the menu, but ended up with a beer, squid and "bacon with bones". We watched little kids jump around on ground-based musical instruments.

Then we decided to go into Barcelona. We were very proud of ourselves managing to buy some water and a train ticket. The journey was also great - through the countryside and then into the city. We walked down the main street watching lots of people pretending to be statues and finally ended up in the harbour. Very beautiful! We walked back to the huge Cathedral. For dinner we ended up in a small restaurant to eat the seafood and paella. errr ... that meal came with a large beer ... a very large beer. Unfortunately, I discovered later that the beer was Fosters ... but it was large! Then we staggered back to the train station.

Today we met mum!!