day 364

i LOVE the rain. everyone in my family loves the rain. i refuse to ever buy an umbrella cos i love the feeling of getting soaking wet and enjoying the gloomy weather. and gloomy is a good thing to courtney. 

well, london has been anything but good-gloomy. it has been hotter than hades. i know what you're thinking- it's summer! it's supposed to be hot! england is the exception to the rule. they don't "do" hot. but this year, they've had to. 

luckily for us (and them), today was the exception. it was POURING down rain. and we LOVED it! we took the train to my old stomping ground of notting hill to visit the portobello road market. sadly, because of the blessed rain, the market wasn't happening. we did get to check out some really cool shops though, which was fun. 

we tried to make it to hampton court palace, but sadly there was no time, so instead we went to the british museum. so many cool exhibits!! i only wish i had a wheelchair and about 10% of the people there, so i could have enjoyed it more. haha! my feet were killing me and my claustrophobia was kicking in with the million people there. i think the rest of london had the same idea as us in spending the rainy afternoon at a free and well renowned museum. 

(tiny car in the window of a pizza shop with pizza coming out of the car window. so fun!)

(REALLY cool display called "cradle to grave" which explores health in britain).

day 363

ahhhh, paris (pa-ree). the land of crusty french bread, men serenading you with accordions, and one too many berets. i love it! 

but alas... i am not in paris. sigh. double sigh. after a crazy morning of getting up at 3:30 am, waiting at the tube station for half an hour thinking, "any minute now a train will arrive," running around paddington station to find the heathrow connect, anxiously bouncing in our seats hoping we would get to the airport on time... ONLY to run to the ticket counter and find out that even though our plane hasn't left, we were too late to get on. 

the even worse part? non refundable tickets. TRIPLE SIGH. cue the charlie brown theme music as we leave the airport...

but you know what? i'm in england!!! i wipe those tears away cos there is fun to be had even without the accordions and french bread. (but i sure would have loved real life french bread... with cold butter... and a warm HoCho... STOP courtney. move on). 

so, the rest of the day was a kind of free-for-all/rest day. brooke and i did some shopping in camden town (kind of like a flea market with lots of cheap vendors, shops, tons of clothes, novelty items, etc) and took a much needed 3 hour nap. the weather in london has been REALLY hot and humid and i think it has really had its effect on our motivation to get out there and explore. boo.

we did end the day on a most excellent note with a showing of "harry potter and the deathly hallows: part 2."

okay, seriously, am i the only one who felt like the last harry potter movie was like when michael scott left "the office?" okay, perhaps the last harry potter movie was a bit more tragic, but i feel like a chapter of my life has come to an end. haha, wow. i am a harry potter nerd. well, brooke is a much bigger harry potter fan than me (two words, brooke: excel spreadsheet), but still. the world of harry potter has been around for 14 years and now that it's over (especially when the movie ended tonight), i thought, "hmmm. now what do i do?" i can already picture blake reading this post going, "oh dear. OH DEAR. really, court? REALLY!?" yes, blake. really. 

don't worry. i'm stopping. 

(the lonely baker street tube station)

(half asleep, praying a train will show up... notice the cool sherlock holmes image to the right of me)

day 362

oh, london. you have so many great things. so many that it may take me a lifetime to see them all. here is today's fun filled adventures:

1. shakespeare's globe: isn't shakespeare grand? i mean, really, the man can do no wrong. has anyone seen the preview for the movie "anonymous" about the validity of shakespeare's works? i might cry a thousand tears if it turns out he's a fraud. but until the movie comes out, i stand by him and am here to tell you about the greatness of the globe theatre. 

sigh. the globe. so romantic. so dramatic. so historic! for those that aren't shakespeare buffs (not suggesting i am), there were a few big theatres back in shakespeare's day and the globe was one of them. shakespeare primarily wrote for (and often performed in) the theatre group called lord chamberlain's men. 

the globe theatre in london today is as close a replica as possible. they have a thatched roof (covered in hay) and it was constructed entirely out of oak, no steel was used. pretty snazzy if you ask me. 

anyway, enough history for you today. the tour took us into the theatre where we got to watch some actors rehearsing for an upcoming show. that was really cool- they don't use any microphones, only use a live "band" of musicians, rely primarily on natural light. very authentic. then we got to go see all the different costumes, how they created special effects back then, etc. it was really amazing. 

2. bus tour: sometimes i love bus tours. mostly cos it gives my feet a break, but also cos it covers a lot in a small amount of time. we got to see where mozart lived, where j.k. rowling lives (brooke was dying to stop by and say hi), learn a ton of trivia about different monuments. we even saw some campers who've been living in tents for the past 5 years protesting the war. five years? i probably would have given up by then. 

3. tower of london: you would think that with a whole day ahead of you, you'd be able to see a ton of sights, right? wrong. brooke and i only saw the globe, went on a bus tour, and had lunch by the time we arrived for the last tour at tower of london. unfortunately, the entire city of london also knew that this was the last tour, and my claustrophobia kicked in. we decided to ditch the tour and do things on our own. the last time i was in england, i went on a tour of tower of london and having a guide makes it all the more worthwhile. we did see a lot of amazing things, but our feet were KILLING us!!! by the end, i was like, "i don't care if queen elizabeth herself is in here showing off the crown jewels, get me home." haha! i blame it on pregnancy fatigue. 

tomorrow... PARIS!!!

day 361

story time. 

so, we get to the train station to leave edinburgh and head to london and realize that 98% of the seats on the train have been "reserved." reserved? i thought this was a free for all. nope. so we scout for seats and find nothing. the train honks its horn indicating it's leaving in 2 seconds, so we run up and down the tracks with our 1200 lb suitcases and see 2 open seats. brooke and i are like, "you guys take the seats, we'll find some up ahead in one of the other cars." well, the train honks again at which point we jump on the train before it leaves without us. we find a conductor man and ask what to do. he points ahead and says, "join those people." uh... you mean the people sitting in between each car on the floor next to the bathroom? yeah. those people. 

so, brooke and i got to sit in in a cramped corner in front of stinky bathroom and garbage bin on the floor for 4.5 hours. 

heaven help us. 

day 360

i love scotland. i do. probably one of the best places i've ever seen. but please, for the love of hello kitty, get me to a train and out of this car! haha! all of us love being here, but definitely are not fans of driving here. narrow streets, no signs, scary drivers, etc. luckily today is our last day of having a rental car, so we're celebrating by traveling to stirling castle. brooke and i celebrated our arrival by singing (quite loudly) songs from "the sound of music." little did we know there were people on the second floor of the castle watching (and laughing) at us. kind of awkward. 

stirling castle is OLD! well, pretty much all castles are old, but this one is even older. thanks to mel gibson, i felt semi-knowledgable when reading about the history of stirling. our evil friend, edward I (or longshanks) tried to take over stirling, but thank goodness for mel, er, william wallace and his scottish comrades. they kicked english booty and put off english takeover for a bit longer. just in case you need a refresher of this fabulous movie and piece of history, enjoy courtesy of youtube. 

(this place LOVES unicorns) 

(she's mormon!)

day 359

“oh, my dear boy, we’re not going to punish you for a little thing like that. it was an accident. we don’t send people to azkaban just for blowing up their aunts.”

haha, don't you just love harry potter? i mean, really, those who knock it obviously haven't read the books. i know. i used to be one of them. i refused to read them cos they looked silly and childish. then, my sister left on a mission and made me promise i would read all the books while she was gone. best decision of my life. 

kind of like going to alnwick castle. what's so great about alnwick castle, you ask? oh, it's just where harry potter was filmed- the REAL LIFE hogwarts!!! man, if only i had a robe, a wand, and a broom- then you may as well refer to me as luna lovegood. 

after a scary drive to the castle, we stopped for lunch before heading inside. as we were walking up the hill towards the entrance, lora remembered that the spot where we parked had a time limit. she decided to head back down, move the car, and meet us at the entrance. so, the rest of us got to the top of the hill and waited for her at the entrance... 

15 minutes go by... 30 minutes go by... hey, look! there's hagrid! he's leading in a wedding party! 

45 minutes go by... here comes the bride and groom in arthur weasley's light blue ford anglia (identical)! so cool! 

an hour goes by... okay, something's gotta be wrong. the car was just down the street. lora should have been here forever ago. brooke decides to investigate (and check out some thrift stores while's playing detective). she comes back up the hill and tells us there is an ambulance at the bottom. maybe lora got in a car crash or had a heart attack (driving in the UK is pretty stressful)! we decide to go down and look around the city, see if we can find the car, get more info about the victim, and try calling her. well, the car is gone, the victim was from the city, and we realize we don't have lora's phone number. 

sigh. 

it has now been 2 hours. we've seen the same weird guy drive his car by the castle seven times. the security guard probably thinks we're homeless. my tongue is raw from all the sour patch kids i've eaten. we finally decide to walk back to the entrance. and guess who's there? daniel radcliffe!!! just kidding. it was lora. i totally had you though, for like half a second. 

it turns out, tricky alnwick castle has more than one entrance. lora moved the car, found a parking lot right next to an entrance to the castle and had been waiting there for 2 hours until she found us at the other entrance. 

the moral of the story is always bring your cell phones (jenene) and make sure they are turned on (lora). haha!! the tragic part of the story is that by this time, it was too late to go in the castle and see the different rooms, but we did get to walk all around the grounds, gardens, and anywhere outside the castle. even though we missed out on part of the harry potter adventure, it was totally worth it for the grounds. SO BEAUTIFUL!!! and enchanting!

later that night, when we got back to edinburgh, we decided to go on a ghost tour. our tour guide was great! i love dramatic theatre people. they are so entertaining. i probably laughed the most and loudest. he took us to these 18th century underground vaults and told different ghost stories, true stories, and told us all about the scary history of edinburgh. my favourite was probably the story of burke & hare, edinburgh's most famous serial killers. 

okay, i'm sleepy. more tomorrow.