Last Leg!
As most of you will know, we fly home tomorrow so this will be our last post from abroad. We will finish off the blog and put it all in order when we get home.
We last updated when we were leaving Sweden which means we need to fill you in on the fantastic time we had in Amsterdam. Our first impressions were not too good, we met an Aussie who was clearly in Amsterdam for the one reason I’m sure you all know and as soon as we boarded the trams we were overwhelmed by the smell of marijuana smoke and dodgy looking characters. However, the next day turned this around completely and our final impressions of Amsterdam are great. We started the day with a canal ride and saw most of the city from the water, we then hired bicycles for the rest of the day. We visited the Gassan Diamond Factory and Anne Frank’s house where Sam was too sick to go inside. However, no cold was keeping him from the Red Light District which we wandered through that night. Here’s a photo of Sophie on her bike with the skinniest bridge in the background.
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The next morning we had to catch a flight to Edinburgh which was a bit sad because we would have loved to stay in Amsterdam longer. The rainy weather made us feel a little better as we had perfect weather the day before and flew into perfect weather in Edinburgh. Our hostel was about 30 metres from the central station (which is where the airport shuttle dropped us) and right in the middle of the main sights. We visited Edinburgh Castle that afternoon. Here’s a photo of the view from the castle before we went in and of the castle as we left.
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That night Sophie had a Haggis Samosa and it began to snow as we were going to bed. The next day we walked down The Royal Mile (which starts at the castle) to the oddest looking building ever which is Scottish Parliament and Holyrood House and Park. Here’s the mountain in the park which we decided to climb in the sun and wind. It too had a wonderful view of the city.
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We then caught the train out to Glasgow for a few hours where we (in the rain) visited some of the sights including the Cathedral and Necropolis, the oldest house in Glasgow and the Modern Art Museum. We headed back to a very cold and windy Edinburgh.
We were up early the next day to catch the train to Windermere in the Lakes District and when we arrived we found out we were lucky as many trains had been cancelled due to bad weather. Despite Sam’s continuing cold we headed out to the lake which was no small feat in the gale force winds. The lake looked more like an ocean but the scenery around was still nice. Here’s a photo of Lake Windermere (the biggest in the district).
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The next day we caught the train to Manchester and all went well again (even though news reports said 13 people had died in the extreme winds) and we arrived at our hotel which was certainly not close to the train station. We stayed in Eccles which is a little town on the outskirts of the city and it was completely dead at 7pm despite being a Friday night.
The next morning we headed into Liverpool to attempt to get tickets to Liverpool vs Chelsea (as 2 previous attempts online failed). We first stopped at the store for Sam to buy a scarf and jersey and we then headed out to the stadium. With heavy police presence it was hard to find ticket scalpers but we managed to find a group. Because of the calibre of the game they weren’t willing to budge on prices so we had to pay £125 ($312.50) each. The tickets we got were in the diehard Liverpool fan section which was next to the away supporters bay so that made the atmosphere incredible. Fortunately Liverpool were 2-0 up after 20 minutes (and at full-time) so the crowd were very happy. Here’s a photo of the stadium before and after it filled up.
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That night we went back to our hotel in Manchester where we left to go to Cardiff (Wales) the next morning. We arrived late afternoon to wet weather so we decided to have an early night because Sam felt too sick to do anything. In the morning we wandered the city taking in the sights and the shops until we caught the train to London that afternoon.
We arrived in London and made our way to Sophie’s cousin’s (Sam and her husband Chris) house in Fulham without any problems. That night we had dinner with a number of Sophie’s cousins who live here in London and they gave us a few tips on what to do over the next few days. We bought a hop-on hop-off bus tour ticket which lasts for 48 hours. That afternoon we just stayed on the bus and did an entire loop of the city (no photos, we forgot the camera). That night we saw Mamma Mia! at the Prince of Wales theatre which Sophie really enjoyed.
Today we woke to snow covered cars, houses and trees. We took a cruise down the River Thames to Greenwich. Where we had quite a good view of the London Eye which is shown in the picture below. We spent the evening with Sam and Chris and their two boys (Harry, 3½ and Thomas, 1½) watching football.
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And that brings us to now, we really should get to bed since it is midnight and we still have a few things we want to do tomorrow before we fly back home. This time tomorrow we will be 4 hours into our 24 hour journey home!
See you soon
Sam and Soph
January 25th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Well guys, you may not see this until you get home. But I guess when you do you can read it then. Sounds like you both have just had the best time ever. That was a lot to pay for those tickets but great game and well worth it (rick). Looking forward to catching up with you both. Have a safe trip home.