United Kingdom

So it's been a few weeks and your all wondering, what have jamie and rach been doing?

Well, we got to edinburgh from london via a few days in manchester. Holed up at a hostel in the middle of the city and started looking for flats. Got one pretty quickly and went right into job hunting. Wasn't that boring, time for some action.

After a week of flat and job hunting we wanted to actaully do somthing so we went to the castle. It's right in the middle of the city, really impressive.

Free guides take you around and tell you stories as you go through. Then you can make your own way around and explore the rest of the place.

There lots of cool stuff, scottish crown jewels, books with the names of every solider who died in the 2 world wars. No Priers but a few Wells.

NZ wreath in it's rightfull place at the top and it's also the biggest

Got to go through the dungeons

Lots of artillery, guns and armour

William Wallace, no braveheart here

The royal mile outside the castle

Rach and the city from the top of the castle

Firstly cheers to Hayle and the crew in Crouch End, we had a really good time stayn with ya’ll and having you show us your London.

It was four days in total. The first day was a bit of a write off, doing laundry and boring stuff, getting over the jet lag and generally lazing around having naps.

On the second day we decided to actually do something so took the tube into the city and did a bit of a self tour round Southbank. Saw Big Ben and Wesminster Abby, went around the Queens walk to the Tower of London stopping at Tate Mordern to see some art and the Shakespeare Globe Theater.

It was raining by the time we got to Tower Bridge so we decided to go for a look in the Tower of London. Quite a big place really, not just a tower it’s more like a little village inside castle walls with a castle on the grounds. We got to see the crown jewels and lots of suits of amour and medieval weapons.

For dinner that night we went to brick lane the curry centre of London. It reminded us of Thailand with Indian guys lining the streets trying to shake you hand and get you into there restaurant.

One thing we have noticed is the lack of public toilets around, which is magnified by the tiny size of rachels bladder. After walking about a km trying to find one we got into a tube station and went for the nearest relief point. Rachel stormed in and hit the turnstile, she didn’t know what was going on and jumped over and raced into the loo. Little did she know that the tube toilets cost 50p and since she didn’t pay she was chased into the cubicle by and angry attendant who was yelling at her. After much pleading and promising that she would pay when she got out (whilst already on the throne) the attendant buggered off and let her finish. Sufficed to say that she has not been to another tube toilet since.

On the third day, after all the walking we did the day before we hopped on an open top bus tour of London.

We got to see lots of the sights like Buckingham Palace, Mayfair, Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. It was like playing a big game of monopoly.

I'm not sure how he's meant to protect the Queen if he can't see!

That night Haley and her flatties took us to a local pub to experience the British ‘culture’. The first thing we noticed was the grey haze of cigarette smoke which is not yet banned in England. Rachel has discovered English cider and has decided that it will be her ‘beer’.