haggis tour

we went through so many incredible places - some of which we stayed at for a fairly lengthy time, but most only for an hour or two.

on our first stop, we visited windsor castle, just to see the outside though. took the first of our many obligatory tourist shots. (normally the tour doesn't go here, but since it was the public bank holiday on the day we left we were going to leave london more quickly than normal).
we ended up seeing numerous castles on this tour, but i neglected to do an actual tour. Figured I'd have time later on to do that if i felt so inclined. mostly, i love the way that the castles/cathedrals and other touristy things are so close within in the city. I guess they've just built up around the major sites - makes for an incredible feeling of history within almost every single place.
Even the places that I visited with Uncle Dave & family had that presence of age. It's something that I cherish, having lived most of my life within man made structures not more than 100 years old.
in most of the places I've been to, the mix of medieval and modern is bizarre. something i didn't really think about before I left. I've been overwhelmed by looking in one direction and feeling an old time nostalgia, then the other direction...brand, spanking new buildings, styles and ordinary people. edinburgh is a nice example where that's not so obvious. they built the original city and then another one pretty much next to it (over the river) when we stayed here (this was our longest stay anywhere on the trip) we were in the medieval part of the city and i only ventured to the other side once. i liked staying in the old part of the city but would love to go back and explore the rest another time.

ok, so some of the places we've been:
windsor, wantage, marlborough, lacock, bath, river severn, (crossing over and back to wales/england all day) chepstow, river wye, hereford, lludlow, STAYED AT A FARM HOUSE SOMEWHERE IN WALES! Snowdonia (absolutely beautiful) isle of Anglesey, lanfair... (longest place name), Ambleside - which was in the lake district, jedburgh - in scotland, edinburgh, york - back in england, nottingham forest (robin hood country) and then stratford-upon-avon (shakespeare country).

that's the full week's itinerary, though i may have some of it wrong and left out a lot of places! i did keep a written journal for most of this trip, so if i feel so inclined i might update this later if there's a bit difference.

had such a great time meeting the others on my tour, i really made an effort to hang out with everyone at different stages - it makes the time spent in these places all the more worth it when you have wonderful people to share it with. i've already been on face book pouring over friend's photos of this tour and smiling gleefully at the memories.

one of the funniest nights was when we met a scotsman in edinburgh who took a bunch of us on a merry (or not so merry for some...) galavant around edinburgh while supposedly looking for a cool club that he knew about. (ok, ok, we probably should have just stayed where we were) he'd taken a keen interest in one of us who was wearing a gorgeous red dress and was trying to impress her. half of us got a big sick of it after a while and split off from the group with the scotsman. (i admit i was keen on the walk and thankful for the fresh air that night) i found out later that the 'club' had been closed, and with a bit of effort and a few harsh words managed to get away from the persistant scotsman. remarkably the group with the scotsman made their way back to the hostel before the our group.
i put it down to all our grumbling and groaning from our guys about the crafty scotsman who they pretty much pegged from the beginning. something to laugh about. heh.

when i got to York, i immediately fell in love with the place. it seems a reasonable size, even has a uni and an opera house - jazz on tuesday nights and social clubs. the main reason i'm keen on living there is because of the stong viking history. with gail, jen and monica, i went on a tour of the Jorvik Viking Centre. i wanted to spend another hour in the place - and determined to do so another time. i came out of there with a longing to know more of the place and a stamped coin (the mark was from an authentic coin stamp [or replica of one]) that the vikings had used in the very city. it's likely that the one they found was stolen and left covered over before their diggings in the last few years uncovered that and many more of the viking artifacts.

since one of my desires is to spend a decent amount of time in iceland, York seems like a brilliant place to base myself before i make it over there. plus, i did come over for a more authentic english experience, rather than just hanging out with other aussies in the metro centre of London. lets just see where this takes me anyway.

i plan to look for work/housing in York for the rest of this week, and travel up sometime next week to check things out a bit closer. will keep you posted on how things go.

just before i came in here, i successfully landed an english bank account - thank you dad for my citizenship! i didn't need proof of residence because of the uk passport. i'll receive my card/cheque book etc in the mail in the next 7-10 days. now i just need a national insurance number and i'll be all set.

i called up a few friends today who live in london, hoping to catch up with them before i move up to York. this weekend will be good for that, though i have to say i'm hoping i feel a little more fresh and less flue like by then!