Welcome Home!

So, long delay, but we had an awesome two days in London! We walked around all day long seeing everything from Westminster Abbey to the Tower Bridge and Waterloo Station...which is a long dang walk. We took tons of pictures and got back to Dan's in Andover to get some good sleep. The next day, our last day (almost), Dan's mom cooked us a nice roast with raspberry apple pie before we left for London! We took our stuff to Gatwick Airport and then headed into town by train. It was raining, but we went to Chinatown, bought another bag so ours wasn't over the 60 pound limit and got some dinner. We took some night shots of the city, saw a guy bust his "boys" full speed on a subway pole and headed back to the airport...our hotel for the night! We ended us locking our stuff to a bench and sleeping under it. That was an awful idea! We slept for about an hour and woke up at 3am and stayed awake for the whole boarding/security process until our plane left at 9am. The ride was nice with plenty of food, coke and touch screen games and music. We got to Nashville via ATL at 5pm! Candace, Beau, and my mom were waiting for us with an awesome sign and it was time to give Hayley her real ring! There was a guy playing guitar and he played a slow song for us and I got down and one knee and did it all again :) Hayley was very excited and everyone clapped for us! Now are back in good ol' Tennessee! Thanks to everybody for actually reading this blog, it was a ton of fun documenting the whole trip through words...and ~12,000 photos! We met some awesome people and we're glad that everyone could keep us with us the whole way!

Stonehenge, Crop Circles, and Avebury!

We had an awesome day! We woke up early, ate left over croissants for breakfast and caught the train to Salisbury at about 11am. We got a bus ticket to see Stonehenge, but it was pouring the rain when we got there, so we just stayed on the bus and went back to Salisbury...then stayed on the bus and went back to Stonehenge (gotta get our money's worth haha). We got off the second time because the weather was great! We walked around taking tons of pictures. It is in a area called the Salisbury Plains where the British military trains every one from pilots to snipers, so we got some shots of a jet pulling some Gs over Stonehenge...not in the same picture though. I seriously had to pee SO bad I was sweating, but you had to leave Stonehenge to get to the bathroom and I didn't want to waste the trip there just because I had to go! So after a little while I couldn't work my camera it was bad so I ran across the place, straight out the entrance, went to the bathroom, then cut everyone in line and went through the booth and back to Hayley...nobody said anything. So, we got plenty of pictures! Dan picked us up (with his dog Jerry) in Salisbury and we went out to hunt down some crop circles out in the countryside. Most of the fields were harvested already, but we saw one huge crop circle that really awesome! Dan, took us by some cool Stone Age burial mounds, and to Avebury where the village is surrounded by two rings of these stones, bigger than Stonehenge, all the way around the village! We ate at the Red Lion Pub in the middle of the rings and rode back to Andover. It's bedtime now and London early tomorrow, so pictures will have to wait!

Ediburgh, Ogle, and Andover!

Sorry for the delay, we had a hard time finding a place to stay, got a negative reference on Couch Surfing from a guy who barely even gave us any direction, and stayed in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow. We had an awesome time in Glasgow with Mathilde and Tich! Mathilde told us about Balloch which is a town by Loch Lomond to the west of Glasgow and we took lots of pictures, I even broke out my macro lens! We missed the train back by less than 10 seconds, but we just went to a cafe for 30 minutes until the next one. We got groceries again and make pizza for dinner back in Glasgow. We got up early and headed to Edinburgh for the day! Patrice was with us for that too and we walked around everywhere, ate some dang good ribs, and mac n' cheese, saw the castle, walked across town for some awesome views then...we had to figure out what the heck we were gonna do! Patrice had to catch a plane to Croatia and be at the Edinburgh Airport at 5am and we couldn't stay with Mathilde and Tich again because they had a full house with some old friends. So, we went from place to place asking for a room (the Fringe Festival is all of August in Edinburgh and there is not a single room anywhere, even on CS). We ended up splitting a 2 person room 3 ways, RUNNING to Waverly station to catch the last train to Glasgow then running to get the train to Mathilde's to get our stuff, then RUNNING back, with all of our stuff to catch the last train back to Edinburgh (while eating Burger King) so we wouldn't have to come back very early in the morning to get our bags...Well, Patrice made his flight and we made it to the Ogle castle in Ogle, Northumberland, England! It was super nice! Since I am the 29th generation of a direct line of Ogles (my Mom is an Ogle and, if you go back 4 generations, so is my Dad haha) descendant of the very first Ogle (Humphry of Ogle 1085-1155)...we just had to stay there! We walked around Ogle, which is a very small community really not even a town. We checked out the land around the place and then just enjoyed the place! The owner's daughter cooked us dinner because we were starving and had no clue that there was nothing to eat in Ogle! She also made us a full English breakfast, tons of toast, juice, and even gave us a ride back to the nearest train station along with leftover croissants for a snack! Our train was late, which is good because we were late too, but then as soon as our train arrived in Birmingham, we saw our connecting train pulling away! Then we waited for another train...it was late, so when we got to Reading, we saw our next connecting train pulling away! So we got sandwiches and tried to call Dan in Andover. We left him a message and just hoped he would be there when we walked off the train in Andover...he was! Good thing because it was raining. Him and his girlfriend took us back to his house where they had cooked a green curry dinner for us, we played with their dalmation, Jerry, and met Dan's mum and sister for a game of Rummikub. We are going to bed now, but in the morning we are going to Salisbury to see Stonehenge and Dan is picking us up at 6:30 and we're going to check out some crop circles around Hampshire! We'll update tomorrow...I promise!

Glasgow, Scotland!

We cleaned the rooms...and bathrooms. We got milkshakes with a guy named John that was working at the hostel from Australia before we caught the train. The train ride to Glasgow was not too long, and Patrice, Mathilde, and baby Rose met us at the train station! Last night, we went to Mathilde and Tich's house, walked through the park and got supplies to make a pasta dinner. Tich (Richard) gave me a sweet "Harris Tweed" hat like the one I saw in Pitlochry! So, we plan on checking out Glasgow today, but so far only breakfast and showers are done and Hayley is playing with the baby :)

Farewell Mano, Louise, Eric, and Gus!

Well, they talked us into staying another night in Lybster! We were just going to be lazy, but we ended up going out along the cliffs on the coast in front of their house in kayaks and the dinghy. It was really cool, we kayaked through a ton a huge caves and tiny cracks in the cliffs! I almost flipped the dang kayak trying to ride a wave across a gap in a rock...almost flipped it and almost made it! I had to wiggle around and push myself off the way I came across. We had a lot of fun and wasted a lot of "petrol" in the dinghy! We hung out with the Dutch couple that were staying with Mano and Louise and Eric, Frenchman...oh yeah, and Gus the Border Collie! We cooked dinner, they had a rice/fish dish and Louise made me some dang good breaded corned beef burger things and potatoes! We slept great, until the Dutch blew a fog horn to wake everyone up for breakfast! Mano headed off to the control tower on his bicycle, the Dutch couple (Rennata and Sander, I think they are called) headed out, and Louise took us and Eric to Helmsdale for a check on the sailboat ropes and some good King Rib and Battered Haddock! They saw us off at the train station and we headed to a hostel north of Edinburgh again to clean some rooms for a free private room and breakfast! Tomorrow, Patrice, the CSer we stayed with in Caen, France is taking a vacation to meet us in Glasgow, Scotland and we are going to meet him and his friends at 4:15pm tomorrow...after we clean!

Home of the Highlanders!

The next day in Lybster, Mano and Louise took us to Wick after breakfast. We saw the Whaligoe steps (317 steps down the cliff to the sea). We walked around in a "European market" in Wick before lunch. I had a beef-n-ale pie with onion rings! We headed back home, passed by the airport where Mano works and a quick stop at the Tesco (supermarket) to get dinner supplies. When we got back, Duncan took me out with a fly rod, we went wading up the river and I caught 3 wild brown trout! They are native to Scotland so it was a lot of fun!  The octopus stew was made for everyone except me...I tried it, it was...different, but they cooked haggis for me along with the swede and potatoes. Then, Mano took us and Eric out in the dinghy to see a castle on the coast and a bunch of caves, we saw a seal and a puffin! It was really awesome, but freezing! Me and Eric stayed up late and watched the night sky, you can see the Milky Way here it is so dark! We saw 4 satellites and 3 Perseid meteors! We are staying another night here in Lybster...

Hiking and Sailing in the Highlands!

To hold up our end of the sweet deal...we stripped sheets and pillow cases, cleaned bathrooms and showers, and mopped the floors of the hostel! It wasn't that bad really, we got a free nights stay in our private room ($70) and free breakfast for both of us. We wanted to hike to the mountain "Ben Vrackie" so we got our bags ready and ended up hitting a souvenir shop and getting a milkshake before we went! The hike was awesome, half way up the trail there was a lake. All of a sudden, it started pouring and blowing wind sideways, so we hid behind a rock until it slacked off, we could barely stand up in the wind it was so strong! After it quit, we were wet and started walking back to the town...then we decided we came this far (to the foot of the mountain) we had to keep going! We went up, all the way to the top, took plenty of pictures, but we finally made it! A RAF Tornado flew by while we were on the mountain, it was so low, fast, and loud we thought we were about to die! We didn't see it because it was so cloudy, but they run a training route over Pitlochry. We heard another one when we got back to our hostel. We tried to get back in time to get food, but everywhere was closed. So, we went to the grocery store, bought Scottish beef steaks and made fajitas and potato wedges in the hostel kitchen! We slept like logs, but caught the 8:42am train outta there to meet Mano and Louise in Helmsdale, Scotland. They had another guy, Eric, from France staying with them and we all went out on their sailboat and learned how to "tack" into the wind and hoist the lines! It was pretty awesome and nobody fell overboard despite all of the leaning over the sides to keep the sail up and the keel down! We had fish n' chips (I had Haggis) and headed to Lybster to their house. We met a man named Duncan, a friend of Mano and Louise, and he offered to take us fly fishing for trout tomorrow! We are cooking octopus...looks awesome, but could be deadly for me, so I don't think I'll try it :( Fishing report tomorrow!

Yorkshire to the Scottish Highlands!

Yesterday, we ate breakfast and Vaughan took us to a west coast town called Morecambe (near Lancaster) in Lancashire, England. We walked around and saw all of the old buildings in the city and went down by the coast. The tide was up so high it flooded the road, so we had to go eat lunch and come back. We went to Happy Mount park and ate the packed lunch we brought while we watched some old guys play "Crown Green Bowling". We went back to the flooded road and out to the coast of Sunderland Point at low tide, saw some old boats and the grave of the "little black Sambo". Vaughan showed us the house were he grew up and bunch of other cool sights. The roads there and back were awesome! We drove through the Yorkshire Dales, which is a national park. All kinds of fast curvy roads... We got back about 7pm and cooked a curry beef dish, which is pretty much the real national meal of England now instead of fish and chips. Vaughan has me wanting to print black and white photos at home now, after we looked through all of his prints. He also has a Mamiya 645 which would be sweet to mess around with! We parted ways with Vaughan, but he says he wants a change of scenery and really wants to move to the US for a while, so maybe we will see him again! We got the 12:03 train (nasty kids everywhere and gross seats/floors) to York to make our way up past Edinburgh to Pitlochry, a tiny town at the foot of a big mountain in Scotland, we are here for two days now. We tried to go to Edinburgh, but there is a festival going on and there is NOWHERE to stay! In Pitlochry, we are going to hike to the top Ben Vrackie tomorrow after we clean the hostel for 3 hours...yeah that's right! We got to talking to the very Scottish guy working at the desk and he said if we would help clean the hostel rooms from 10:30-1:30 tomorrow we could stay for free! We got a private room with a bathroom/shower for 2 nights now! More about the work/hiking tomorrow!

West Yorkshire, England!

We have been with Vaughan near Halifax in West Yorkshire, England for the last few days. We have been driving around, going hiking, taking lots of pictures, and checking out the area. Vaughan is really into photography and has lived here for over 30 years, so he knows all the good spots! He has been making us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and we've had some good meals! Halifax is an old textile town and now it is mostly abandoned factories and immigrants, but still nice to see. Vaughan's house is up in the Pennine hills and is a really nice place to stay. We are staying here until Wednesday morning, so we are going to make a day trip with Vaughan to Lancaster and Morcambe bay area tomorrow.

More Liverpool and Scouse Accents!

Today was another awesome day in England! We slept in again, had breakfast, then had a photo shoot with Matt's Triumph. It turned out really nice! I don't have Photoshop, but I put the original shot from the camera on Facebook. We walked down the road to eat lunch at "Moby Dick", it was a great meal with lots of steak and potatoes (a real English roast). Then we walked past the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, home of the British Open a few times, to get Matt's car from the shop (not the Porsche, but his VW Corrado Storm that had a coolant leak). We got the train into Liverpool and took a "Ferry 'cross the Mersey" and Matt's showed us around the city. It was very nice...we saw the Cavern, which is the first place the Beetles ever played. We met up with Vicky again and walked around town some more before we watched a concert and crazy dance show at the docks by the Beatles museum and ate hamburgers! We went to a pub and heard a really good band play some rock music...Coke for me and Hayley! Now we are back at Matt's in need of some sleep, but tomorrow we are going to check out the "Iron Men" before heading to meet Vaughan in Halifax!

Liverpool, England!

We finally made it to the home of the Beatles! Matt picked us up at the train station and drove us out to his place in the neighborhood of West Kirby. It is super nice here! He cooked slaved over some curry for us and invited his two neighbors Steve and Shulah over and his friend Vicky. We had a good time listening to their awesome accents and they wanted to see our trip pictures, so we showed them a slideshow of every picture on our facebook for the trip! We slept in a little bit because Matt is a web designer and can work when he wants. Then, we got up and went out for the day in his Porsche 993 Carrera S! We went for a walk up on a hilltop and could see all of the peninsula around West Kirby and into Wales. Matt also has a Triumph so we went to the Triumph dealer and it was really sweet! We bought a British Triumph patch and two shirts. We checked out Chester, an old city in Cheshire that has old Roman walls around it from 80 A.D. Some of the buildings there date to the 15th century. We had awesome milkshakes, saw Paul McCartney's house and some homes of the Liverpool "footballers". We drove around in the Porsche for a while and checked everything out before going to the grocery store and cooking dinner at Matt's. Tomorrow we are having a photoshoot with the Street Triple and going to Liverpool!

Dublin!

We made it to Dublin! We were supposed to meet a couchsurfer, but we don't have a phone so when we got to Dublin we looked up their address...and it was an hour walk outside the city! They never said where to meet up so...we sent them a message and said we were in the city center, but couldn't walk to meet them. We already had another CS'er here for tomorrow night and we had no internet, so we gave him a call and asked if we could just come over and use the WiFi to get a hold of the other guy. Turns out, he said we should just stay here for the night and tomorrow too! We are getting some sleep, but checking out Dublin tomorrow!
UPDATE: We checked out Dublin! We walked around the city and ate some lunch at a pub, no drinkin'. Then, we headed back and met with Valerio, our CS'er, and went out with him and a guy from Israel to a pub. They wouldn't let me in though because I had open-toed shoes! So, we just walked around, went back to the apartment and cooked a pizza with garlic bread and a side of cereal and orange juice...we are being thrifty! We left Ireland for England!

Northern Ireland!

We woke up early in Galway, ate breakfast and caught the train to Dublin. Our rolling suitcase is no longer rolling and it sucks to drag around, but we made it across Dublin to the other train station to get the train to Belfast, then eventually to Portrush (the 55 degrees north city on the coast). We got here and decided since we have couch surfers all next week, we would just get a B&B for 2 nights and check out the Giant's Causeway and the northern coast. Last night we got pizza and brought it back to the room. We got a $5 bus that we could hop on and off all day long to see all the cool stuff along the coast. We rode it 3 times and then after the last bus was gone and we wanted more time to see stuff, we just walked along this coastal hiking trail that went about 10 miles back to Portrush. It was awesome! We saw lots of sweet stuff and had great time hiking back at sunset/dark! Tomorrow we are heading to Dublin to meet a couchsurfer.