We are currently in the air at 38,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. We truly did love the trip, however, as stated earlier, we will be glad to return home. Once we land in Philly, we will have to go through Customs and then catch our flight to Charlotte – and finally home. I pray that everything is fine back home, and that I don’t have too much jet lag tomorrow at work.

Well we are packed and ready to go. I am sitting in Martijn and Tucker’s living room – and in a matter of moments we will be on the road to Manchester Airport. We should be home by 9:30pm ET. We have connections in Philadelphia and Charlotte (we only had one on the way to England – oh well). I hope there are some good movies on the way home. We can’t wait to see and talk to all you guys.

For our last day – we decided to venture to Scotland. Edinburgh was three hours via train from Leeds. We got up early and took the bus into Leeds and got on a 7:10am train.

Once arriving in Edinburgh we quickly noticed how breathtaking it was. It was a gorgeous city with gorgeous country all around it. Take a peek below.

The morning after the big party, we chose to venture to a local restaurant to have a true English Breakfast. The picture below is not mine, but it is similar to what I had this morning (Shannon elected for a Panini). The meal consisted of: baked beans, stewed tomato, fried egg, fried toast (yes I said fried), sausage, bacon (similar to country ham – not like our bacon), and cooked mushrooms. Overall, it was pretty good.

We decided to just relax and rest today. It is Corrine’s and Martijn’s Anniversary. They are having a party tonight for Martijn’s birthday as well. We are still trying to recover from our whirlwind London trip.

We are currently on a train back to Leeds where we will catch a bus back to peaceful Cleckeaton. London was great. Today was great. We really only visited two places: The British Museum, and Westminster Abbey.

The British Museum was incredible. I knew they had a great collection of Egyptian antiquities, but I had no idea the extent of it. To begin with, they had the Rosetta Stone (yes, the actual one). They also had a whole section just devoted to sculptures and statues from Egypt. They also had an entire section devoted to mummies (and other funeral related items). I took tons of pictures, but many items were behind glass. Due to this, many of the pictures didn’t turn out well. I will try to filter out the bad ones before I put the gallery up.

Westminster Abbey was almost an afterthought in our minds beforehand. However, we were both blown away by how amazing it was. First, so many monarchs are buried there. Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, Edward III, Edward V and his brother (the young princes), Henry VII and Henry III just to name a few (also buried there: Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling, and many more). We couldn’t take pictures inside, but there are a few of the outside.

Today, we got to see Hampton Court Palace – which was amazing! I must say that this has been the highlight of our trip to London (so far). However, we had high hopes of getting to see five different attractions today, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Our first stop was Hampton Court – but we also wanted to see Kew Gardens, The Mews, The London Aquarium, and Vinopolis (a museum about winemaking). We quickly ruled our Kew Gardens because the gardens at Hampton Court were amazing (see gallery) and Kew gardens were a bit far out. We then tried to venture to the Mews (where the Palace horses and carriages are kept), but we missed the last tour by 20 minutes (because we misread the book). We then went to the London Aquarium. It was a bit small, but still had a lot of good stuff. We also got to touch a stingray. At this point we ventured out to Vinopolis. It took us about 25 minutes of travel and about 15 minutes of walking, but we finally arrived. However, when we arrived we realized that they had closed several hours early for a private event. We were livid. However, we can’t say enough about how cool Hampton Court was. We also got to have afternoon tea at a restaurant on the grounds. That was great.

We made it to London without any issues at all. Once we got it – it took a while to find the place to buy a London Pass. The pass is super cool – because it gives you free admissions to tons of places. If you order it ahead – you can get it with a transportation option. However, we just bought a day pass for the Tube (Zones 1-4) and it worked fine. So our stops today were: The Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Kensington Palace. Finally, after a day of not having real meals – we ate at our hotel (which is just a bar with some rooms attached to it). They serve Thai food, and it was amazing. We have full bellies – and now we are sleepy. Good night.

We awoke at 5:30am this morning, so we could catch the early train to London. We got the 6:10 am bus to Leeds Railway Station and boarded the 7am GNRE Train to London King’s Cross. This train is amazing compared to the regional trains that we have ridden so far. First, there is a complete restaurant aboard. First class looks more like a gourmet restaurant than a train car. Alas, we are not in first class. However, standard class is good too. We have to walk to the next car for the restaurant where we can get coffee, toast, bacon, etc… The trip is a little over two hours. This is the “fast train”, which means that is makes minimal stops between Leeds and London. We also will be taking the fast train when we go to Edinburgh, Scotland later this week.

I want to give a quick Happy Anniversary to mom and dad today. They are probably traveling all about Nova Scotia today in the land of Tim Horton’s (have to go to Canada to figure that one out). Mom and Dad – I hope that you guys are having an amazing time on your trip. I tried to call you guys last night (I was the one who called – but you couldn’t hear me). I will try again today, if I can find a Skype headset somewhere (I left mine at home).

Cheers.

We woke up this morning, and quickly realized that we were still thoroughly exhausted. We spent some time this morning planning out trek to London (which will be Wednesday through Friday). We have realized that any trip here takes quite a bit of planning (if you want to avoid the public transit nightmare). However, after gaining a bit of energy, we took the train back to York (where we briefly visited on our first day here. We have some more pictures below. We visited the crypt and treasure at York Minster (which is the largest gothic cathedral in Europe). We also ate at a pub and spent some time shopping.