Hey, here’s a picture…

…of Stonehenge!

Stormy gales blow through Wales

I’m in Wales, and the electricity is working. Now that’s worth mentioning because before it wasn’t.
Matt and I hopped a train to Heathrow this morning, where we were to pick up our little Czech car at 9 a.m. We did so, at a perfectly reasonable 380 GBP, and drove off into the west.
With many reminders to Matt to stay on the left side of the road, we made it to the m4, and continued on for a few hours with only a stop to grab a pair of Big Macs and some chicken nuggets.
It is quite funny I had to cross an ocean to eat a McDonald’s burger again. I have to say, it was quite good.
We made it to the farmhouse around 3 p.m., and, boy, is it beautiful. It’s also on sale for 360,000 GBP at the moment, and I’ll have a video up, hopefully, tomorrow, to show our trip and the farmhouse. I meant to have it today, but as soon as I started filming here it suddenly went dark…like I said, due to the wind, the power went out.

Now, time for a flashback: last Thursday in London we first visited the London museum and the National Gallery. Both are worth visiting, if only because of the fact that it is free. The London museum covers the history of London from pre civilization to the present, and the London Gallery houses many famous painting. I did enjoy the part of the Gallery where I got to see Leonardo’s Madonna on the Rocks, various van Gogh paintings, and some artworks I’ve never seen before, but I never was one to stay too long in such exhibitions. Call me uncultured.
We then walked all the way home, across the bridge right by Big Ben, Westminster, and the houses of parliament, to join our fellow hostel goers for some Halloween festivity.
It sounds like we went crazy. Sure. We drank a gin and tonic each and went to sleep. Our costumes were pajamas.
Happy belated Halloween!

Day 4: London calling

So it’s our fourth day in London, our third and last full one, and yesterday was the first time that we’ve been hit with stereotypical London weather. It was raining and chilly, though not as chilly as some of the locals tell us it normally is this time of the year. I haven’t been writing because I’ve been ridiculously busy during the day, then super tired at night…there must definitely is no shortage of things to do here.
On Wednesday, Matt and I got our stuff together fairly early in the morning, and headed off to the Tower of London, to see where the royal family once lived, where the crown jewels are housed, and what the torture chambers look like. On all counts, the Tower pleased, though the instruments of torture were slightly deficient for my taste. We paid 18.50 pounds (the student price) to enter, and spent a very merry 5 or so hours there. Right off the bat, we included ourselves in a free tour group, led by a “Beefeater”, a very English, very funny man who told us a bit about a few of the building’s histories. The tour took about an hour, and was very entertaining…if you are every here, definitely join in on one.
After the tour concluded, we headed off to explore interiors on our own. There are a few buildings that are done with historical accuracy, while others are converted into exhibits, describing money, crowns, military, and a myriad of other things.
All in all, it is a very good way to spend a day, especially if you have company! Afterwards, we went to a place called Union Gold, on Poland St, right off of Oxford St, for some fish and chips. I got a large carp, and boy, was it good. Spent about 13 pounds for the whole thing, but had food for the next day out of it. It was fantastic.

That’s what I wrote yesterday, I will continue writing about Thursday and Friday when we get the car, which is what we’re currently going to do.

Quick vid before writing

Hope this works!

Part 2: Norway, the land of ships

My first real day in Norway, I decided that I would dedicate it to museums. And so I embarked on a trip to the sort of peninsula like area of southern Oslo called Bygdøy. Now, I just had to take the number 30 bus all the way from outside the door of my hostel to the end of its like, but during the summer one can also take a ferry, which is infinitely cooler.
It seems like that whole area is dedicated to museums. I actually think that the road that the bus drives on is called Museum Road…but I might be just making that up. That’s for the nit picky people of the internet to answer. So, since I like ships, and I also like Vikings, the first museum I decided to stop off in was…the Viking ship museum!
Entry was 60 nok for an adult, which is fitting considering that the museum was relatively much smaller than the next two I would visit. Everything is in one building, which houses the ships that were discovered in excavations of Viking burial mounds. Two are in surprisingly good shape, as are the artifacts and skeletons that were found inside of them. There are a few balcony like features that you could climb up to as well, to look down over the tops of the ships. All of the burial artifacts are on display, along with the skeletons of two female high ranking Vikings, a chieftain, and another guy…I forget what he was on about. All in all, a cool museum, didn’t take more than an hour to visit, not a necessity though if you’re running low on money.
Museum number two was called the Norwegian folk museum, and was definitely the most different of the three. It has a few indoor exhibitions, including one about the Sami that I really enjoyed, but the thing that really makes this museum unique is its extensive outdoor exhibition. They recreated or transported a whole bunch of traditional Norwegian buildings, include churches, farm houses, town halls, even a tenement building and alcohol shop. It is quite large and quite easy to get lost in. Many of the buildings were not completely open, due to reconstructive work being done in their roofs, but it was cool nonetheless. It cost me a reasonable 80 nok, and took me a good portion of time to explore.
And now we get to my favorite museum of the day, the Fram museum. It’s located right by the last stop on the 30 bus, flanked by two other museums, the Maritime and the…Tiki? Something along those lines, I can’t quite remember. It costs 85 nok to enter, and it is, in my opinion, the best museum of the three. It contains two polar exploration ships, the Fram and the Gjoa (?). The Fram is the first ship actually designed to withstand polar ice, and the first to do it successfully. The museum is filled with information, cool exhibits and even has a movie you can listen to in any language. The icing on top of the cake is that you can actually walk on, in, and around the Fram, and see exactly how the men used to live on the ship for years and years. It was totally worth the money, totally recommended.
Now I must cut this post short. Matt and I have just gotten ready, we’re drinking some tea, and we’re going to head out and do some stuff!