Posted June 23.

So my plans changed a bit. It turns out the ferry was going to cost £78 and flying back to England was going to be 50 Euros. Hmm...

I headed up to Mainz on June 18th and got to see Frank and Charlotte (they both stayed with me in Canda with some of their other friends). I stayed at Frank's parents house and was a little spoiled by his mother (she did my laundry).

I explored around Mainz, drank lots of German beer, and relaxed. It was nice.

Saturday we went out during the day, played some squash in the afternoon and then went back to have a traditional German asparagus dinner. It was excellent. I was leaving Sunday so we went out Saturday night as well. My bus was leaving at 3:00AM so I stumbled to the bus stop from the club and groggily got on the plane. You develop a strange sense of humour when you're exhausted (and slightly drunk) which you'll see when I get some of my photos uploaded.

I made it back to Portsmouth at about noon on Sunday (still with no sleep). Viv was having a little party at her place so I socialised for a few hours before going upstairs to put on some sunscreen. I sat on the bed and promptly fell asleep until 7:30. This turned out to be good though because a new episode of Topgear was airing at 8 so I was just in time.

I get to relax this week and get prepared and then next week it's off to Belgium!

Whoo!

Posted April 27.

I set off for Higham's Park, London (where my cousins live) on Friday. I was very proud of myself actually, I navigated the train, underground, more trains and made it all the way to their place without getting lost.

Friday night I was taken out for a pint or two with my cousin (Third cousin or something? We share a great-great-grandfather), Rob. Of course it never ends up being a pint or two and we were taken home at about 3AM.

Because of that we ended up leaving a lot later than we meant to the next morning (regardless of the fact that the sun woke me up at 6AM and I couldn't get back to sleep). It turns out that everyone decided to play tourist for the day so five of us set off for London proper (Me, Rob, Chrissy (his sister), Frankie (his mother) and Terry (his father)).

We got into London at about 11AM and set off towards Tower Bridge. We went by the Tower of London across Tower Bridge and set off down the Thames. I took lots of pictures and it was nice and sunny. Once we were across Tower Bridge a tail ship came by and the bridge had to raise. It seemed a little silly to make everyone wait for this one fairly small ship but no one complained.

We got to see some living statues which were pretty cool. They seemed to make a lot of money though. I kinda wanted to see someone grab some money out of the hat so he would get tackled by a living statue but didn't happen. Damn.

We stopped at a pub for lunch and the prices were absolutely ridiculous. I was a bit spoiled and my cousin's treated me to lunch. It was great that they did though because all I would have been able to afford otherwise was a coke (which was 6 dollars by the way).

Afterwards we headed back across the river and towards St Paul's Cathedral. We took a quick look inside but were running short on time and had to hurry back towards the London Eye. It didn't really seem to matter though because even though we'd purchased our tickets online (I was treated to that too, I was starting to feel a bit bad at this point, as I was ALSO treated to my day pass for the trains) we still waited for over an hour in line (or a queue as they call it here).

They wouldn't let me take my multitool on the Eye. I wasn't sure what they where afraid I was going to do but is owned by British Airways so perhaps they consider it a type of plane? The Eye was pretty cool though, great place to take pictures from (man I sound like a tourist, don't I?).

After we came out we headed back down the river towards the Parliament Buildings, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. It was getting late by this point so we headed towards Buckingham Palace and then home. We encountered 8 policeman arresting one drunk guy (even though he wasn't disorderly at all) and some guys dressed up as cows with a cowboy.

Tired, we all headed back home to watch a movie and head to bed. Today, Terry was heading towards Portsmouth so they dropped me off back at Viv's place. I was still exhausted so I made some lunch and took it easy. I went to Paula and Del's for a lovely dinner (man that was REALLY British wasn't it? Good thing I'm leaving soon) this evening and to put my London pictures up before I forget what they're about.

Tomorrow I clean up Viv's place, get some last things together, and pack up again before I'm off to Portugal on Tuesday.

You can see London pictures on Facebook or

HERE.

Posted April 25.

Yesterday was a nice lazy morning. I went to the library, ran some errands, did my laundry and then headed downtown to meet one of the girls I'd met last week for the afternoon.

We ended up having a great time and went for a long walk along the waterfront. She was a really good impromptu tour guide and I got to take some pictures (I'm getting better!).

We ended up back at a pub for dinner and were joined by the rest of the O'Neil (the store I originally met her at) employees when they got off shift. We had some drinks and some fun and then I headed home to pack for London.

I arrived an hour or so ago at my cousin's (I think) house in London (which I found myself I'm proud to note) and decided it would be a good time to upload some pictures.

New pictures can be found on Facebook and

HERE.

Tomorrow I'm off to explore London! I'll try to take more pictures.