Sean Henri

Kevin's Trip - Day 15 - The Roman Baths

By Sean Henri August 11, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin Henri!

Today was our last day driving around on the bus. We set out for the city of Bath, an old Roman city. It is the only place in Britain that has natural hot springs. We went into the Roman baths. Amazing. I expected it to just be that main bath that is in pictures but there was so much more there than I expected. It was just amazing to be walking on some stone floors that the Romans did thousands of years ago. Not everyone in our group was interested in going which is why everybody split off into groups. I walked through the baths with Mrs. Jalowiec. We were both fascinated by everything that we saw and it was nice to go with someone who was interested rather than go with my usual group who wouldn't have cared about what they were seeing.

Following this, we visited Stonehenge. It is a lot smaller than it looks in pictures and we have to keep a certain distance from it, but it is amazing nonetheless. The fact that someone could construct that without the technology we have now is astonishing.

We finished up looking at Stonehenge and set off to London. Once we arrived, we said thanks and goodbye to our tour director John and our driver, Billy. We will all miss them.

In London, we went out to eat and split up into two groups; my group going to see "Stomp!", and the other group went to see "Mary Poppins" on stage. Clearly "Stomp!" was far better than seeing a stage version of a movie that I have seen hundreds of times. Everyone in the theater was amazed by the performers' coordination, and there were some very funny parts as well.

Tomorrow we set off for home. Not too much will happen, so unless there is some excitement tomorrow, this will be my last journal entry. I can't wait to go home and see Katie. Peace suckasssssssss!

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Kevin's Trip - Day 14 - The ferry to Wales

By Sean Henri August 10, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin Henri!

Last night, I laid in bed for an hour before finally falling asleep. This morning, we had to be downstairs for breakfast by 6. Naturally, I was destined to wake up at 6:05 and pulled the get-ready-for-the-entire-day-in-just-five-minutes routine. Nevertheless, I was late and got yelled at.

We headed out for the ferry to bring us to Wales. Goodbye Ireland. On the ferry, a few adults and I ranted about the Derby Public school system for most of the ride, and towards the end of the trip, I went through my receipts and estimated how much money is still in my checking account.

Once the ferry arrived in Wales, we drove to our hotel in Cardiff, got dressed up for our dinner later in the night, and headed out to Cardiff Castle. The castle is this huge piece of land surrounded by big walls. Inside in the middle of the property is a keep that was built in later years. The inside of one of the towers is very lavish. This rich guy designed the inside and it is just amazing how much money one would need to afford to decorate the place.  After we toured the tower, we went downstairs to this great hall with other groups of people, to have dinner.

The great hall was made of stone without much decorations. It was very medieval. We had a great show and some good food. The first thing that they serves us was seaweed wrapped in ham. Everyone was gorssed out by it, but some of us tried it, and some of us thought it was pretty decent. The show consisted of songs and acts, both in which the audience was very involved. We were all pretty rowdy and overall, everyone ended up getting worked up by the show. It was even better than the Scottish show.

After the show, everyone was extremely loud and talkative. The bus ride was very fun because everyone was so worked up. Then we all went to sleep. Excellent. For some reason, my phone hasn't had service since Limerick. I have signal but no service. Oh well. It's probably better that way because I can't make any more expensive calls, of which I have made too many.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 13 - Blarney Castle

By Sean Henri August 09, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin again.

We were allowed to sleep in late today. It was about time. Our first destination was the town of Blarney. Obviously, this is the home of the Blarney Stone. As a group, we climbed Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone at the top. The castle had many rooms that most of this group skipped. Jimmy and I kept leaving the staircase to explore the rooms. The staircase was very narrow and as we got higher the steps got narrower and we struggled to stay on the steps. Towards the top of the steps, Alex Oppel fell. We finally made it to the top where everyone was kissing the Blarney Stone. The Blarney Stone is built into the castle. In order to kiss it, you need to lay on your back, grab these bars and slide off a little bit. You bend your head back and kiss it. The distance from the floor to the wall is about 2 feet. In that space are two bars to keep you from falling to your death, but it was extremely terrifying to be practically hanging off a ledge with hundreds of feet below you. After I kissed it and Jimmy took a picture of me, we walked down some other stairs. We found a room that we think was the bathroom there is the this long hole on the ground which leads to outside. This wasn't a normal hole, it was in the shape of a lowercase "L". We think it was an old type of urinal. After taking pictures, we found another room with an extremely tight doorway. This room was situated above the doorway to the big room. This is where they would pour boiling liquids on intruders.

We left the castle in our small groups and made our way to a cave. It was awesome. There were no lights in there. It was completely dark and muddy. I used the flash from my camera to find my way. We took a bunch of pictures, a couple cool ones minus the flash, instead, using candlelight. We left, covered in mud, and found some lunch. Then we all drove for a while and took a rest stop in Cork. It was cool looking there by the river in cloudy weather. We didn't stay for long but went to Waterford, where our hotel was.

Our hotel was situated along a river. It was the nicest looking location for our hotel yet. I walked along the river and took some pictures of the swans there using Mr. Poppa's camera lense. I like how a lot of them come out.  Not much else happened today. We ate and went to sleep.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 12 - The Ring of Kerry

By Sean Henri August 08, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

It's Kevin suckas!

We started off bright and early to the sounds of our wake-up call. Not a very pleasant morning. While driving along, we stopped at a small village on the side of the road. I think it was called Bog Village. It consisted of old thatched houses. One of these houses had peat burning in a fireplace. Afterwards, we drove through the Ring of Kerry.  Looking out to my right, I saw a giant lake and mountains. To my left, I saw a big slope of one of the many mountains. This particular area was called "Dingle Bay" (haha). After many a picture stop/rest stop in the mountains, we showed up in Killarney, where we went for a ride through Killarney National Park in jaunty cars. Jaunty cars are carriages pulled by horse, for those who don't know.

We walked around a little where I found a replacement for my lost lense cap, had dinner at the hotel, and then had a choice to stay at the hotel or go out to town. I wanted to stay at the hotel to avoid spending money. Billy, Adam, Dan, Alec, and I ended up walking down the street but once we walked for twenty minutes without seeing anything, except a massive dead badger, we came back to our hotel. Probably the least eventful day of the trip, but very scenic.

Fin.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 11 - Galway to Limerick & Meelick

By Sean Henri August 07, 2007 // 2 Comments  // Add yours »

From the mind of Kevin:

We woke up, and we boarded our bus. Our first location we drove to was Galway. On the way there we played a rousing game of playing card bingo. Eire is even greener than Scotland. The grass here is weird. It looks like waves of green and I imagine that it is very soft and laying on it would be quite pleasurable.  I've never seen anything so green before. I don't think that my camera will capture how green it really is. We went up in Galway where we met up with Brother Sean and walked around for food. We got back on the bus after "making pictures" as Germanians would say. We drove to this rocky region called the Burren. It's cool how it is so bare and plain and alongside beautiful Galway Bay.

After the passing through the Burren, we went to the cliffs of Moher. These breathtaking cliffs are very high up above the ocean. The ocean is clear blue. We got on the bus and drove to our hotel in Limerick and set off to meet the Irish troop that our scouts stayed with when they came here as exchange scouts. In other countries, scouts is co-ed. We had a little presentation of gifts between the troops and had a "campfire". It was pretty fun. We all got to see people we knew that came to America years ago. Sean saw many people that he knew because he stayed with a lot of them the first time he went to Ireland in 1999. We finished up and came back late. At some point I lost my lense cap. Much sadness. I have to try and find a store with one if I can. I went to sleep late. Sean left with some Irish friends.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 10 - A full day in Dublin

By Sean Henri August 05, 2007 // 2 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin Henri again.

We woke up to go on a tour of Dublin. We drove past many a building such as the Irish Supreme Court and their Parliament building. There were also two cathedrals that we passed. We ended up picking up Mr. Ryan and driving by the Guinness factory and through Phoenix Park. It is one of the biggest parks in the world. It is bigger than Central Park in New York and Hyde Park of London combined. Then we went shopping and split off. Some of us stayed in town, others went to the hotel and we had most of the day off to do what we wanted to do. I went to sleep for a couple of hours and then the Cosmos group (minus Billy who went with another group to tour the Guinness Brewery) went to the laundromat in the next town over.

From there, we walked over to a pub/restaurant, where I got chicken breasts with garlic sauce and also a Chef salad. Both were amazingly good. They were probably the best food that we've had during the entire trip. Seriously, this food was amazing. It was good. Then the group went back to the laundromat to get their clothes, except Josh and I. We went over to the internet cafe across the street. I finished and we all took a taxi back to the hotel. I met back up with Dan Howard, Steve Poppa, Matt Poppa, Alex Oppel, and Billy Boroski in Dan's room. Then I went to sleep. We have to be downstairs for breakfast for 7 A.M. We are going to Galway and Limerick. At some point we will meet up with my brother, Sean Henri. It will be fun. Adios por ahora.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 9 - Wales

By Sean Henri August 05, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

It's Kevin Henri yet again.

We awoke on time for once and got on the bus and drove over to Chester, England. The Romans used to inhabit this town way back when. It has an old wall in it from the Medieval Times. We walked along the wall for a while which was pretty cool until we left the wall and walked by the ruins of a Roman Amphitheater and some Roman gardens with some of the pillars still intact. We walked around and then got back onto the bus and drove into Wales. Their signs have both English and Welsh on them. The Welsh language is the dominant language in Wales and they are extremely proud of their Celtic language. Wales has many castles in the country, a lot of them being recently constructed within the last two hundred years. We passed through Conwy (Conway in English), and saw a very old castle that was constructed from 1283 to 1287, a remarkably short time considering their methods of building back then. It was very interesting. To leave, our bus had to pass through this very narrow archway and we just barely made it through. It was a little risky.

     We went on our way and stopped at Llanfairpwllgwyngogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It has the longest name of a town in the world. It has 59 letters and in English it means, "The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave". It's sister city is in Holland, named "Ee" and has the shortest name for a town in the world. We shopped for an hour and then headed to Holyhead to take a ferry over to Dublin. The ferry ride was three hours long but it was very luxurious in there. Lots of comfortable chairs, televisions, a movie theater, etc.

     Once we arrived in Dublin, we stopped at our hotel and then went out in our groups to have dinner. Pretty boring place to be at night unless you are a drinker. We stopped in a gift shop and then ate at Burger King (much better than all the McDonald's here), and then we came back to our hotel and went to sleep. The End.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 8 - Liverpool

By Sean Henri August 04, 2007 // 5 Comments  // Add yours »

Hey it's Kevin again.

We left wonderful Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Capital hotel after spending two nights there. We headed out on the road with Liverpool being our final destination. The drive through Scotland was beautiful. Surrounded by small mountains in the green countryside, fields of sheep everywhere, colorful streams flowing through the fields and hills with wild flowers growing alongside the river. At one point we stopped along the side of the road and watched a farmer on a tractor herding his sheep with his two dogs. The dogs ran around the group, keeping any small groups from straying. At one point, one sheep started running away and both dogs ran for it at once, jumping on the sheep. The sheep quickly ran back to the group after that. The dogs looked like they were having the time of their lives running around fields and chasing sheep. It was amazing to see this because it isn’t something that the average person sees in his/her life.

While we were driving along, we came upon this point where we were high up in the mountains. Very tall mountains called “The Devil’s Beef tub”. It reminded me of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. It’s weird because a lot of this drive has reminded me of Colorado, except greener. I loved it here. The mountains are indescribable. They are something that you would have to experience for yourself. Our next stop was Gretna Green. It was our last stop in Scotland before heading back to England. It wasn’t very interesting unless you wanted to elope and have a blacksmith marry you. There were a couple of shops and a restaurant or two. We had an hour there but Billy Boroski and I were bored and boarded the bus early.

We all drove back to England and towards Grasmere. It is a mountainous region and has many lakes. This particular area, with its windy roads along the mountains, lakes and pine trees, reminded me of Washington State. Grasmere used to be the home of a poet, William Wordsworth. We stepped off of the bus and wandered through town. Billy and I found the grove where William Wordsworth is buried. There was another William Wordsworth who died 30 years later, buiried close by. Grasmere had some nice buildings, but not much to do. Everyone was so surprised by how amazing Scotland is, that England didn’t seem as nice. We all came here with a low expectation of Scotland, but it is much better than England. Nobody knows what to expect of Ireland, but we all hope that Scotland doesn’t make Ireland seem lame in comparison.

We drove a few hours until we arrived in Liverpool, the city of Beatles fame. It was kind of like Bridgeport. It was exactly how I thought it would look with crappy buildings and the sky was filled with gray clouds but no rain. Liverpool is the city with the lowest household income in all of England. We stopped at our hotel Adelphi, which was where very old and rich cruise ship passengers used to stay. I believe that the rooms are $500 to $700 per night. Our room was spacious and also had a couch.

After settling in, we boarded the bus for a tour of the city. Our tour guide who was a life long Liverpudlian, brought us to Liverpool Cathedral, a modern cathedral started at the turn of the century and completed in the 1970’s in a neo-gothic style. It was the biggest cathedral we have visited so far.

We drove along Penny Lane and saw all of the places that were named in the Beatles’ song of the same name. We also saw where John Lennon went to school and where Paul McCartney and George Harrison went to school. I was disappointed that we couldn’t go and see Strawberry Fields and John Lennon’s house on Menlove Avenue, but we got to see the Cavern Club where the Beatles performed almost 300 times. We didn’t get to go inside, but instead went back to the hotel for dinner. We later learned that our female tour guide had dated George Harrison in the mid 1960s and wish we could have asked her more questions about the Beatles.

After a nice dinner some of us with the chaperones went over to The Cavern to go inside and also see the other Beatle monuments, like one to Eleanor Rigby. On the way we saw lots of women dressed in crazy group outfits, which is the tradition for bridal parties on a night out. When we went into the Cavern it was far underground and a lot smaller than I expected it to be. It was still amazing though to imagine that the young Beatles played here. It isn’t the original club that they performed in because that was demolished. A new one was built in almost the exact location to be just like it was when the Beatles were there, made out of brick. It was an amazing experience and a must for all serious Beatles fans. After we visited, listened to the Beatles era music being blasted, and had a toast to the Beatles, we went to the hotel y despues we went to sleep. Tomorrow we go to Wales for a while and then over to Dublin, Ireland.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 7 - Edinburgh

By Sean Henri August 03, 2007 // 4 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin Henri, reporting from Edinburgh.

Today we woke up late again.  For some reason we thought we had a wake up call when we had never asked for one.  Jimmy Anderson called us the night before as a prank calling to confirm a 4 A.M. wake-up call and we told him at 7.  Then Jimmy said it was him, and we all laughed.  The next morning my alarm went off at 7 and I realized that the phone hadn't rang yet because I was expecting it to so I went back to sleep waiting for the phone to ring.  Apparently since it was the last thing on our minds the night before, we had it in our heads that we had a wake-up call set.  I woke up and Billy checked the time on my phone and it said 7:18.  So we got up and got our stuff ready.  A minute later I put on my watch and saw the time said 7:35.  We were in trouble.  Randy, one of our chaperones, yelled at us and it was over. We were tired.

We got onto the bus with our tour guide, David McKree.  He was pretty funny and had a witty sense of humor.  He wore a kilt and has a strong Scottish accent.  He told us that Edinburgh is on top of a volcano and that the Scottish speak a language called "Lalenze", which consists of English, French, and Dutch.

We went to Edinburgh Castle, this gigantic castle built upon a cliff.  We also went to Holyroodhouse, some big palace. We didn't go inside though but we walked around the town and around the palace.   After that, we walked around the city for a few hours to find a bank, a shop, and to eat.  We all bought different things and exchanged dollars for pounds. All in all, a good day.  We came back to our hotel room and relaxed for a couple hours before dinner at 6, in which we all got dressed up in shirts, ties, and blazers.  Some of us wore kilts (not me though).

Dinner was at a fancy hotel.  We all sat at big tables and ate our food.  I tried eating duck for the first time in my life.  After dinner there was a show.  The band came out and a man introduced them and told us how we would be listening to traditional Scottish music and dance.  The gentleman named all of the countries that people were from.  When he mentioned ours, the troop and the other Americans went wild.  Then he said that some people were from England and the band immediatly stopped playing and searched angrily in the crowd for them.  It was hilarious.  The show had everyone riled up.  The band was great, the singers were great, the dancers were great.  All in all, an amazing show.  I got so into it that I wanted to jump up on stage and join in.  Scottish music is extremely fun and I recognized quite a few songs.  The bagpiper came out and played "Amazing Grace" (to me, one of the saddest songs ever when played on bagpipes).  The show concluded with the whole room joining hands and singing "Auld Lang Syne".  We got onto the bus really riled up and sang a bunch of songs.  We arrived at the hotel and everyone calmed down and went to bed.  Tomorrow we go to Liverpool, England.  I don't know if we will be able to stop at any of the places that I want to but we will definitely drive past them in a tour.  Bye for now.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 6 - On the way to Edinburgh

By Sean Henri August 02, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

Hey it's Kevin Henri again.

Today woke up and boarded the bus for Edinburgh, Scotland.  On the way, we were going to stop at Hadrian's Wall, a small wall that the Romans had built thousands of years ago.  I couldn't wait because I love history and the idea of seeing this wall that I've heard so much about was amazing.  We stopped at the wall.  It was cool.  Only parts of the wall were remaining due to years of people stealing stones for their own houses.  To the average person, this wall would seem meaningless.  But to someone who knows about it, it is quite the harumphadumph.

We drove for hours through extremely hilly roads, almost like a roller coaster.  Jolly fun.  Then we arrived in Scotland and arrived in Jedburgh.  After taking some pictures, our bus drove over to Melrose where we stopped to eat and look around.  Both places has abbey ruins that had scaffolding on them and also cost money to enter so nobody went in.  Melrose was pretty nice looking.  We left there and began our scenic, green, hilly drive to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

After a couple of hours, we arrived in the capital.  It has some pretty cool buildings here including this gigantic castle built along a steep cliff.  It's amazing the way that they were able to build on such a steep cliff.  We checked into our hotel, the Edinburgh Capital Hotel, where we split into our groups again and headed out for an excursion in the city.  My group went to a restaurant named, "Garfunkel's" in which everyone spent a lot on food except for me.  I got an appetizer as my meal...for the second time on the trip.  Once we were done eating, we walked around this long street looking for shops to go into.  We were only able to find one place.  It was this shop full of Scottish stuff where I bought a flag of the Union Jack and Matt Frovarp bought a kilt worth £60.  It was not worth that much ($120) but I am still jealous of him for getting it.  I guess every single store on the British Isles closes by 7:00 because every single time we have a chance to shop, the places are all closed.  We came back to the hotel around 10 and just hung out the rest of the night. Tomorrow we tour the city.

Cheers.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 5 - Peterborough & York

By Sean Henri August 01, 2007 // 1 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin again - We woke up, packed and left to go to a ceremony down the street.  It was a short ceremony in which some guy from the BBC was talking into a microphone, but no video cameras.  Interesting.  We left Coventry and started on our way to a second ceremony in Peterborough.  These ceremonies were to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting.  On the way, we had many a scenic route through the rolling green hills of England.  Once we arrived in Peterborough, we met the female mayor (in all my years...harumph!) and had a small ceremony because we arrived late for the big one.  The ceremony was held in the city council chambers where we recited the British scout oath and the American scout oath, the previous one, pledging our allegiance for the second time in one day, to the Queen Mother.

Afterwards, we went to visit Peterborough Cathedral, a gothic styled cathedral.  Gigantic, by the way.  Both Katherine of Aragon and Mary Queen of Scots were buried there, the latter's body being removed from the site at a later time.  This place reminded us Yanks, of the states, not because of the ambiance, but because you needed to purchase a permit to take photographs and it also had a gift shop.  Those silly capitalists.  T'was a cool place though.  We ate our lunch and took another scenic route to York.  Very historic town, that York. ( We drove by Nottinghamshire, yes...Robin Hood)  York has old ancient walls from the older city way back when.  This place dates back to the Roman times and has been attacked by the Vikings numerous times.  It has a huge gothic cathedral with the most stained glass windows in the world.  One of these windows, is the size of a tennis court.  York Minster is the biggest, old-style cathedral in the world.  We walked down some small streets called the Shambles.  It used to be an old crappy part of town where all the shops and butchers used to be.  It was filled with tiny streets and shops that you see in movies that take place in Ye Olde England.  By far, my favorite city so far.  We left and headed for our hotel in Scotch Corner, England.  On the way, Bill really had to do a number 2 and could not hold it and went on the bus when we weren't supposed to use the bus's bathroom.  He was in great peril afterwards.  It was quite the adventure.  We arrived at the hotel and we will be leaving tomorrow.  I believe that we are going to Scotland next.  Goodnight.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 4 - World Scouting Jamboree & Coventry

By Sean Henri July 31, 2007 // 0 Comments  // Add yours »

We went to sleep at 2:30 last night.  We stayed up watching "Big Brother" a crappy reality show.  We arose, exhausted.  We found some computers and checked our mail.  The tour group met us and put our bags on the bus and we followed.  The breakfast we received came in boxes and was very strange.  I care not to elaborate.  We left for the World Scouting Jamboree, and afterwards Coventry.

The jamboree was good.  Compared to our own National Jamboree, this one had barely anything.  The visitors were restricted to many places, whereas at ours, they are not.  We left for a three hour drive to Coventry.  Coventry is an historic town that was bombed by Nazis during WWII.  It has the typical small buildings that you think of when you think of WWII era Britain.

Our hotel room was much nicer than the previous room and more roomy.  We waited to go to dinner for 8.  The food was okay.  After dinner, we walked over to this cathedral that was destroyed during the Nazi bombing raids.  All that remained were the exterior walls to the building.  Anyway, it was interesting to see a part of history of WWII because it all took place so far away from where we live.  After looking at the cathedral we split up into our groups and walked around town for a little bit and returned to our hotel.  Tomorrow we will go to a ceremony for the 100th anniversary of scouting.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 3 - A tour of London

By Sean Henri July 30, 2007 // 1 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin here.  We were supposed to wake up at 8 in the morning.  I had set my alarms the night before and woke up the following day and thought to myself, "Excellent, I woke up earlier than I planned on."  Then I looked at the clock on the telly, and saw that it read 8:25.  I stared at it for a minute and then I woke up Billy and told him to look at the time.  He also stared at the clock for a minute before saying "Crap."  Then I looked at my phone and saw that it was only 8:11 and we were slightly relieved.  We came downstairs to breakfast and Randy wasn't there to yell at us for being late.  Luckily, Mr. Murray had covered for us.  We ate our breakfast and took an open roof, double-decker bus tour, or two, of London.  We then arrived at the Tower of London and ate fish and chips and the like for lunch.  After finishing lunch, we went on a tour of the Tower where Billy and I were split up into different groups (families as some of us like to call them).

We left the guided tour and went into the main tower that everyone recognizes, called the White Tower.  Very interesting history to the place.  Lots of guns and swords and armor and such.  We then split up again and my group decided to go to a Star Wars exhibit up the river.  Afterwards, we made our way to the Hard Rock Cafe.  We were supposed to arrive at 6 but our group could not catch the right bus because it was broken down so we had to wait 15 minutes for another one making us late.  When we were done, my group decided to go back to the hotel because we were supposed to be awake for 5 in the morning.  At the hotel we discovered a tv show (by the way, European television isn't censored very much) that seems to be the only reality show in the U.K.  It is called "Big Brother" and you cannot understand a single person on the show or figure out the point of the show.  Despite this, the show seems to be very popular; it is making headlines in newspapers, articles in magazines, and talked about in talk shows on the tube.  We went to sleep at 2:30.

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Kevin's Trip - Day 2 - London

By Sean Henri July 29, 2007 // 2 Comments  // Add yours »

Kevin here again.  The plane landed in London and we got off of it. We went to nearby ATM's where I took out £50 (the equivalent to $100). Then we drove through London where I took many pictures and we made many a joke and had many a laugh.  We got our hotel rooms at the Kensington Close Hotel.  The rooms were very tiny and require the use of our cards to power the electricity or else we cannot see inside the bathroom due to the fact that there were no windows.  The bathtub was two feet off of the ground, one of us will forget this and get hurt stepping out of the shower.  We took British subways to somewhere and came out near the Thames River and the British Airlines Eye of London.  I turned around and saw Big Ben and went, "Whooo! Picture time!"

I proceeded to take a lot of pictures as we wandered the streets of London.  We stopped in a McDonalds. Whoa! I got a burger that was  half of a centimeter thick, actually it was only half of that half.  It actually looked like they took a burger before it was cooked and actually sliced it thinner.  The burger was black and the bun burned my hand. Needless to say, I was displeased. We continued on our way holding the trash from McDonald's because apparently there are no public garbage cans in London.  Seriously, we couldn't find any. We turned a corner finally, and there in an inconvenient spot, was a row of about ten garbage cans within three feet of each other and nowhere else in London.  These  garbages could be spread out all over the city but no, they have to be all really close to each other.

We took a boat along the River Thames in which we all fell asleep halfway and then enjoyed a great view on the Eye of London, a gigantic Ferris Wheel that offers excellent photo opportunies and reveals nice-looking buildings to be frauds (they really aren't nice-looking.) After the wheel, we took the subway to a location near our hotel. There was this old wooden wagon there where for some reason, police had decided to place a boot on it. We split up into our groups and walked down the street looking for an eatery shop (restaurant, if you will). We found this restaurant called "ASK".  It was exactly what I expected a European restaurant to look like.  It was all modern with couches and weird paintings that anyone could improve on. The food was good, I ordered two appetizers of cheesy garlic bread.  My two appetizers (which were my meal) came well after everybody else was finished with their own meals.  I didn't have to pay a single bit of money for my meal because Mr. Anderson paid for all of us.  Good ol' chap.  We finished up, all of us content, and headed to the hotel where I will very soon pass out from lack of sleep.

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