New site

Here's a quiche. I mean quickie. Or whatever. I decided that the Europe blogs should be separate. So I now have a second blog site with my current Nicaragua posts. Its address is very creative. Rather than littlelod.blogspot.com, it's littlelod2.blogspot.com. Or you can just click on my profile link and select the new one. Either way. Cheers.

And the Lodscar Goes To...

As Elizabeth and I had nothing to talk about, we often made lists. Just lists. Of anything we could. It was something to do on the long train rides and evenings in. One such list was our list of awards...for the best and the worst of Europe. This list I now share with you, in the hope that it may bring great fulfillment in your life.

Best Metro System: Madrid
(Barcelona was pretty good too. Spain's really good about the metros. Well built, nice murals at the stations, fancy map thingys in the trains...)

Worst Metro System: Budapest
(Honestly we loved Budapest, but their metro system was awful. They charged a lot of money for it, and you couldn't transfer with the ticket...you had to buy a new one. Really really terrible system. So just walk. It's worth the sites anyway.)

Best Bus System: Berlin
(Talk about fancy schmancy buses. They had light-up course maps, spoken announcements, and very well-marked and easy to find bus stops, provided you know what you're looking for.)

Most Accessible: Berlin
(If pressed, I'll give that city, but I should say Germany all around. They're all about acknowledging the past but not being haunted by it, and they don't, as far as we saw, exploit you. They want you to see the history and are very proud of their country's beauty as well. Kudos, Germany! The other countries could learn from you.)

Scariest Tourist Attraction: Rothenberg
(Don't get me wrong, Rothenberg was wonderful! But the puppet show...just don't go. Just don't. 'shudder' Of course I realize, after such a statement, that it's the one thing you'll be sure to see if you do go. But don't. Do you really want to see a man twirling a blonde wig and chickens mating? No, I didn't think so.)

Coolest Clothing Displays: Thessaloniki
(They had really cool clothes. I never actually went clothes shopping there...travelling with my sister, I'm sure you can imagine...but I did mange a wee bit of window shopping as I was being dragged past, and they looked great.)

Freakiest Mannequins: Greece
(They looked real! I can think of one particular display that made us jump every time we walked past it. And we walked past it almost every day we were there. Then there was the time we thought one was a mannequin, but it moved...we had a great laugh about that one all the way back to our hotel...once we got over the shock.)

Worst Train Station Attendants: Paris
(They're incompetent! And that was my first experience in France! It's a good thing we went back later, or I would have bought all the bad things I've heard about the French.)

Best Train Station Attendant: Paris
(Having said that, we had one good experience, once we were back in Paris. He was friendly, smiled, joked, and was very helpful. By far the best train station attendant anywhere. Go figure.)

Best Postal Attendant: Ljubljana
(She was amazing. She was beyond amazing. Our package was going to be very expensive, so she unpacked it and made it into two packages, and packed each on so it was right at the heaviest it could be and still be within the cheaper price bracket. Talk about over and above. Now that's doing your job as unto the Lord.)

Best Burgers: Serbia (Beograde)
(We were only there for a few hours, but we needed to eat. There was a local burger place across the street, and I've never had such good burgers. Big juicy meat slices, set in pita rather than a bun, and with ketchup that actually tasted good!)

Best Bells: Holland
(Holland went all out with their bells. They don't just chime...they play tunes. It's brilliant.)

Cheapest Chocolate: Switzerland
(Switzerland is one of the most expensive places you could go to. Even though the Swiss Franc is almost even with the dollar, it hardly matters. It's expensive enough not to matter. But the chocolate's cheap. Like a bar of chocolate for 45 cents. And it's really good chocolate!)

Cheapest Wine: Venice
(Again, expensive place. But you can fill up a 2 liter water bottle for just a few euros.)

Cheapest Boots: Prague
(If you want to go boot shopping, go to Prague. Cute boots for a little as ten dollars. Of course, there is the $800 dollar plane ticket, but meh.)

Friendliest Random People: Florence
(As in the people you meet off the street. It's a difficult award to give away, because we actually met quite a few friendly people, as well as some unfriendly ones, in just about every country. But we'll give it to Florence because I specifically remember some great people. Including the artist we met and chatted with for a while.)

Best Tour Guide: Mohamed

(Hmmm...well, that could be all of half of the men in Egypt.  But this one is the only one I had a picture of up on my blog.  So if you're not intelligent enough to figure that one out...well, what are you reading my blog for?  I'm sure it's far too intellectual for you.)

Coolest Panoramic View: Venice
(As I've mentioned I'm very anti-GUS...paying exorbitant amounts to ride up an elevator and look down at just another city. But Venice is rather different...what with the canals. And there are no cars...no trees...very different and cool.)

Worst City: Athens/Heraklion (Greece)
(Yeah, you've all heard me go on about it, but if you can avoid staying in the big cities, do. Athens is huge and sprawling, and a bit dirty, and Heraklion, on Crete, is dirty and has tons of construction. And then of course all the freaky people. Stay on the islands and in the small cities and towns. Your stay will be much more pleasant.)

Most Likely to Be Revisited: Ireland
(I love Ireland. I could live there. 'Nuff said.)

Best Hostel: Villa Saint Exupery (Nice)/Nathan's Villa (Sighisoara)
(Villa Saint Exupery was one of those huge but very friendly and well put together hostels. They would arrange tours and activities for you, and had a big common room with a good free breakfast. But the best part was the dinner. For very cheap you could create your own pizza...really really good pizza...and get a house beer. Great hostel. The other, Nathan's Villa, was very laid back and accommodating. We found everyone there very friendly, and we enjoyed hanging out downstairs at the pool table.)

Worst Hostel: Roger's House (San Sebastian)/Ivanhoe Hostel (Rome)
(In all fairness, you could say Roger's House did the best they could in a surfer town...but it wasn't the cleanest hostel, and they didn't have the reception they claimed to have...which was very inconvenient when one was trying to get their deposit back for their key. I wonder how many five euro notes they've stolen from people...Ivanhone Hostel was loud. The employees were friendly enough, but they didn't have everything set up as well as they should...a fault of the managment, not employees. And they don't really have a common room...just a loud hallway with chairs with no backs. And the beds weren't very comfortable.)

Best Big City: Budapest (Aside from the public transportation issue, Budapest was lovely. And for me to think a big city is lovely, that takes some doing. But Budapest really is.)

Best Small City: Granada
(Ah, Granada. I'd go back again in a heartbeat, provided I could stay in the Albayzin again. What a beautiful city.)

Best Small Town:  Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre (Italy)

(Tough choice.  But this place was just charming.  Tiny grocery stores...hanging our laundry out the window...coastal views...lovely.)

Worst Train Station: Warsaw
(Who actually thought up those plans, and how drunk were they? Honestly, one needs a map provided at the entrance, or one could wander around down there for years. It's so terrible, it's comical. As long as you're not pressed for time.)

Most Punctual: Ukraine
(Holy. Smacking. Tennis Rackets. Batman. When I say on time, I don't mean close. Or within five minutes. I mean RIGHT on time. If a train is scheduled in at 6:58 pm, it will be in at 6:58 pm. Quite a change from...well, everywhere else. And for a country so devasted by the former Soviet Union in so many ways, they really got this thing right.)

Best Accents: Scotland

(Well obviously!  I think we all knew that before I went there.  Erm, Elizabeth protests that the Egyptian accent was the best.  How odd.)

Best Traditional Clothing:  Scotland

(Mmkay, I think we knew that too.  I mean...kilts!!!  Obviously.  Although I'm awfully partial to those belly-dancing outfits in Egypt.)

Did ew know...?

Apparently pifs is a word.

Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

London and an Air of Finality

We safely arrived at the bus station in London, and took a short walk to the metro station so we could get to our hostel. We were tired and ready to turn in. Alas, the tube is four pounds. Four pounds!! To ride the freakin' metro!!!! So we dejectedly but determinedly marched back out into the night air and walked to our hostel. And walked. And walked. It was quite a long walk. Maybe an hourish? But I saw a blue police box (albeit smaller than the TARDIS) along the way, so it was totally worth it. And we continued to walk around London from then on...and London's not exactly small. Our hostel was very large, but very worth it, because it was very cheap, and had a very large breakfast. And also very cheap hot dinners. And also on the other side of a very cool, very blacklighty tunnel. And to top it all off, we were in a four bed female dorm. Quite a way to go out.

London held a lot of excitement, because it was the last of the three major cities you have to see (the other two being Paris and Rome), and of course because we knew we'd be heading home soon. And yet, as the day approached, my apprehension grew. Had we really done that much? Had we really been gone long enough? Was I really ready to go back to normal life? Months of counting down the weeks, and then the days, and now I just wasn't sure how I felt about anything. Meanwhile, having set aside both of our cameras in favour of Daniel's which we had liberated for our purposes (Elizabeth's was taking blurry pictures and mine was a battery guzzler), we ventured out to document one last city. But then, as it turned out, Daniel's camera only held 100 pictures at a time, so if we forgot to load the pictures each night, we found ourselves in a pickle the next day. We just couldn't manage, one whole, sufficient camera.

The picture below is not London Bridge. This one above is London Bridge. Completely unspectacular. But there you have it. The bridge that has been falling down for a very very long time.
This is the tower bridge. It is mistakenly believed to be the London Bridge, but it is not. Although it resides in London, it is not named after it. It is more impressive though, I think. Although the blue thingys are pretty weird, especially up close.
We did go to the Tower of London. It's really expensive, but you do get to see the crown jewels and all that. Spiffy cool. Unfortunately, they did of course have cannons. Spiffy Christmasy looking ones, but still. Don't they know yet to keep these out of reach of children? Or queens, as the case may be?
The changing of the guard. Pretty cool. It's such a huge production. It's kind of funny how the British laugh at how patriotic we are, and then they have huge pompous affairs like this. Hmmm...do I detect the stink of hy-POCK-rissy? I do like their furry hats though.
Hmm. I guess there was one guard who didn't want to change. Little minx.
"Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink." Seriously. Who wants to sit in front of a creepy statue like this after seeing Doctor Who? Who wants to sit in front of a statue like this full stop? Whose awful murderous fish dream are we being subjected here? Who thought the idea of being murdered in your sleep by a finned fiend was statue-worthy?
Big Ben, and the clock. The clock itself is, in fact, not Big Ben. No, Big Ben is the pendulum inside. So now you can be smug and condescending when others make that error, even though you probably made the same error a few days ago. And the circle of life continues.
We wanted to see a play in the West End, and Hairspray was showing. Actually, there were lots of plays that looked interesting, but we settled on this one. They have this deal where on the night of the play, they'll sell really cheap tickets for the very front row. True, you're looking up a little, and you can't really see their feet, but aside from that it's a great view, and you're right up close and personal. And it's fun to think that the people right behind you payed about four times as much as you did. After seeing enough plays and such where Americans attempted British accents, I guiltily loved every moment of their American accent attempts. And not just any accent...they were attempted the east coast accent. Some of them ended up with southern accents. Poor Link Larkin was struggling to find any sort of American accent. And he wasn't as pretty as Zac Efron either. Bless his heart. It was all very entertaining. Oh, and the play was good too. :-)=

This is only a sample of what we did there of course. We filled our days up as well as we could. We took in Sunday services at St. Paul's Cathedral (heard a wonderful boys' choir) and Westminster Abbey, which is brilliant because then you can see the inside without paying exorbitant amounts! And you get a church service out of it to boot, which we didn't get much of while backpacking around. We walked around the Thames, had afternoon tea at this cool and well hidden little place, saw the Globe Theatre...one of our favourite things was the House of Commons. It sounds like it would be really boring, but I could have stayed longer. Everything they talked about was so pertinent to what's going on in the world right now, and they're so animated and opinionated. And yet everything follows very exact protocols. To the point of being rather silly. They always, for instance, address the "speaker" who presides over the discussion. So even if they're quite clearly directly responding somone's statement, and even if they're face said person, they still address the speaker. It was great fun, and completely fascinating. On our last evening in London, after a stop at a toy store, we met up with a friend of ours from the Egypt/Jordan/Israel tour. We had dinner and chatted for a while, swapping travel stories. It was great fun, and good to see him again. He has some very interesting travel stories, and I'm sure we could have been entertained much longer than any of us really had time for. As we headed back to the hostel, it seemed to continue to not sink in that we were leaving the following morning. Oh, toy store, I hear you asking? Well, as you may know, we tried to find unique things in the different countries to buy, rather than just generic tourist crap. Something in the window of this toy store caught my eye...a model Dalek! And, thought I, what could be more unique to England than Doctor Who memorabilia? So I got my very own diecast Dalek and TARDIS. Huzzah!

On January 14th, we got up and took the tube (finally the cheapest and most feasible option) to the airport. It got a bit held up, but at least the update announcements were in English, if a bit infrequent. We finally got the airport and found that all the flights were delayed because of terrible foggy conditions. Once we finally checked in, we found a spot to sit and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Really, we waited for hours. We were a little worried about catching our connecting flights, but there wasn't really much we could do about it. At one point, while they were boarding an earlier flight, we did go and ask if we could catch that flight instead of our later one, but they said we couldn't if we had already checked our luggage. Which we had. So we waited again. Finally they started boarding our flight, so we went to get on...and found out that the guy who checked us in had changed our flight to the earlier one without telling us. Um...OoPs...doesn't begin to cover it. So we went to collect our luggage (had to go through customs again...psh) and waited in line to change our flight to something else entirely. Again. I'm sure the fact that pretty much everyone had to change their flights that day was making the attendants quite accommodating. By the time we got through the seemingly endless line, the guy immediately rescheduled our flight to a late night flight directly to New York, rather than transferring in Germany as our previous flight had done. And all this with not added fees. Which made the change not only acceptable, but preferable. On top of all this, the flight we had been tranferred to was extremely empty, so everyone had their own row, with personal screens where you could watch a TV show, a movie, or play games like Sudoku. And the food was pretty good too. We arrived in New York, and found a spot to lie down for a few hours. Of course, just to be obnoxious, one of the stores which had been closed up kept buzzing all night. So I couldn't sleep. But whatever. I'm not exactly sure how a store buzzes, but it probably conspired with the alarm system. And finally...drum roll please...we boarded our last and final flight! For home! Waiting for the airplane to park was torturous. And then we walked off the plane, down the hall and escalator, and were greeted by Mother-dear, Daniel, and Sara. Talked to Daddy on the phone. Talked to Cassie on the phone. But here's the exciting part...I got home, ran inside, and smother-cuddled my kitty!!!! I cried when I saw her. There now, don't you all feel loved? I missed the cat. :-)= But there there, I missed you all too!

Well, that about covers it. Huzzazzle! Consider my Europe blog complete, except for two more closing thoughts posts that I should post soonish.

Did ew know...?
TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, not Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

Jane Austen vs. Terry Nation

Allow me to tell you a sad sad story. Once upon a time, there was a little Lod who had never driven on the left side of the road. The end.

But don't worry, in the sequel she finally gets to drive on the left side of the road, as you can see in the picture below! Our flight from Munich was...well, silly, but it was the cheapest we could find. We flew from Munich to Dusseldorf which took about an hour and a half. That was mid evening. Then we spent the night in the airport. Then we took an early morning flight from Dusseldorf to London (the Stansted airport, not the more centrally located Heathrow airport), which was a couple of hours. No wonder it was so cheap! It was a bit surreal, looking down at the ground as we departed Germany, to realize I was saying goodbye to mainland Europe, so I suppose my excitement was mixed with a bit of bittersweet thoughts.

Now I suppose I should mention here that there is a group of countries in Europe called the Schengen group. This group of countries does not enforce passport control between their borders, making travel between these countries much easier. Without a special visa, you can be in these countries for 90 days altogether within a year. We could have opted to buy a special visa, which wouldn't have been extremely expensive, but we decided to save the money if we could. So we planned the trip accordingly and found we would have almost exactly 90 days within those countries. However, in the end, passport control was so lax, even between countries that weren't part of this group, so we figured it wasn't that big of a deal. How wrong we were. Oh, those countries couldn't seem to care less. Germany didn't say a thing about it when we left. But England...God save you at their border control. They're not even part of said group. But apparently they have a close relationship with them and so if you've broken the Schengen rules, they won't allow you entrance to the country. Not that they could ever have proven how long we were actually in those countries since the borders didn't sufficiently document it in our passports (which is why she eventually let us through). But then, we've been led to undertand that they try to hold up everyone at the border...even their own citizens. Bless their hearts.

Moving on. We arrived at the airport, were picked up by a 1car1 driver (the company we were renting from that has terrible customer service save one person, but they're cheap so whaddaya do?), and taken to our rental car for the next twelveish days. Our plan was to drive up to stay with Matthew (who we met at L'abri) in Newcastle, then west to stay with Margot (who we also met at L'abri) in the Lake District. They call themselves the conveyor belt. Apparently we're not the only ones to go from one to the other in this manner. We were shown some fanatistic British culture, first at Matthew's where we watched scads of Doctor Who, and then at Margot's where we watched some great BBC shows, like Sense and Sensibility. And so I pose the most important question this post can offer...who wins? Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility) or Terry Nation (Doctor Who)?

Here, I am, proudly driving our rental car. This was a manual, so not only did we have to drive on the left side of the road, but also we had to shift with the left hand. Fun stuff! Being in an English speaking country now for the first time in months, I was excited for everything to go so much more smoothly. We pulled into a gas station right away to fill up on gas and ask if we could buy a pay-as-you-go local phone so we could get hold of our friends there if...no, when we got lost. The guy barely spoke English. Gaaahhh!!!!! So ironic. I did discover that I developed a complex earlier in the trip. I became deeply hesitant to ask anyone directions or questions unless I had to, for fear that they wouldn't speak English and we wouldn't be able to communicate. I had trouble shaking this in England, even though most of them (with the exception of the first person we met) do speak my language. Sure, they say things a bit funny, like tomahto and shejule, but still...
After driving through Scarborough, we followed our excellent directions to Matthew's home and were delighted to see him again. He has to be one of the most friendly people you could ever meet. Just see how many friends he has on Facebook! Facebook cannot lie. We managed not to get lost getting to his house, which was a huge testament to validity of the directions. Now, getting back out of Newcastle would be a different story, but never mind that. We'd pretty much been up all night at the airport and driving all day. So of course we went to a New Year's Eve party, as you see here. And I fell asleep on a bedroom floor after humiliating myself at Rock Band (Hey, I was off to the side and could barely see the screen, okay?) I woke up just in time to welcome the new year with some champagne.
This is the spiffy cool concert hall in Newcastle. It's called The Sage. There are actually three concert halls inside those domes. They're not even connected, except that they're covered by one giant bubble. It was awesome! Apparently, if you donate a certain amount of money, you can get different things in there dedicated to you. If it's a ton of money, you can have one of the halls. For less money it could be a music stand or maybe a chair in the hall, one of the instruments...etc. I wanted to know how much for one of the toilets to be dedicated to you. Matthew didn't know.
This is the old new castle. The one Newcastle is named for. It's obviously not very new. Actually, this is the keep that replaced to new castle in the twelfthish century, so even the new castle isn't really there. I think. Matthew's quite the tour guide.
One day we went to the park to hang out with Matthew and his friends. Listening to them talk is amazing. They're so witty, and it comes so naturally to them. Listening to them talk is like watching a tennis match (with more than two people). The British really are dry and quick-witted. Who knew? I'm so jealous. I wish it was like that here. While they were playing football (first their football and then American football), Elizabeth and I wandered around the park. It was a beautiful park, but the best part was that they had a maze. As you see here. I was thrilled beyond words!
Here are the guys playing American football. That evening Matthew took us to see the nightlife with some of his friends, and we went pub-hopping. I've never had so much fun with nightlife before. I'm not usually a big fan of nightlifeing, but they were were so fun, and of course there's no smoking in bars in England, so I didn't feel like I was dying from a cloud of second-hand smoke. I had a blast. We had a great time with Matthew...walking around Newcastle, driving to Durham (which has the most wonderful cathedral...beautiful but not gaudy like so many are), watching Doctor Who, going to church with him, and staying up until the wee hours of the night.
Okay, this was a very exciting moment. That silly little scamp, the elusive Hadrian, had been avoiding us for the whole trip. But this time he failed. One day while Matthew was busy, we found our way to Hadrian's wall, which borders England and Scotland. Okay, not really, but it's really really close to Scotland. I'm sure you can see it over there.
And here I am in two places at once. One leg in England, and one in Scotland. Shut up. It's true, okay? I'm in Scotland!!!!!
Of course we tried traditional, fatty, English food! We got pasties, sausage rolls, and fish 'n chips. I was highly impressed with the fish 'n chips, since I'm not usually a big fan of fried food. But this was really really good.
And then we had more goodness at Margot's home. Mmmm. Custard.
Since Margot was working for some of the time we were there, we drove to some of the lakes and walked around by ourselves. They always have a path that goes around the lake, and we always misjudge the distance, but we still had a good time. Here I am walking up ice. The ice on the path was actually sticky, so it was safer to walk on than the rest of the ground.
No, seriously! Snivellusly! I know it's sideways, but I am walking up an incline there. The ice is sticky! It was very trippy.
That's my sister. In case you didn't know. And isn't the view just lovely? In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth was disappointed she wouldn't get to tour the Lake District as had been planned (although I think in her case going to Pemberley was a better option), and now I can see why. This was lake Buttermere.
And that's me. In my fun, baubly hat that I bought in Munich. Since my other hat was...'sniff'...lost...'sniffle'
Sadly, and please don't ask me how this happened, this is the only picture we took of Margot. That's me in the brown, and Margot up ahead of me. For shame, I know. But we had fun. She got off work and took us to the coast, where we hiked a little and then watched the sunset.
This was a view from our hike. In one direction you can see Scotland in the distance, and that, I think, is the Isle of Man. But maybe that's Scotland. I'm not exactly sure.
A lot of the lakes were frozen over. Well what do you think? Of course I had to walk on it!! This was in Keswick.
There was a circular hike in Keswick that a book of Margot's had recommended. So we decided to try it. Some people had warned us about ice, but we decided to try it anway and keep going until the ice started getting bad. And then it started to get dark. And yet we were determined! We got to a point...you know that point...where you keep thinking it's just a little bit farther until you reach the peak...just around that bend...and you never seem to reach it...and it's getting darker...and you're getting tired...and cold...well, we finally reached to top. As you see here. Elizabeth was quite pleased. It turned out to be one of those things she cared more about than she originally let on. Like anything blue and white. If she ever says she doesn't care about something blue and white, she's lying. Anyhoos, then we headed back down. The trails there (at least this particular trail) are not really marked. But in this book we had written directions of how to follow the trail. Up until this point, it had been easy enough to follow with the visual map. Unfortunately, we had taken the trail backwards, and the map wasn't as easy to follow at this point, so we had to take the written directions. Backwards. It says to cross a bridge and turn right, we had to turn left when we saw the bridge and then cross. Etc. And also, that ice those people had been talking about...was on this side.
Hey look, I found the bridge! Though I say it myself, we followed the backwards directions quite wonderfully, with only the minimal amount of discussion as to whether we should turn around and go back the way we'd come, were we really headed in the right direction, had we been stupid to take this adventure in the first place...the usual.
After leaving Margot's, we passed through Chester (near the border of England and Wales), and then went to Stratford-upon-avon and saw the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Isn't it amazingly preserved? Either that or they've reconstructed it...but no, they wouldn't do that! Hem hem. It was a nice town, though we didn't have much time. After that we drove to Oxford where we stayed in an adorable little apartment next to the home of a man who often speaks at Summit Ministries and his charming family. He also now runs a smaller version of Summit Ministries over there at Oxford. We used this apartment as our base and drove out from there for the next few days.
We did, of course spend some time in Oxford our first day there. We also saw Twilight there. This was a lovely pub, which is famous because the Inkling's writers' group would meet there, which included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. They also happen to have very good food and ale. By the way.
On our second day staying in Oxford, we elected to have a mystical day. First we drove to Avebury. Though not as in tact as Stonehenge, it is way, way, and many more ways bigger. Well, maybe just two more ways. Because it's four times the size of Stonehenge. You can kind of get the idea from this picture. The little village of Avebury is cute too.
But of course we did go to Stonehenge too. That was our next stop. The funny thing is, they charge twelve pounds to go in to see it. You pay, then walk through this tunnel under the highway, and then you follow this path around it. You still can't actually walk among the stones, but just around them from a short distance. But if you don't want to pay, you can park, walk across the highway, and look at it through the chainlink fence, which isn't that much farther away than the payed-path is. We got some fun laughs out of that one. Thanx to Margot for the tip. Having grown up playing on the GeoSafari, I have to admit, it was quite exciting to see this for real.
Our third and final stop for mystical day, we went to Glastonbury Tor. Supposedly King Arthur was buried underneath the tower. It's connected to quite a few myths, legends, and mysticism. I wanted to go because it was featured in the third (and best) Broken Sword game. Yay! Fun day.
On the last day of our roadtripping, we caught a few more sites and then turned in the car. As we were leaving we caught a few pictures of where we had stayed. Adorabley enough, the houses there are named, and the house we were in was the Lane House. Here's a picture of our lane. :-)=
Our first stop (I think) was Bath, which is supposedly the first tourist site ever. Ya know, people would travel there. For the baths. Hence its name. Jane Austen lived there for six years, and as you can see in the picture, she and I got on quite well.
This is Devonshire. We only drove through it before heading east to return our car. It was very beautiful though. I'd love to spend some time there.

We had a bit of trouble...okay, a lot of trouble re-finding the car rental office. We couldn't find the right exit, and the woman who worked there whom we spoke to on the phone was quite unhelpful. So we did some circling on the Motorway (which took quite a bit of time between exits) with our gas almost empty. Stressful times. So in the end we had to pay a late fee because it was past closing time, but meh. At least we finally found it. Without running out of gas. (We did eventually find a gas station while scrambling about.) We relievedly returned the car (though it had been a blast!), were shuttled back to Stansted airport, and from there caught a bus into central London...

So, did Jane Austen or Terry Nation win, do you think? I mean, we loved them both. They're both very British. One speaks to my romantic side, the other to my geeky side. Jane created Mr. Darcey, Terry created the Daleks. I suppose, when it comes down to it, I met Jane Austen, but never did make it to the BBC House. So either Jane wins for making herself available, or Terry wins for being cleverly elusive.

Did ew know...?
The BBC still hasn't managed to completely eliminate the mullet.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.

Family Bonding (aka Who's In Charge Here?)

After departing Munich, we headed over to Salzburg (that's Austria, in case you were wondering). Now as beautiful as Salzburg is, and as much history as they have, we all know the most important thing about Salzburg is the fact that The Sound of Music was filmed and takes place there. But before taking a look around Salzburg, we crossed back into Germany briefly to see Berchtesgaden, another charming little German town. There was a bit of...hem hem...discussion about whether or not we'd found the city center, if we were going the right way, if we should continue walking, where we should eat...etc. A bit of...confusion as to who was the rightful navigator. Daddy was used to navigating on our old family trips, but I ask you, who had been navigating all over Europe for months now? Who had gotten the European map following down to an art? Who had, by the sweat of her own brow, trodden mile after weary mile with hardly a single directional mishap? I'll tell you this though...having more than one navigator doesn't work too well.

Here's just one of the lovely views of Berchtesgaden.
Erm...I don't know who they are. Really. The weirdos.
Mmmm. It was cold. We consoled ourselves with hot chocolate and cake.
Gah! Another sideways picture! Anyhoo, in the city center of Salzburg, among other things, they have a Mozart statue. So standing in front of it we see me looking quite pleased, Mozart looking quite smug, and Beethoven looking rather grumpy. So the earth is still as it should be.
Poor Little Lod. Now they're ganging up on me. Of course Daniel was all too happy to join in.
Mother loves cows. Really. So I just had to get her picture with this guy here. He was standing up in the Hohensalzburg (Salzburg Fortress), and he looked rather lonely. I told him if he was more social he might actually make some friends, but I'm telling he still hadn't moved from that spot by the time we left.
That's the city of Salzburg behind us. And quite a lovely city it is too.
Yes, we did go on a Sound of Music tour. Of course we did. It would be completely un-American not to. This was outside view of the von Trapp family mansion. They didn't actually film inside this place, but it is the facade from this side in the movie.
Guess which gazebo this is? It's actually been moved from its original location, but it is the gazebo from I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen.
Aren't my parents cute? The tour took us outside of the city to see some of the other locations they filmed in.
This was the bridge in Salzburg that was featured in The Sound of Music when the kids are learning to sing. And does anyone think that Maria gets too much credit teaching those kids to sing? I have a suspicion they already knew how. They sounded too good right away...anyhoos...I think I freaked my Mother out a wee bit with this one. Actually, I know I did. It freaks my sister out too, but she was more prepared. My poor Mother... >:-D It's also the Mozart bridge, so it has two points of interest. It was sometime after this that I lost my hat. I don't exactly know when. But it was sad when I realized. And no, it didn't fall into the river! I can assure you I have everything under control when I do this. I'm safer than a cardboard box on the freeway.
On our last day in Salzburg, while Mother and Daddy walked around the city some more, the three of us went skiing in the Alps. Dont' I look spiffy? Actually, we all thought the skiing wasn't as good as it is in Utah, but the view was unbeatable.
Don't ask. Well, you can, but I honestly have no idea why they have a fake and faceless man hanging in front of a tree. It's a bit morbid if you ask me. But no one did.
Our goodbye dinner. We parted on December 30th, after a hearty meal. And of all the German food I tried, I have to say I'm in love with Spatzle and Spezi. Did I already mention this? Well, anyway, Spezi is a mixture of Coke and Orange soda, and Spatzle is made of egg noodles. Mmmm. Great, now I'm going to be craving it. And it's all your fault.
After our goodbyes, we boarded the metro that would take us straight to the airport. It was a little strange to be on our own again, but we were looking forward to seeing our friends in England and finishing up the trip. And I was looking forward to being the sole possessor of the map again.

Did ew know...?
Most Austrians haven't seen The Sound of Music, though they make plenty of money from it thanks to tourists.
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