The Natural History Museum

We arrived back in London on Monday, and were very kindly taken in out of the cold by Alice & Xtian.  These guys are awesome in so many ways, and, just as everyone says, they are ridiculously nice.

On Wednesday this week we stupidly decided to visit both the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum on the same day, and stupidly we didn't get there until about 12:30 and had to be home by 5:30ish.  Completely underestimated how freaking huge both museums are!!!!! We didn't get out of the Natural History Museum until about 4:30, and we skipped several wings because we were running out of time.   We walked through just the first floor The Science Museum and quickly decided to quit and just do it properly some other time we are back in London.  

 

 

 

 

Greenwich

 

One of the best parts of today was when a guy came up to us in the park ‘Hi, um, can you point me in the direction of the prime meridian?’ 

Tourists again ruined the best photo moments, but it was still pretty cool rocking out at Longitude ‘0’.  The museum was super cool, and as a result we ‘must’ buy an Astrolabe when we grow up and have a house all of our own (with a pool room in which to store cool stuff like Astrolabes).

As per usual with any tourist destination, half of the stuff you go there to see is covered in scaffolding.  The time ball didn’t drop for us due to this.  But we still all really enjoyed it, science is awesome!

And then, as we were leaving, Isaac hand fed a squirrel TWO peanuts!!! BEST THING EVER!!! The squirrel was on the path..then Isaac shook the bag of nuts that Xtian so generously donated to us for this very purpose. Then he scampered over and took the nut from Isaac’s hand with his little mouth and held it in his fuzzy little hands and then he bounded away and wiggled his bum around in the grass while he searched for somewhere to bury it.  Twice.  So yeah, it was pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened to us.

Cardiff Bay

 

Keeping with the theme of returning our hire car on vapors, we decided to do a day trip out to Cardiff Bay to see two things:

  1. The Doctor Who Experience (cheesy tourist thing with a Dr Who Museum type thing attached with lots of props from the show).
  2. The fountain under which the rebuilt Torchwood institute lies (shut up, it’s real).

Cardiff is a real mash of different buildings…there are the old ones, the newer ones that almost but not completely fail to match the old style, and then there are contemporary things that are different again.  However it does have a tear in space-time.

The Doctor Who Experience cost us 15 pounds each, and was a guided tour for the first 25 mins and then we got to roam through the museum at the back with all the props and displays of the different insides from the Tardis (super cool).  The guided tour bit was loaded with lots of stringy fatty cheese, but it was way cool!! They had Matt Smith record footage just for us as Doctor Who, and the scenario was that we had been picked up by the Tardis (we got to fly it too!), captured by Daleks and beamed aboard their ship (they were all around us shrieking ‘EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE!!’..so exciting we almost wet ourselves!).  Very cheesy, but omg…even Isaac wants to marry Doctor Who. We’d be his companions anytime.

Stonehenge

 

While we were staying in Bath we drove out and saw the famed Stonehenge.

We arrived at precisely the wrong time - behind 5 tourist buses.  The buses offloaded their excited and giggling cargo into the 'queue here' line, and we stood behind them patiently looking at the sky which threatened rain wondering what we would do if it started raining, why didn't we bring an umbrella, and would it kill them to put the line undercover.

We didn't really know what to expect from Stonehenge....but it was 'wow'.  I can't tell you anything that you can't find on the internet about these stones, except that, like every major tourist attraction around the world, the experience was slightly ruined by the tourists (you have to wait 10 mins for them to clear out of your way for just long enough to snap a picture which doesn't have a group of Chinese girls doing the peace sign in it, nor manly men taking photos of their manly friends not smiling because they need to look like manly tourists).

Once inside, there is a track that you can walk around the stones.  The first bit of the track (where everyone crowds) is th closest part to the stones.  Then the track does this big loop thing way away so you can appreciate them at a distance..and see the freeway which is stupidly close.

But the experience was totally worth it.  Stonehenge is simply amazing, and it's really maddening and saddening that people break in and graffiti the stones.

A non-castle & the Avebury stone circle

Today we hooked up with fellow nomad Michael to visit Stonehenge and the town of Bath.

We picked up our hire car from Avis, which we booked the day before using the fore-mentioned free and abused wifi, and felt well and truly screwed by the time we were handed the keys.  What was meant to cost 125p (p = pound..I haven't figured out where the pound key is on my laptop :p) ended up costing 275p..  So...we are feeling a little sore.  Rice cakes for a month will help recover the budget hopefully. 

We decided to make sure that we used every drop of fuel that Avis charged us 100p for before dropping the car back.  We took a leisurely drive through the English countryside and decided to stop on the way to see the Avebury stone circle, which is the biggest stone circle in the UK (I think).  While we were trying to find it, we saw a sign for Barbury Castle.  So, obviously, we stopped to see what we hoped was a castle full of castley might and glory.  The castle, was actually a non-castle. 

Barbury non-castle

 

After walking through many live cattle yards (lots of sheep whom someone had played paintball with) and watching our feet the entire time to avoid the sheep poo, we missed everything on the way.  Once we got to the wonderful sign that proclaimed 'Barbury Castle!' we were just left confused, as it was in front of nothing but some green, poo covered hills.

Ah, i get it. There used to be a wonderful castle here, and now you get to use your imagination to imagine what it was like.  Cool.  So we trekked the hazardous sheep lands to see something that was no longer there.  Cool.  

The mission was not a complete failure however.  There was a neat little snail on the sign which was worth checking out.

 

Avebury Stone Circle

 

We continued on to the stone circle which was pretty cool.  A little mystifying how there was this amazing, super super old, mysterious rock formation, and right through the middle of the circle of ancient rocks is several roads and shops, a pub, cafe, etc.  Like, historical conservation anyone?  I didn't get it.  Anyway, we walked around the enjoyable hills and groovy rocks, went to the pub for apple cider and lunch (which was really delicious), and called it a day.

We kept driving to Bath and hit heaps of traffic in the town, which gave us the opportunity to look out the window and realise that the city is just beautiful.  We parked the car, checked in to our hostel and met our two roomies (a nerd playing games on his laptop and a dude who was possibly quite sick and under a pile of blankets trying to sleep).  

We have just come back from the pub which was advertised as the cheapest drinks in Bath.  The cider was so bad that the boys didn't really touch them and went and bought proper ones, and my red wine had that lovely burn that cheap wines do.  

Ahhh backpacking life :)

Tomorrow, either Stonehenge or driving to Cardiff to see The Doctor Who Experience... decisions.