London, England, United Kingdom
I may be in London, but my parents and I decided not to battle the wind and crowds to actually celebrate the New Year with the Brits. I think I was actually reading my book when it became 2010 here. I should probably care more about “history in the making”, but, well… I don’t. Sadly, I finished my second huge book of the trip and I will have to go out and buy another one tomorrow.
My parents and I spent most of the day in the Tower of London. My mom is really into Henry VIII history and my dad is a history buff as well. Me, I’m not the biggest fan of traipsing around historical sights with other people. I would probably have a grand time exploring on my onesies, but my family tends to be a three ring circus whenever we go anywhere.
Pretty much our entire weeks has followed this pattern:
My mother decides she wants to go somewhere my father and I don’t particularly give a fig about. So he grumbles, looks at the map, grumbles again, then leads us in a direction. My mother follows him and I follow her, though she checks back every few seconds to make sure I haven’t disappeared to the children-snatchers, though I am 20 and pretty sure the children-snatchers would throw my back if they caught me. My father stops to look at the map. My mother goes to exclaim over an interesting bit of wall grout, forcing conversation on all the strangers around her about this wall grout. My father sets off in a new direction. I call my mother. She takes several seconds to say farewell to the strangers who don’t care one way or another about wall grout, then starts continuing down our original path. I call her from the new path. She turns like a confused duckling and begins following me, telling me about this wall grout and complaining that my father just takes off and doesn’t wait, which he does, but I don’t blame him. My father finally notices that we aren’t right behind him, swears, and comes back for us, continuing to grumble. My mother sees that I am irritated and smiles happily, laughing at my annoyance. My father passes by a fish and chips shop and feels the need to say in a terribly fake British accent, “Oy, blimey mate, ‘ow ’bout some fish and chips and a pint of ale?”
That’s pretty much the gist of my family trip to England.
I did still have a good time, since I’ve never been in a medieval castle before. I took a billion pictures to use for research.
Afterwards, we took a river cruise of a short part of the Thames, then headed to the Sherlock Holmes Pub and Restaurant for dinner. The food was delicious, the decor awesome, and my father spent much of the meal quoting Holmes in a fake British accent.
We spent most of the week at historical sights, since my parents love them. The only place I really wanted to go this week was the Queen’s Theater to see Les Miserables, but they were sold out. 
This week we’ve been to Winchester Abbey, which was no fun, though my father was ecstatic to find the grave of Bulwer-Lytton. On a miserably cold and rainy day we toured Salisbury Cathedral, which bored me to tears, and Stonehenge. I wish I had been able to actually walk in Stonehenge like people used to, but apparently a ton of damage was done by tourists who rented a chisel and hammer to take hunks home. Those jerks ruin the fun for innocent little me.
from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/germanyorbust/1/1262309973/tpod.html
