United Kingdom

We took a 2 week journey to the UK to celebrate Cassie's sister's 18th birthday with her and the family in London, where we spent 5 days looking around and also visited some good friends whom we have not seen for a number of years.  We had a great time and got to see how snow stops the poms.....hehe.

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

We took a night bus to Edinburgh which we were by no means prepared for.....we figured that as we needed to sleep on the bus, we would have a "couple of beers" before boarding.  Time flew by and before we knew it we had to run to the bus, get the most nutritious dinner in the world- Burger King- and run on to the bus.  We missed the fine print on the ticket advising us to arrive at the bus 60 minutes prior to departure (we got there with 5) and found that we could not get a seat together...not too big a deal.  While the people around us slept and enjoyed water and food we found ourselves becoming parched and hungry and the bus was not making any stops for the full 9 hours.  Cassie's thoughts as she watched the snow on the windscreen melt and drip while she longed for water- "I now know what it must feel like to be deserted on an island with no water...".

Edinburgh was beautiful, although quite cold, and the scenery was awesome.

Greyfriars Cemetery, Edinburgh- there are 150,000 people buried here however some people speculate that there are only 4000 grave sites...you do the maths.  Itś also the place that J.K. Rowling gained a lot of her inspiration for the Harry Potter series.

This is Greyfriar´s Bobby- this was the police officerś dog and when the officer died the dog sat at his gravesite everyday for 13 years, with people feeding him until his own death of natural causes.  Bobby is also buried here.

Hiking to Arthurś Seat- Cassie didn´t have any grip on her boots.....ice made for a very amusing hike!

We made it to the top!  Lucky the trip down wasn´t as slippery as the trip up!

From Edinburgh we ventured down to Manchester where we stayed with a friend we met while we were teaching in Beijing and his awesome girlfriend.  We partied, explored, took a day trip to Liverpool and hiked 8km through the English countryside.  Thanks Paul & Hannah!

The English countryside- a little bit sloshy.....we thought it didn´t rain in the UK?

At our hike destination- 5km down, 3km to go.

Paul, and the two of us at Craig Charles´ show.

The port Pumphouse in Liverpool.