RYC invade the Gower

Last weekend a few flatmates and myself took it upon ourselves to go camping in the rain out on the far west coast of Wales in an area known as the Gower. It is about a 2 hour drive from Bristol and it is just past the city of Swansea. We got there a little late so after setting up our tents in the dark it was straight down the bar for a few drinks. We returned back to the campsite after the bar closed for a few more before calling it a night about 4am. The following morning was spent swimming at the indoor pool and then playing football in the rain. By far the highlight was the fight with the 8 year boy who stole the boomerang after I climbed into a really thick bush of thorns to get it back getting completely cut up all over. After he kicked us a few times we got our own back by controversial methods but at least we got the boomerang back (which we didn't even bother to use after that). It was pouring with rain but we decided to head to the beach anyways for a BBQ and 4 hours of throwing rocks and jumping off of sand dunes.






The food was great and the drinks were plentiful and it ended up with me going for a quick swim in the sea before we made our way back to the campsite for some guitars and drinks. That pretty much sums up most of the weekend to be honest. Swimming, BBQ, eating, and drinking is really all we did but it was a great weekend all the same. Just as we were leaving on the Sunday afternoon the sun came out and it was nothing but clear skies all the way back to Bristol. Typical UK......

London in a day

We aimed for a nice early start once again but because of my inability to set the alarm clock properly we managed to sleep in a bit. Not to bad though as we were still out of the house and in the rented fiat punto before 9:00am. We drove to Stonehenge and managed to get through in front of a few buses and have a walk around Stonehenge. It was extremely busy all the same but we still managed a few good pics and made our way over to Kew which is on the outskirts of London. The advantage of this is free parking and a cheap ride into London on the tube.



After battling the traffic and to get into Kew we parked the car, jumped on the tube, and made our way into the city getting off at the tube stop "embankment" where we wondered around the Thames north and south banks taking in the sites of the London eye and the crazy performers around it, Westminster, and Big Ben. From here it was bit of a hike up to Trafalgar square for a quick subway meal before stopping in at Canada house and walking down the mall to see Buckingham Palace. This time the queen didn't come out and make an appearance so we walked over the Hyde park and rented a row boat for half an hour and went rowing on the Serpentine in the middle of the park. The weather was great for this part of the day so we really lucked out. After an ice cream in the park we walked over to Speakers corner on the far side of the park near marble arch and oxford street where we had a good laugh at some the crazy people rambling on before we (I mean Kelly) did some shopping in London's most famous shopping area. She was good and didn't go into every single store. We tried to make it to Hamley's toy store before it closed but just missed it by a few minutes. Yet another reason for you to come back Kel.





We continued our walk down Regent street (the street Hamleys is on and one of the main streets off Oxford Street) which brings you right out into Piccadilly circus. This by night is one of my favourite parts of London. Its full of flashing lights, and people sitting around on statues. Plus it has a brilliant walk up through Leicester square (theatre district) and continues through to Covent Garden (the pub district). One place we had to go of course in Covent Garden is the Maple Leaf. A good old fashioned Canadian Pub that serves Moosehead beer. Yes it was my first Canadian beer since Christmas so I savoured every last drop.

We walked back down to the water and jumped on the tube for the first time since the morning (trust me we did a lot of walking) and made our way over to St. Paul’s Cathedral and millenium bridge and then on to the Tower of London and Tower bridge. We found a great little pub to eat at on south bank while we waited for the sun to set so we could get a few pictures of tower bridge by night. London at night is a beautiful city so its worth waiting for. London by day is one of the dirtiest cities I have ever been too. But it has so much character it is still one of my favourite cities in the world.




Well it was getting late so we made our back to the car in Kew and then drove the hour long route up to my grandmothers and crashed for the night around 1:00am. The following morning we drove to Gatwick where Kelly caught her plane home and I made the long trek back over to Bristol to drop of the car and home for some much needed sleep. It was a wonderful trip with many great memories. Thanks for coming to visit Kel. You are more than welcome to come over again anytime.

3 days in Paris

Well after another early start at 4:30am we made our way down to Bristol Airport to catch our long 55min flight to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Before getting on the plane though we did manage to have a nice burger and fries at Burger King before 6am. The flight was fine and so was the train transfer into the Paris' Les Halles train station. After looking for the hotel on the wrong street for about 5 min we finally found it one block over. It had the smallest elevator I have ever been in, as it had just enough room for 2 people. We went out straight away and made our way over to Notre Dame and enjoyed a great walk around this amazing church for free. The only part that you have to pay for is getting up to the top to see over Paris which had a huge line up so we didn't bother. The Eiffel tower provides a better view anyways.


We walked over to some of the touristy shops and districts before walking back over to the Pantheon for a quick look inside. Paris, like many other cities has a 48 hop on hop off bus tour and although I have not used many before, Paris is a city where it is worth spending the money. A lot of the main sites are pretty far away and although we did a lot of walking it is nice to have bus transit covered for 2 days. The bus tour has 4 different routes you can take and we managed to get in 2 of the smaller ones in the first day. Main points of interest on these two where Napoleon’s burial place, Tour Montparnasse, Les Invalides, Grande Biblitheque, and La Bastille. Another one of the main stops where we got off and had a look around was St. Sulpice which is famous for the rose line as well as been a simply amazing structure. I prefer it to Notre Dame. But it is even more famous now dew to its part in the book and movie "The Da Vinci Code". We ended the night off by walking around the Opera house area looking for a nice place to eat. After the meal it was down to Les Tuilleries where there was a carnival setup in front of the Louvre. Eating cotton candy and riding on the Ferris wheel while overlooking the lights of Paris is a truly amazing site. You can see the Louvre pyramid, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and Basilique du Sacre Coeur all lighting up the night sky. After this is back to the bar in hotel to collect our free glass of French wine.



The following morning we had a bite to eat at the hotel before heading out to Louvre. The line up was tiny and we walked straight in got our tickets and made our way to see the Mona Lisa. We also checked out a few other famous paintings and sculptures along the way of which I can only remember the Venus de Milo at this time. The museum is huge and would take a full 3 days to see everything so we had a good look through the Denon wing and a quick look in the Sully wing before making our way back out via a quick stop at the inverted pyramid (one again all you Da Vinci Code readers should remember this). After the Louvre we made our way the 3rd bus tour which took us up to Sacre Coeur where I have never been on my previous two visits to Paris. This church is truly amazing. It was designed by the architect Paul Abadie but before the completion of the building 6 other architects had succeeded him. With the foundations laid in 1875 it took until 1919 to complete the structure (would have been ready in 1914 if the WWI hadn't started) and is the 2nd highest point in Paris. From the top you can see 50 miles across Paris and the surrounding area and it is truly a breath taking view.



We wondered back down to the bus stop stopping for a baguette and ice cream before jumping on the rest of the tour which passed the Moulin Rouge, the Opera house, and La Madeleine. One of the more memorable sites though had to be the man "BBQ'ing" corn on the cob on a tin bucket in a shopping cart. He seemed to be doing quite well with his sales.... Following this tour it was time to jump on the main bus tour and check out the more famous sites of Paris. The Concorde square with is Egyptian obelisk, the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees, the crazy roundabout surrounding the arc de triomphe, Trocadero, and of course the stunning view of the Eiffel Tower. We waited in line for almost 2 hours before making our way to the top of the tower where we remained for about another 1.5 hours watching the sunset over Paris before getting kicked off at closing time. We were at the bottom of the tower when the lights came on the strobe lights starting flashing all over the tower (as they do every hour on the hour) before taking the long walk along the river Seine in the direction of the hotel.





We had a late dinner at the carnival again followed by some more cotton candy. I just have to say that I ordered "the American Hamburger" at the carnival which consisted of hamburger cut up into small pieces, placed on a baguette, and then had French fries stuffed into it. How that is an American burger I will never understand. It was getting late by this point so we made our way back to the hotel.




The next morning we packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, and went and did a bit more tourist shopping before taking "Kelly’s long but correct" route back to the train station instead of my "shortcut that may or may not have worked". But we made it back in time and caught our flight back to Bristol where we rented a car (mine is in pretty poor shape at the moment) and drove over to Wales for a dinner in nice little pub called "The anchor" by Tintern Abbey. That made 3 countries in the day. Not to shabby!!! After dinner we drove back to England for an early night as it was going to be another long day in the morning. London was calling.....

Another Canadian!

Well it has been a while now since someone has come over from Canada to visit and given me an excuse to take a few days off work. On Tuesday July 10th Kelly arrived in Bristol after spending a week up in Manchester. So I left work early and went to pick her up from the train station. We took the bus back into the city centre and walked up the hill towards Clifton. After a nice meal at a local Chinese restaurant we went to the local bar to try our luck at the weekly quiz night. Unfortunately it was cancelled that week so we had a quick drink before heading back to the house and once it got dark we walked up to the Clifton suspension bridge to get some night photos.

The following day I had to work but I managed to get up and out of bed bright and early and made it to work before 8am. This is quite an accomplishment for me. Kelly spent the day walking around Bristol seeing the sites and we met up for lunch at Cabot tower which was closed due to painting. Guess you will just have to come back at some point Kel...

After work we caught a train over to the famous town of Bath. We wondered around the town for a while and got into the Abby for free which was a first for me. This is the first time I have seen a church go from charging people to go in to making it “optional donation”. The abbey is amazing inside with the ceiling been one of the many highlights.




We wondered around bath for a while walking over Pultney bridge and then along the river Avon, followed by a walk up to the circus (where Nicolas Cage just bought a house) and then over to the Royal Crescent and back through some of the parks. It was getting a bit late so we had some dinner at subway and made our way back to Bristol on the train. It was an early night as we had to be up at 4am to start our journey to Paris….

White Water Rafting in North Wales!

This past weekend my cousin Matt and I decided to do something a little different than the usual site seeing touristy things that are usually done when someone comes to visit. Matt is here for 5 weeks from the States so we decided to go and check out Wales. It took about 3 hours to get to our destination of Bala which is a small town in northern Wales. Upon our arrival we set out to find a place to crash for the night. The first B&B said we could share a double bed in a room if we wanted or we could go and see her friend down the road where we could probably stay. hmmmm ok I think I will try somewhere else.

We tried a few other B&B's without any luck before we found something rather promising called the Goat hotel. It also acted as a bar and as we walked in everyone was speaking in Welsh. As soon as we got inside the place went rather silent and heads turned our way and just starred. "Ok....never mind" we thought and left out the front door to continue the search. the next place we found was perfect. One room, 2 twin beds, and a full breakfast in the morning.

Now that we had found a place to stay we went back to the car and drove through the national park of Snowdonia on route to a town called Port Meirion. This is the town that the 60's TV show "The Prisoner" was filmed at and by having British parents I have been forced to watch a episode or two in my lifetime. However most of you will at least know it from the Simpsons where they are stuck on the island, steal a boat, and get chased by a giant bubble.



Once we got back to Bala we decided that we needed to find something fun to do in the town. Lucky for us they have a movie theatre and proceeded to make our way down there to check out what our choices where and what times they were showing them. After checking the sign we quickly realised that we had the choice of one movie at 7:30 and that was it. Welcome to a small town in Northern Wales. We watched the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3 in what I am convinced is a old school gym with fold out chairs. It was pretty funny nonetheless and we have been making jokes about it ever since. After the movie it was time to take Matt (who just 18) into a pub for a few drinks before calling it a night.

The following morning we had our full cooked breakfast before the 20min drive to the white water rafting lodge. After a quick lesson we were on the water getting soaked and thrown about. It was an amazing 2 runs down the river and a great experience. I could just keep writing about all the rapids and waves but I think the pictures will speak for themselves.





And of course the classic jumping shots!!!