Travels With Family

Greetings

            Hello to all my family and friends wherever you may be and I thought I would write another wee blog about my time of traveling over the past month. The last blog left off with me arriving in London to meet my parents at our hotel in South Kensington, and from there it could only get better. We stayed the next four days in London and went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, Harrods department store, the National Art Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Westminster, St. James Park and many more places. We saw everything from Big Ben to Buckingham to the London eye, and we tried almost every kind of food and drink that you can imagine. London is such a diverse town with so many cultures and people mixing in one place it was hard not to find something to do when we just wanted to slow down, but all in all we enjoyed it.

            I think that Dad was really blown away by the architecture and the artistic detail of the old works of art and the buildings and I myself must admit that there are few things I have seen as incredibly ornate as Westminster Cathedral and its vaulted decorated ceilings. To think of it I wouldn’t mind being buried under that awesome ceiling, what’s a guy got to do to make it in there again? Never mind that, I wouldn’t like all the people and noise, but still what a place, and from there we only saw more as we visited some of the top museums in the UK and in the world. It was easy to see where I get my appreciation for art and for detail as my parents were even worse than I was at reading everything and looking at each painting to find something more. It was great to wander around and just chat about what we were seeing and just to have my folks right there was incredible.

            We stayed long enough to go to pubs with some of my friends in London and to see the fireworks show on the Thames on New Years Eve. What a sight to see and what a way to leave London, as the next morning we went to York and just had a nice lazy day in a snowstorm. Then we saw the York Minster Cathedral and some museums and walked around the streets and did a bit of shopping; we had to find dad the ultimate hat and I had to find an overcoat to get the full English look. Then we headed to Edinburgh were we had three days of castle and ghost tours, whisky tasting, tartan shopping, and more museums and food. This time it was a Scottish museum and it had some great exhibits about Scotland and its worldwide heritage and mark on society. The only thing that was annoying about Edinburgh is that we were there during a big storm that left the streets icy, not good on Edinburgh’s large hills.

            Still we survived long enough to get to Aberdeen and have a few days in the Granite City, or the Star of the North, however you prefer to call it. Aberdeen was good for my parents as it meant we were out of a hostel and back in a hotel. Mom and dad were good sports about the hostel but still they are more of a hotel crowd, but anyways we made it to Aberdeen and spent the final days together enjoying each other’s company and cherishing our last time together. We even rented a car and drove into the highlands in the biggest snowstorm in Britain in 40 years, but I was not worried as papa Craig was at the wheel and ice and snow were not going to stop him. In other words we had a blast tooling around in this rent a car in a blizzard, mother was not impressed but she was a good sport to the whole affair. Then next day we had a nice morning together and they boarded a train for London and I took off to go hiking in the highlands for a few days.

            Despite the fact that I am still not done telling of my holiday adventures I am going to end this blog due to length and finish in a few days so be on the look out. All I wanted to say is that I loved the time with my parents and I will miss them in Australia, but I know that God is looking after them and that they raised me to go and do these things. I only hope that I can honor God and my family with the life that I choose to live.

Take care and God Bless