And more photos.....

Finally got the photos from Annie's camera up on photobucket (http://photobucket.com/jennyjaxn). From Barcelona onwards, through Scotland (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's) and in Lewes.
Annie's enjoying Paris, and her French is rapidly returning and improving. Jenny is 2 and a half weeks into Kent; still jobless but enjoying the countryside and seeing more of her family.
Will try to do more thorough updates (London, Lewes, Kent, Paris) again soon.

New Photos!!

Uploaded a new batch of photos from Jenny's (Granny's) camera onto the photobucket site (http://photobucket.com/jennyjaxn). Not in the right order cause I messed up in the uploading process, but they're there. Hopefully will upload Annie's within the week.

If the Metro in Barcelona doesn't operate from 2-5am, what else is there to do except party?

In Greece I met a girl named Tash and we decided to go to Barcelona. So we booked into a hostel a couple metro stops away from the city center, Placa de Catalunya and the famous Las Ramblas. I arrived in early and met up with Tash and we decided to get something to eat. We found this little Romanian place near our hostel where the woman attempted to speak English and mostly just got angry at us if we asked for anything in the egg omlet. We came to the conclusion that we should just eat what she told us to and not ask questions.

So the site seeing began. We went to Sagrada Familia (mind spelling) which is this big church designed by Anton Guadi like, over a hundred years. The cool thing about it is that it is still being built. It won't be finished for a while yet. We toured around and saw various other Gaudi monuments on the hop on hop off bus, then came back and prepared to party. But there was a small issue: the only way to get to the good clubs was by metro, and the metro doesn't run between 2-5am. needless to say taking a cab was not in our budget. But we decided to brave it anyway. We started out at the local clubs where apparently if you are a) young, b) a girl and c) moderately attractive, you don't pay cover and you get a free drink. So we stumbled through a million different clubs, my favourite being one where they were playing the Grease soundtrack, and then moved on to a somewhat classier club (ie guys didn't hit on you AS much). There is some weird thing I found in clubs in Barcelona though, there  are random men (usually old and not so attractive) walking around in clubs handing out roses to the girls. They basically lurk you until you take one. You don't pay or anything, they just give them to you. I never really figured out what that was about. So after a lot of drinking and dancing we finally could catch the metro back and we arrived back around 6:30 just as it was getting light.

I had decided by this point I was a little bit partied out, having had enough of it in Greece as well (see pictures). So we spent the next few days doing touristy things. I went to the aquarium, because I have a not-so-secret obsession with them. It was pretty good. I learned that there is a shark that has to swim continuously or it will drown. We also went shopping and walked down Las Ramblas. For those unfamiliar with this street, it is basically a long street that extends from the city centre (placa de catalunya) right down to the water. On it, beside hundreds of people, are vendors selling every imaginable thing. and I do mean everything. I saw booths with everything from cactuses to baby chicks. They also have street performers who are dressed as really strange things. My favourite was when I saw satan smoking a cigarette.

Pretty well we saw many interesting things, and had a really good time hanging out. Our favourite hang out came to be the hard rock cafe, which was in the plaza. We took a bunch of epic pictures, and hopefully I will be able to post them at some point. 

Tash and I then said our good byes and then I headed off to Scotland!

Haggis, Whisky and Target Practice

After a few days in London, and a quick trip down to Kent to see Granny and have Sunday brunch with the Akenheads, I took a long bus ride up to Castle Douglas (Scotland) to visit Uncle Peter and Auntie Janet. I spent a few days with them in the country, away from big cities like London and Athens. Janet and I went shopping one day and visited a few of the surrounding towns; everything is really pretty around there. I went horseback riding one crisp morning for an hour, and Uncle Peter taught me how to shoot the day I left for Edinburgh. It was great to see them again, and their place would be well worth another visit. :)

I met up with Annie again not long after arriving in Edinburgh and she led the way to our hostel. It was located literally right below Edinburgh Castle, and not far from the Royal Mile (the main street in the older part of the city) and Grassmarket (a main area for food and some shops).

The next day we went wandering around the city, did some shopping, had dinner with some of our dorm mates, and did some general scoping out of the area. We met up with Riley and met more of his Herstmonceux friends that evening (I think they were on a midterm trip). We went of a free walking tour of Edinburgh the next morning for a few hours, and saw and heard lots, including the original inspiration for Hogwarts and the Burke & Hare body snatchers story. We went to Edinburgh Castle after the tour for a couple hours and walked back in the rain (not surprising, I guess). We met up with some Herstmonceux people again, for dinner this time, and some of them went clubbing afterwards (Annie included). A lot of sleeping in was done the next morning. We wandered around Edinburgh with several people, and bought some souvenirs. There is no lack of tartan everything in that city, that's for sure. We went on a ghost/graveyard tour at the same time as what seemed like half the students from Herstmonceux, which wasn't as cheesy as expected, but didn't successfully scare most of us. We went out to a pub (that we'd found the day before) after a classy Italian dinner with wine, and eventually found our way back to beds  - the Herstmonceux group was leaving around 9 the next morning, and Annie and I hadn't packed up to head to St. Andrew's yet. :)

At some point haggis was tried (by most of us), whisky names were listed, lots of aimless walking was done, lots of pictures were taken, eventually an ATM was found, and lots of laughing occurred.

We can't find the camera connector cord right now, so no more pictures are uploaded yet, but hopefully we'll be able to put them up soon.