My Last Day In London - Day Thirteen

I stayed up the night before planning what I would do in London to maximize my stay. But of course, I was worried the jet lag would keep me up again. But guess what???!? With one day left in the trip I finally overcame the jet lag and had an incredible sleep!!! Unbelievable...

I had thought about taking a sightseeing tour on one of those double-decker buses, but I changed my mind and decided to just check out a few things. My first priority was the British Museum. I ended up staying there for about 3 hours.














The Rosetta Stone


















The infamous "Blue Hippo"


















Just playing some ultimate frisbee

After the British Museum I had lunch and then wandered around a bit looking for souvenirs and that football jersey for my brother, Mike. I finally found the jersey in one store but they only had two sizes. One was too big and the other was too small. Not to mention it cost 60 pounds (roughly 140 Canadian dollars). Sorry Mike. Instead I found him some shot glasses. I had a hard time deciding whether to buy him the one with Prince Harry and William on it or the one with Princess Diana. I opted for Princess Di and much to my surprise he loved it!!! Haha.

I decided to check out St. Paul's Cathedral. It was designed by the famous architect Christopher Wren. I loved it inside, it was so beautiful. I wasn't allowed to take pictures. Here is what it would look like if I were to secretly take pictures without the people around me knowing:








When I was in high school, my brother Kevin took me to see a play by Agatha Christie called "The Mousetrap". I remember him telling me it was the longest running show in British Theatre. I knew it must be playing still in London, so I searched it out and got tickets. It was quite fun, but I could sorta remember the ending so I wasn't surprised. Actually, the ending seemed a little anti-climactic. I would say Agatha Christie's play "And Then There Were None" is much better.

One interesting bit of trivia for you: One of the characters in the play is named after Christopher Wren. Funny that I should see the Cathedral he designed and the play with his name in it all on the same day. What you might not know is this...when I originally saw the play with my brother I liked the name Wren so much that I decided I would name one of my future kids that. Except I decided to call him Reynold and then spell it Reyn for short. I will often use this name in video games and it is one of my email addresses. It came close to being my camp name also, but secretly I like to think of myself as Reynold Cooper.

All in all I had a wonderful day in London. It was a little lonely without Robyn there for those last few days, but I still had a good experience. I headed back to the Watts' and fell asleep thinking about all the wild and wacky adventures I had been through. What an awesome trip I had...I cannot wait to go back!

I Walked a Lot - Day Twelve

I regret going to Manchester. I didn't really know what to do there so I ended up walking everywhere. I walked a lot. I tried to find a football jersey for my brother and I went into so many sports stores, but I couldn't find one for the team he wanted. The highlight of the day was watching "Night at the Museum" at the IMAX there....yippee! That evening I caught the train back to London to stay with the Watts' again. That's all I did, I can hardly contain my excitement thinking about it. This post doesn't even deserve a picture to go with it.

Edinburgh Castle - Day Eleven

I had hoped to wake up early and catch as much of Edinburgh as I could in such a short time. Unfortunately I woke up at noon to the sound of the maid knocking at my door. I had totally slept in!!! I was supposed to check out at 11am. I quickly threw all my stuff in my bag and left. I didn't even have time for a shower! Awful...

So now I only had a few hours before my train left and the one thing I really wanted to do was see Edinburgh Castle. After I got inside I realized I was going to be sweating a lot from hauling my backpack around so I changed into shorts. I got a lot of funny looks because it was winter there and quite cold.


The main entrance


Inside the Castle


Edinburgh from atop the castle wall


Mons Meg


Dog Cemetary


Scottish National War Memorial


Lots of swords in this room


A fireplace


Another fireplace

Edinburgh Castle was really fascinating. There were a lot of things to see and they have a number of different museums and exhibits inside. I was so out of it though, because of my sleep, that I would start to listen to my audio tour and realize minutes in that I hadn't been paying attention. This happened at most stations.


Me hanging out with royalty


Stairway to the old prison barracks


Recreated prison barracks

After the castle I walked around for a bit. These pictures are from the main road leading to the castle:






While walking around I remembered what Ingrid Watts had told me when I was in London. In Edinburgh you can apparently get a deep-fried Mars bar. I was curious to know what that was all about so I started asking people if they knew where I could get one. I was quickly pointed to a chippy shop. I went in and saw it on the menu! The lady said I could have a Mars bar or Snickers, so I went with Snickers. I have no idea what she did, because she went into the back to make it, but when she came out, there it was...


At first I wasn't sure what to expect, but I have to say, it was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted! The chocolate bar is completely melted on the inside and it was total gooey goodness.

My time in Scotland had come to an end. Next time I go there I'll stay for much longer. I got on the train and headed for Manchester. In the rain I found the hostel I had scoped out online. It was a great place...really cheap and very nice facilities. Of course, I couldn't sleep much so I ended up watching tv and using the computer in the common room until 4am. Then I went back to my room with 10 other people in bunk beds and fell fast asleep.

On My Own - Day Ten

Early Saturday morning, I got up and said goodbye to Robilyn. Thank you Robby for showing me around and letting me stay with you!!! The "Father" drove me and my trusty backpack to Newark. I would be catching the train from there to head up to Edinburgh, Scotland. I arrived in Newark around 7:30am and had a couple hours to kill before my train arrived. I wandered around looking at the buildings and whatnot. Robilyn drew me a very precise map so I could find the castle and the supermarket. It was a nice little town. I enjoyed my short time there. The castle was pretty neat, but unfortunately it's not completely intact. This is the castle:










I bought my lunch for the day at the supermarket and made my way onto the train. I hated my seat cause I couldn't see out the window, it was very frustrating.

When I got to Edinburgh I was shocked by the atmosphere there. It was nothing like I expected it to be. Pictures and words cannot describe the feeling that place gave to me. That first night I mostly wandered around looking at stuff. I decided to check out the "Edinburgh Dungeon".


This is kind of a chain of haunted houses, they scare you with live actors and give you a history of the city. They have these in most of the major cities in England. As I was going in, these girls were really freaked out and kept pushing me ahead of them and grabbing my backpack. I couldn't understand what they were saying (bloody tourists!) but it was pretty funny. Overall I would say this place had some really cool stuff, but then other things were really stupid.

The positives:

1. This really cool maze of mirrors. I would be walking and all of a sudden I would run into myself! Much better than my childhood favorite, the glass maze at Playland.

2. This rotating cylinder thing you walked through made it feel like the room was flipping upside down.

3. Good history lesson and I love those Scottish accents.

4. One of the actors said I had a nice hat (Robilyn had made it for me the day before!).

The negatives:

1. There was one place that had things written on the wall and we were supposed to read them before we moved along. No one really knew we should read them so they all just walked to the exit door waiting for the actor to lead us to the next spot. They just stood there for like 15 mins. I tried to read the stories of these grave robber guys, but the lighting was really bad in there and some of them I couldn't read.

2. This one section was all hyped up. The lady told us to watch out for vampires as we got into this Disneyland style boat. It went through this door into the dark and these things from the ceiling brushed against you and everyone screamed. Then it stopped and we sat there for like 10 mins as these moaning noises got louder and louder. Then lightening flashed and this dummy vampire thing dropped from the ceiling. Gave me a little bit of a jolt, but then the boat moved to the next room and let us off. I couldn't believe we got in that dumb boat, moved 20 feet, waited 10 mins in the dark, all for that fake thing to slide down.

3. That same actor that liked my hat kept flirting with me. Did I mention it was a dude! He kept coming at me with his lips puckered ready to kiss me. He would slowly move in, my goodness, he got so close! I wouldn't have minded, but his breath was horrible...

After that I had some McDonald's and went to Mary King's Close. In Edinburgh people live in these apartmentesque buildings that were separated by small alleyways called closes. One particular close was named after Mary King and over time a building was built over top of it. The close was eventually fixed up and reopened as a tourist attraction. It's quite dark and musty down there.


I went on the tour with a retarded actor. His lines were completely scripted and he would often forget where he was and just pause, then he would start again. It was just like this sentence that............I am typing to you now from...........my computer at work. So annoying! He was dressed like an idiot too.

The plague hit Edinburgh really badly so there are a lot of ghost stories, especially from Mary King's close. He took us into one room where they had it set up like a typical room occupied by mannequin people. In the beds were two people infected with the plague and hovering over them were these two plague doctors. They were so creepy looking! They wore these leather robe things and they had a big beak mask they wore over their face that was filled with herbs and such. Reminded me of those creatures from the Village.



So I'm standing next to one as the tour guide is talking and I think to myself, I should just nudge this doctor to make sure its not real. Just then it slams its staff on the ground and walks out of the room!!! Freaked us all right out.

So that was a fun experience. It was better than the dungeon, although I could have done with a better tour guide. After that I looked around a bit...here are some pics:










I went back to my hotel (I decided to splurge a bit) but unfortunately my jet lag kicked in again. I fell asleep at about 10pm but of course woke up at 2am. I walked around outside for a bit, but nothing was going on. I didn't get to sleep until 5am. I wanted to get up early to check more stuff out before my train left in the afternoon. Hopefully going to bed so late wouldn't screw me over...

My Last Day in Lincolnshire - Day Nine

My last day with Robyn and the "Family" had arrived. This was the big day for the "kids" to dye my hair. I bought some funky red colour. I thought that would look nice. So the "Eldest Son" and the "Daughter" got the honours of recreating my look. They did a remarkable job, they only missed one little tiny patch of blond roots. The major problem with the dye, unfortunately, was that because my hair was bleached it wouldn't set in my hair. In the shower the colour just kept coming out. Nonetheless, everyone was quite shocked when they saw the final product.


I look just like my hero, Ronald McDonald

That evening we all went out to this fancy Chinese restaurant. I felt kinda silly:

1. I had ridiculously bright red hair.
2. I had only brought one nice shirt and I didn't want to stain it with the red dye.
3. All I had to wear was a t-shirt so I was the only person not dressed up.

Whatever, the food was good and we had a fun evening. It was especially fun hiding "Grandma's" utensils so she would have to use chopsticks. When we returned home, the "Family" wanted some pictures taken cause the "Grandparents" were leaving that weekend as well. We had a fun photo session that night. Here are some photos. Once again, the faces of the "family" have been disguised to protect their identities.











A big thank you to the "Family" for letting me invade their lives for a week!!! I'll never forget the crazy fun times we had...

You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down

This weekend I went on a retreat with the Sr High to Stillwood Camp. We went last year, it was pretty sweet. This year was a whole different kind of sweet. One of our youth, Matt, asked me on the ride there if I would join him for the Stillwood Idol talent show. Hmm, "what was I getting myself into?" I wondered. He asked me to lip-sync with him to the song "You can't keep a good dog down" from the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven. I reluctantly said yes. He played the song for me and I just scratched my head...you can't be serious!?!! I love a good lip sync, but this song, I just couldn't see it being any good. I didn't have faith.

Well, I had agreed to do it, so I got started on learning my part. Matt was very persistent with me. I don't think he had faith I could pull it off. Well, we had to go and audition before a couple judges to get into the competition. As we got up there, I thought to myself, "I'll give this the best I've got, but I can't see this going anywhere." I flubbed up a few of my lines, but I still put my heart into it. After we finished they asked, "How do you think that went?" I replied, "I think we did pretty good." They said, "You did better than good, that was awesome!!!" What??!??! I was shocked.

So now I'm getting a little pumped for this...we actually have to do this in front of everyone now. We practiced a bit more and worked out some new choreography for the main performance. Matt was so excited about it. I was terribly nervous, but Matt kept reassuring me (I think he was just getting annoyed and wanted me to shut up).

So it was time for the performance. The host announced, "And now for something completely different..." and up we go. As we're going through it I can't really see what Matt is doing cause I'm looking out at the crowd. From what I've been told he really put everything he had into this. After we were done everyone cheered and applauded us. We were happy, the judges gave us good reviews and off we were to our seats.

When it came time to announce the winners I leaned over to Matt and said, "You know, I think we might jsut have a shot here! I think we'll probably get third." Matt was like, "Of course we did good, I'm the king of lip-syncing!" The judges come out. They announce 4th place, wasn't us. They announce 3rd place, no dice. They announce 2nd place, again, not for us. I'm on the edge of my seat, I can't believe this, we might actually win!!!! "And the winner of 50 chocolate bars is....Charlie and Itchy" That was us! I'm speechless, I cannot believe we have just won. What an experience.

Itchy (Me) & Charlie (Matt)

Matt was on cloud 9. Afterwards, we're outside talking and laughing with some of the other guys. This girl comes up to Matt, "Excuse me, where was that song from?" "Oh, that was from All Dogs Go to Heaven." "Oh, that was it! I've seen that movie." Matt seizes the opportunity, "Have a chocolate bar for recognizing the song!" Smooooooth. She takes a chocolate bar, high fives me, high fives Matt and starts to leave. She starts to walk backwards and looks back at Matt for one last comment, "I like your hat..." Fireworks are bursting in the background!!!! When she turns around the other guys go nuts congratulating Matt on a job well done. What do you expect? He's the king of lip-syncing!

I also have to add...our good friend Shane Tarnow also appeared as the final act of Stillwood Idol. As his alter-ego Tony Wonder he performed illusions that left everyone speechless. I hope to have the video posted within the week, so stay tuned...