The Brave Little Illustrator Goes to Europe PART 10: FINAL HOURS OF THE UK

Tomorrow we're finally leaving the island known as the United Kingdom and heading off to continental Europe! But here's what's been between Edinburgh and now:

On our way back down to England, we dropped by St. Andrew's cathedral, a Catholic church long destroyed by Protestants centuries ago. The church grounds are now a creepy cemetary.  

Right down the road from the cathedral are the ruins of a medieval castle, which wasn't all that interesting except that there was an underground tunnel you could go through.

Later that night we arrived in York!

Which is also the birthplace of Guy Fawkes. V for Vendetta fans much?

There wasn't a whole lot going on around York, but there was the big ol' cathedral Yorkminster. That's me attempting to make a "Y" with my fingers. You know... for Yorkminster. Cuz Yorkminster starts with a... well, you get it.

There were some vacant pedestals in front of the cathedral, so we took it upon ourselves to fill the space. (I'm a gargoyle.) 

The inside of Yorkminster was fantastically beautiful and had loads of great decor.

One of my favorite parts was the line of 13 kings up on the wall. 

Ok, story time: this is James the drunk. After our visit to the Cathedral, we all split up and a few of us stopped to get Fish and Chips for lunch. The restaurant we went to had no place to sit inside, so we left to a nearby plaza area and ate together on a ledge. Enter James, a hammer-drunk Scottsman who surprisingly enough was partially inteligible. James was unabashed and quickly came over to us dancing, telling jokes, playing air guitar, and claiming to have close friendships with Neil Diamond and Sharon Osbourne. We eventually finished our lunch and he asked us for a drink, to which we offered him bottled water. He declined and we offered him our unfinished french fries which he also declined. After realizing that we wouldn't give him any money for alcohol, James started to get agitated and angry and started swearing at us... so we decided to pick up and leave. Except he got aggressive. He leapt up and got in the face of one of the girls with us and started calling her some really nasty things. She asked him to be more of a gentleman, to which he responded, "I'm no gentleman, I'm a lazy bum!" Then he turned on me and started getting angry that I wouldn't give him money when I clearly had enough to buy lunch and have some fries leftover that were thrown away. And as we all know, arguing with a drunk is stupid, so I tried to leave and he kept following me, so I told him to stop and he told me he was going to punch me. When I said I'd call the cops if he did, he shouted, "I'm the chief of police!" and showed me his bus pass. The four of us ducked into a chocolate shop to try and get away from him and, after being shooed out by an employee, he decided to wait outside and watch us through the window. Eventually we dodged him once we got back outside, but what a creep!

Today we arrived at Canterbury! Just in time to attend the Evensong mass at the Canterbury Cathedral.

Another beautiful cathedral, though this was the first one that had an unlit side, which looked awesome in the late afternoon shadows of an overcast sky.

After some drizzling, a rainbow came out as we headed to our current hostel. Here we sleep for the night, for tomorrow, we leave for Amsterdam!

The Brave Little Illustrator Goes to Europe PART 8

It's been a couple of days, but I've finally been able to get back on the internet - so here's the update:

Stonehenge! We left Tuesday morning from Bath to go see England's oldest monument and the weather couldn't be better. 

You'll notice some dweeby workers in front of the monument. In order to celebrate the upcoming Olympics, Stonehenge was setting up some kind of fire-themed show for later that night. It's only gonna happen this one time and we just happened to show up the day they were setting it up...

After Stonehenge, we went to Stourhead, a massive garden in the countryside. Incredibly beautiful and features this bridge that is supposed to be in a scene in some Keira Knightly movie that is a big deal with girls...

Wednesday, we went to this palace: the house of the Duke of Marlborough, also coincidentally the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

The gardens there were fantastic as well

After the Duke's house, we made a stop in Oxford, which apart from being some kind of prestigious college in the UK really wasn't too interesting otherwise.

Took a break to make out with some horses.

Thursday we went to Stratford upon Avon, and if you're not really sure why that place is important, just take a looksy at the small print in the photo. Yep, that's Shakespeare's grave.

The birds there were huge and creepy. Have you ever stood right in front of a swan and watched it uncoil its neck as it searched you over for food? It's freaking creepy. I held out a cookie to it and it didn't just try to eat it, it tried to devour my hand. Birds are weird.

We were really lucky in Stratford - there was a shop that sold crystal wands. I picked three of them up and could feel their power flowing through my fingertips. I tried to capture this moment with a photograph, but it just doesn't do it justice. There were spellcasting books there too and I really wanted to buffer my witching knowledge, but they were too expensive. That's how you can tell they're legit.

There was a pretty awesome monument to Shakespeare there, so I had to get a picture with it.

Yesterday we visited the Duke of Devonshire's house, but I'm not including photos of that because it's not that exciting. After a lengthy bus ride, we got to the Lake District and this was the view we have from our hostel room:

The Brave Little Illustrator Goes to Europe PART 7

Goodbye London, hello Bath. We left London this morning and traveled by train to a city called Bath, named for the Roman hot springs here (which are really pricey to use). It's been fun in the city, but it's nice to get out of the cramped, crowded atmosphere and out to a more rural and medieval-looking city. It's actually really gorgeous here. Here are some of the views from today:

And here's to catch you up on everything I couldn't cram into the last 3 weeks of London:

At the Tower of London

 

A dragon made entirely of weapons and armor inside the Tower of London armory.

By the Thames River

In front of St. Paul's cathedral

On top of St. Paul's

Back on the ground by St. Paul's

At Hampton Court Palace, home of Henry VIII

Singin in the rain style in the gardens outside of the Hampton

At the Courtauld collection visiting with my man Van Gogh 

In front of the British Museum

The Victoria & Alberts Museum

And looking through a freak show of medical oddities including this - a literal cut-out of a human face.
Good-bye London!

The Brave Little Illustrator Goes to Europe PART 6

For all of you Sherlock lovers, eat your heart out: 

That's me standing next to the big guy himself. And if that wasn't enough to boil your biscuits...

Yeah, that's me in front of THE Speedy's next to Sherlock's apartment as seen in the current BBC show "Sherlock." And we ate there for lunch too. Later that day, Who did we go see? Yes.

That's a rack of a bunch of Dr. Who stuff... We went to the "Official" (?) store located on the east side of London, complete with a backroom "museum" of authentic Dr. Who paraphernalia. This place had official comics, novels, movies, DVD series, CDs, creepy photos of the 70s Dr. Who, helmets of the cybermen, action figures, and on and on.

And there's me next to one of the previous Doctors. You can't see it, but I'm in front of a sign that says, "This booth featured in the movie 'Dr. Who and the Daleks.'" But where are the Daleks?

Right here. Complete with plunger arm. That paper there says something like, "Do not take photos unless given permission." Did I get permission? Only after I took the photo... heh heh.

Speaking of strange stores, we passed one where this was apparently the advertised fashion. I'm not sure if the Wario suit really comes like that or if you're supposed to be fat in the first place. Or pregnant.

The Tower Bridge is all decked out for the Olympics, and I'm there to see it like a boss.

Because apparently they are the most dangerous people in the area.

Found the RIGHT Abbey Road! And here I am in front of the studio.

The wall under the fence surrounding it had all these names graffitied onto it, so I added mine.

And I wrote this there while I was at it. Don't get it? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0823592/#Actor

And after alot of fussing and dodging traffic, we recreated the Abbey Road image... more or less.

We passed a restaurant today and I felt like I had to share this. Can't say I ate there. I think you can guess why.

Found the Peter Pan statue at Kensington Gardens as well. Paid my respects to it as you can see.