The second hostel we stayed at was in London. I can’t recall the name of the area it was in, but it was only about three or four tube stops from Buckingham Palace. This hostel, in my opinion, was not as fun as the one in Edinburgh. Security was a lot more intense. You had to have a key to get inside,which wasn’t very fun. If you were outside talking, the security men made you go all around the building to the smoking area, even if you weren’t smoking. You had to be quiet because of the residential buildings nearby. And, one of the people we were with while there wasn’t much fun. I did meet a very nice Argentinian man, though,and they gave you free towels with your room.
The last hostel we stayed in was in Edinburgh, like the first one, but in a different area. This hostel had a lot of very nice qualities – free breakfast, free laundry, etc. The showers were particularly enjoyable. All of the hostels had a chill out room. The first one had many big cushions scattered along the floor and a TV that was always playing movies. The second one, I didn’t go into. And this one had comfortable leather couches and a little kitchen area for making food, and a TV. In the chill out room, Jack and I met a big group of people who were all staying there for the weekend, and who had also all met at the hostel. There was an American, but a majority of the people were from Scotland or England.
Eating food while staying at hostels is hard. It’s expensive to buy food from the city, and even more so to buy it from the bars that are usually attached to the accommodation. While staying there, Jack and I lived off a lot of kebabs and french fries with gravy. Mom bought us soup once, which was greatly appreciated, but I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve eaten french fries with gravy from a restaurant called the Clam Shell while staying at a hostel in Edinburgh. For future reference, it isn’t really a good purchase. They aren’t very filling nor good for you. Kebabs, on the other hand, are very much worth what you pay for. ]]>
Big Ben is very pretty. I didn’t know it was attached to the House of Parliament.
Instead of a subway there is the tube. At every stop there is a voice that says MIND THE GAP. That means there is a space between the platform and the train.
London Bridge is not actually London Bridge, it is the Tower Bridge.
We went to see the Tower of London where Mary, Queen of Scotts head was cut off. I will say executed because it sounds less creepy. We saw the grave of Anne Boleyn. Every year, since her head was executed, or chopped off, on the date, someone sends 2 dozen roses and no one know who sends them or who pays for them, it’s a mystery. Anne Boleyn is Henry the 8th’s wife and he had a new wife every day and every morning he executed his wife but Anne Boleyn told him stories every night and stayed alive, is that right? Some people say that if the Ravens ever leave the Tower of London, it will fall into dust. They keep some there in a cage because they don’t want the Tower of London to fall into dust.
Buckingham Palace is where the Queen lives. The Queen has a dog, and I really like this kind of dog, it’s called a corgi. There is a princess and a baby princess. Every 24 hours, there is the changing of the guard. A giant parade, men on horses, a ton of men carrying guns and the whole thing is to change the guards protecting the Queen and the princess and baby princess.
We went to a museum and saw real mummies with bodies in them, real bodies. I thought it was kind of creepy. There was one real Egyptian person called Ginger, curled up in the fetal position, he had ginger hair that’s why he was called Ginger, and he was laid out under a stone and they brought him all the way to England and I thought it was creepy, too.
We took a tram like in a ski resort up into the sky to get across the Thames. It was a beautiful view. I took a ton of pictures. We also went to see a play called Wicked. It was very, very great.
We woke up really early in the morning, like 5am or something, to go to the train. We didn’t have any breakfast so everyone was really hungry. Mom made sandwiches but I don’t really like sandwiches. On the train, there was a cafeteria and a bathroom but the cafeteria was closed but in first class, they had food. So we had to eat sandwiches for lunch and I really don’t like sandwiches. The train took about three hours. It was night when we left for about an hour and then it started becoming day and then we switched trains. We got to Liverpool and we had to go to the bathroom but it cost 30 pence and there was a really long line. Liverpool was kind of ugly. When we walked around a mall and we went into a shop to use the bathroom. We saw a kit for a gingerbread house and I was thinking of buying it when we got our camper which was at a port. We walked to a dock called the Albert Dock and it had a lot of stores. There was a candy store on the dock and a store that was named after my sister Annabelle called Annabelle’s Accessories which my sister’s name is. After that, my sister and brother showed up. My sister and brother got to the dock because they came from John Lennon’s house. I don’t know who John Lennon is. We each bo ught a scarf and it was pretty. We walked about 2 miles to the camper and dad picked us up in our camper which had just been shipped. It took about an hour to find a place to cam
p. We are camping at a beach with sand dunes and iron men made to look like this one man and there are 100 of them on the beach. They were creepy because they stand there and just kind of watch you. The next day, me and my brother and sister went out to explore the beach and we went way out really far because the tide was out and there was one iron man covered with barnacles and seaweed.
Before all this, we went to a castle back in our town. It was really fun. We walked around the dining hall and it was the castle where Queen Mary of Scots and her son lived and he made a coffin just for his mom, exactly of the perfect size of her exact face, eyes, dress and shoes. We went to where he made a building
for his mother, because of her execution. 
She got executed by Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth chopped off her head. Before that she was in prison for 20 years. And there is a building made just for another mom, the oldest building in the castle and when the British attacked, they spared this one building. It was a tiny church. We saw the crown jewels of the castle. It was interesting. At the castle, we had snacks. My sister and brother had cake and my mom and dad had shortbread but I had crisps. Crisps are chips in Scottish. Later we went out to dinner and it was really nice. I got Bangers and Mash which means sausages and mashed potatoes. We were all really full. My brother couldn’t eat it all so he wrapped up his fish in a napkin and put it in his pocket and we called it a night.