I'm finally in Spain! We arrived at a youth hostel in Bilbao about half an hour ago; we were picked up from the airport by a Spanish guy who couldn't speak any English at all (except for airport and mountain), so mixed with our next-to-nothing Spanish (which consists at the moment of hi, how are you, where is the tourist office and my name is) we had a great time! Actually, he was really nice and cute (puppy cute, not attractive cute). Landing in Bilbao was quite beautiful, everything along the coast is lit up, but annoyingly I can't hear out my left ear. It's getting better though. Hopefully I will be able to hear again when I wake up tomorrow. It's already 9:30pm here, so, 12 hours difference to Australia, Skype people!

Yesterday we spent the day in London - caught the train for an hour into the city, bought a day card for the tube (and definitely got our money's worth!) and visited the Tower of London, the Tate Modern (art gallery), Shakespeare's Globe theatre (or the recreation), and went past Buckingham Palace in the evening. The Tower was awesome, we saw the crown jewels and everything. And where the two princes were murdered in the Bloody Tower. Pretty awesome. And there was a model trebuchet. Doubly awesome.

 

We also crossed the millennium bridge (the new footbridge that they blew up in the last Harry Potter movie) while it was really windy, and almost got blown off! (Joking, mum.) Very nice. And the tube is just like the U-Bahn in Hannover, so I felt right at home! Mhm. Can't wait to go back to Germany now and do it again.

The photos are taking a really long time to upload. Probably because there's some 39 of them. Mostly of the Tower. But also some other things, so I'll have to wait a bit more...

(15 minutes later)

Ok, photos are up! Make sure to check them out. May not update for another few days after this, we're taking a bus to Pamplona tomorrow and then from there to Roncesvalles. Mum, I forgot my towel! Did you see it when I was packing? For some reason I can't find it and I'm annoyed. Grr. I'll have to get one tomorrow in Pamplona. And by the way, it's really warm here - 18 degrees at the moment. But I still hope it snows sometime while we're walking.

Off to bed for me now. Adios!

So, we did some great things today. Here's a little list:

• Visited a castle that actually still has the queen living in it (and she was actually there because the flag was up, which I didn't notice until Ari just told me).
• Saw the actual original painting of RIII (English advanced people, you know, the one that's on the front of the booklet, the famous one?) as well as his coat of arms on the ceiling of one of the reception halls. Amongst a hundred others. Make that a thousand. Believe me, if you've studied RIII for your HSC and still like it, that's pretty awesome.
  
• Stood on the spot where Henry VIII and his (3rd and favourite) wife Jane Seymour were buried in the chapel. Which was more like a massive cathedral. (I lit a candle for you, mum.)
• Went on a walk through the woods, which were all yellow and brown and red and pretty.
  
• Saw a million swords and suits of armour and things like that which I proceeded to get very excited about.

The castle is amazing, really really extravagant and ornate and very, very beautiful. And tacky in parts as well. But it's absolutely awesome, in the actual sense of the word. (As in, awe-inspiring.) People actually lived in those rooms and ate off that china (I'd be far too terrified to eat off it!) and jousted in that armour and slept in those beds and danced in those halls! And shot arrows out of those slits in the walls. I forget what they're called. I wasn't able to take photos in the rooms of the castle, but I have lots of photos from outside. So does Ariel. She actually has some with me in them as well. Like this one:

See? Prettiness. But honestly, there is so much history everywhere that it amazes you. Like all the kings and queens buried in the chapel, and the tapestries and the paintings and the furniture and the walls and the towers and everything else. It's so wonderful, absolutely fascinating. History history history!

Tomorrow we're heading into London city to explore there and probably Monday as well. I found a flight last night and booked it for Tuesday evening (to Bilbao in Spain) where we'll stay the night in a hostel, then take a bus to Pamplona and Roncesvalles the next day and walk the day after that. Stretches everything out a bit, but they were the cheapest could find. So we'll start walking on the 26th and finish up sometime in early January. Hopefully!

Be sure to check out the photos in the album, link is at the side of the page!

So now I'm in England, at the moment, I'm in the library in Cheltenham. Margaret, who we're staying with (she's Julian's sister) here in England (in Wokingham) until we can find a flight down to Spain, had a meeting here at her daughter's school (a boarding school in this amazing, fancy building in the middle of the town) so she dropped us off in town. We've been exploring most of the morning, ate some crepes, went to the museum and learned some of the local history (from prehistory through the bronze/iron/roman age to everything regency and victorian and the present day). Pretty amazing. I think her daughter (who's a year younger than me) is going to take us to Windsor castle tomorrow or something like that, so we get to see some of the sight in this area as well. And we're going to go explore London as well tomorrow or the day after, and then we'll be heading off for Spain, landing in Bilbao, probably.

The flight from Korea to London was long and sore and quite boring, though we did watch a lot of movies this tmie because we had our own televisions. We arrived a bit late, and then had to split up going through immigration because Ari had an Australian passport and I had an EU one. My line went really quickly, so I went to get all the luggage we had checked in from the carousels and waited for her. And waited. And waited. By the time she turned up, I was freaking out completely. Apparently the line must have been huge, and she got asked all sorts of questions as if they were trying to pin something on her. I got into a bit of trouble too (well, they asked a lot of questions) because I'm a minor, and apparently, in England it's not ok if you're a minor travelling alone. Which I'm not, because I'm with Ari, but she wasn't there of course.

So then we met Margaret, drove home (she lives in a massive Georgian house that's very, very beautiful) ate some dinner (in my case - Ari went straight to bed at around 7:30pm) and then slept. And that's all really! I was surprised at how warm it was (about 15 degrees today, and sunny); compared to Korea, where it started to snow in the morning, it's very warm indeed!

Still no photos because I haven't got my card reader with me at the moment. But maybe tonight I can upload some back at the house. Also need to book some tickets with ryanair. I wonder if we'll get anything... Hope so! That's all for now.