EDINBURGH DAY 3

during our final official day in edinburgh we woke up at the butt crack of dawn because we forgot about the time change and only found out when the guard at the modern art museum we went to informed us they didnt open until 10 to which we all responded by staring at our watches which said 1045 then staring at the guard, then back at our watches, and then back at guard and then the watches and then the guard for 15 minutes until he finally said "alright we're open you friggin idiots"...after that we went to the end of the city where there was a great hill that you could climb and the sun came out just as we were taking pictures, so that was lovely. after that we put an all you can eat italian restaurant out of business and went back to our new hostel , had a few drinks and passed out so that we could be up for our 550 train back to manchester. all in all a very good trip

EDINBURGH DAY 2

our second day in the lovely city of edinburgh consisted of a trip to the castle which was very castely. my favorite part was the castle gate which had been there all of 15 years and had two spikes left, because as of 2 weeks ago a truck knocked the rest of them off.....quick history lesson.....had you of aquired access to a truck you could have taken pretty much any castle you wanted. after our castle visit, we wondered about town until our late night ghost hunt which was led by the enchanted "will".....he was a bit of a tool, but our tour was pretty good. i did not see as many dead people as i was hoping to, but i never do.

EDINBURGH DAY 1

this is edinburgh, home of william wallace, mary queen of scots yard and turf builder, and fat bastard. as you can see in the picture, it was a beautiful day when we got off the train...that didnt last long, but we enjoyed off and on sunshine all weekend. this picture may look like your normal tourist shot, but i was actually doin some recon work. i actually attempted to overtake the castle by force later on in the weekend, but my attempts were thwarted and i had to settle for burning my hostel to the ground. next time though....the castle will not be so lucky. sorry to everyone at the city centre hostel who lost everything to my rampage....sorry that youre such losers and you couldnt stop me from dominating your pathetic fortress of weakness.

LONDON DAY 4 KIND OF

i placed this very calming picutre of the skyline and river here because it in no way represents our last couple hours in london...yikes....trying to stay at the train station the night before we leave was a bad idea. the station closed from 130 till 430 and it took about 21 minutes for us to almost get into a fight with 2 bums. luckily pete and i needed only to "flex" and they were scared away. after that the texas born, sheriff turned nasa badass showed up with his billyclub and we all felt a little better. looking back, this was probably 4 of the craziest days of my life, but i could not have had a better time. ill leave everyone with a few of our favorite quotes from the weekend.

"this is like lady and the tramp" -nicki ....."only im going to punch you in the face." -pete

"sorry to make you guys all wait." -erin ...."well sorry doesnt put the food in my stomach now does it erin." -tom

" i didnt know whether to completely ignore him, or just wait to get hit in the head with a basket" -erin

LONDON DAY 3

wow, what a day. after walking another 650 miles around the city, we got to go to st. pauls cathedral (look to the left) and hear a organ/violin concert. i dont know which was more beautiful, the exterior against the sunset or the music and interior. we were all very sad to know that this was our last official day in london, but it was an amazing trip. after st. pauls we had dinner right along the thames river where i was conveniently dressed exactly like the staff. apparently they get their shirts from jc penny in piqua as well..great day

LONDON DAY 2

the view to your left is the beautiful national gallery, which was basically like stepping into an enormous art history book. and no, i did not photoshop the color into the background, the sky was a pefect cloudless blue and it was about 65 degrees, so we could not have been happier. we ended up walking roughly 183 miles today, but it was well worth it, and we could not have asked for better weather. well we could have, but then we couldnt find anyone to ask. there was however 65 couples that thought it necissary to make out wherever we walked, so i guess we could have asked them, but i doubt they could have done anything about it. good day again.

LONDON DAY 1

wow....if you order young persons rail cards online....make sure you have a young persons railcard....sounds simple enough, but that mistake almost cost us 200 dollars. it would have if antionette had not saved the day, thank you to her and all the other wonderful employees at virgin trains except the bastard that took our tickets...he should be fired. i hate you ticket guy. anyways, armed with four cameras and about 2gb of storage, we set off to take more pictures then all the other tourists we saw combined.

GIVE HIM SOME CHIN STUFF

this is possibly the greatest picture of someone "bowling" a cricket ball to anyone else. of course, our ball is made of styrafoam, and we use pvc as a bat, and the wickets are taped on the door, but its quite a competitive league that we have. its well good. so far the highlight of my season has been making matts nose bleed with one of my monster drives...he'll be alright....eventually

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

pictured at left is holy name church in downtown manchester. we all attended the 4 o clock latin mass here today. i understood six words that the priest said, but it was still quality. a quick note to others travelling to manchester and going to the 4 o clock latin mass...do not come into the church and start talking during the homily. if you do, the priest will stop talking and everyone in the church will turn around and stare at you as if you had lobsters coming out of your ears. afterwards we again attended the dutch pancake house, which uses original dutch ovens....ahthankyou....

ENGLAND vs. AUSTRIA

Thats a beautiful accent you have....New Jersey?....
Austria.... Oh well in that case "lets put another shrimp on the barbie".....lets not.........

Well the picture on the left basically includes everything you need to know about the UK. there is a Guinness, a wet umbrella, and football on the telly. England beat Austria 1-0 and qualified for the 2006 world cup. David Beckham got a red card for getting near one of the opposing players. Apparently in football matches over here if you make it look like you got shot in the lower back, they will throw the nearest person to you out of the game.

ADRIENNES BIRTHDAY

just wanted to say happy birthday quick to my beautiful girlfriend who turns 21 today. basically this puppy's face describes the way i feel about having to be away from her today.

MANCHESTER MUSEUM

we are becoming quite accustomed to downtown manchester. today we went to the manchester museum which was a quick 2 minute bus ride and 3 hour walk around in a circle away. the guy on the left is nigel. he was the museums first security guard back in the fifteen hundreds. they kept his bones and placed creepy lights in his eye sockets to scare the bejesus out of little kids that came to the museum. nigel was an accomplished bow hunter which you can see from the picture behind him. he was responsible for killing all of the other animals that were on display at the museum including the t rex and mummies. nigel was killed when a glass door cut through his stomach as he was trying to break into an old old wooden ship. only the ships doorknob survived. i liked the museum a lot.