Monday marked the first day of my 28 day work trip around the world. I will be going to Fargo ND, Boston, Cardiff Wales, London, Hanover Germany, Goettingen Germany, Milan , and Tokyo.
(Click the map to see the full size)
Unfortunately, Doug is not with me on this trip and for parts of it I am completely alone. So we'll see how much fun (and work!) this turns out to be. But since I am alone I'll have more free time to keep the blog up to date, in case you would like to follow along on my travels. I will try to post every week. So here we go on week 1 - Fargo, Boston and traveling to the UK...
STOP #1 - FARGO, ND
This is where it all started. Oooo! Fargo North Dakota you ask??? I know, I know, you are jealous. You should be. Check out the view from my hotel!
On this short leg of the trip I was accompanied by my coworker Sean and our client Steve (seen here in front of our Kia Soul rental car - stylish!)
I think that's all I have for North Dakota...on to Boston!
On Wednesday night we arrived into Boston. We caught a late dinner at a nearby place called Teranga that I found using my super awesome iphone. It was Sengalese food which I had never heard of. It was strange but pretty good. Here is my coworker Sean at the restaurant.
'
Here are a few of my pictures from Stonehenge. It was so cold, rainy, and windy but still really busy! So many tourists!
A bird!
And my dinner- a leg of lamb and Moroccan couscous - a national favorite apparently.
The next morning came way too early and I had to start my day with a big coffee from Starbucks at the hospital. It's only day two and I'm already having to rely on caffeine to get me through the day! Not the best start...
The research ended up going really well and the day flew by. My companions caught a flight back west that night and I was on my own. I caught a quick dinner at Legal Seafoods then called it a night. I was tired!
The next day I did a little exploring around Quincy Market.
I caught part of a break dancing show which was actually pretty good for one of those crowd drawing park type shows.
'
Then I got to the bay just in time for it to start pouring. So I jumped in a cab and headed to the airport early.
ON TO THE UK!
I was flying to the UK on Aer Lingus - an Irish airline that I had never heard of. It was nice though - I would definitely recommend it. I love the green shamrock thing they have going on. EVERYTHING was green, even the seats. See.
The plane was half empty too so I got a lot of room to myself which was nice. I arrived in Dublin at 5:30 am their time (AGG!) and caught a puddle jumper (as my mom calls them) over to Cardiff Wales. We were boarding just in time to see a nice sunrise over the countryside.
Once I got to Cardiff, I headed straight to the train station. Since I don't have to work until Monday, I wanted to get a little sightseeing in first. Joey did a little research for me and suggested I go to the city of Bath in England. So off I went!
FREETIME - BATH, ENGLAND
I had never heard of Bath before but WOW is it ever cool! It kind of reminds me of Florence with the old architecture and cobblestone streets. Here is a view of the city out my hotel window.
As tired as I was, I had to stay up until nighttime to adjust to the time change so I spent the day walking around and exploring randomly. As you may or may not know, the city of Bath is mainly famous for its Roman Baths (big surprise). The remains of a really old Roman hot springs is in the center of the city and is a huge tourist attraction. So I went. Here I am with my audio tour - paying close attention!
This sign explains how the hot springs worked with the bath...Clickon the picture to read it if you are interested.
And here is a view from the bottom level. It really was pretty neat. There were lots of little old stone sauna type rooms and pools and temples and sculptures to look at and the narration was pretty entertaining too (or maybe I'm a just a sucker for an english accent)
There were all sorts of tourists there. I found some girls doing the victory V!
After the baths, I grabbed a quick chicken and leek pasty and walked around the city to soak up the sights a bit. I took tons of pictures but I have just included a few that were my favorites. There is a main garden/park area near the center of the city by the river that is just beautiful. I couldn't stop taking pictures of it!
So eventually I just went in the park and laid in the grass and tried not to fall asleep.
There was some good people watching there too. Here is a little girl obsessed with feeding the pigeons. They were flocking all over her. I'm not scared of birds but this was insane. They were flapping in her face. I was afraid they were going to peck her!
And here is a quaint little couple who sat down on the grass with a nice tray complete with cups and saucers for afternoon tea. I am so in England!
I quickly realized that lots of people had this fancy tea and I had to join in. There was a little house in the corner of the garden selling it. Their famous "cream tea with fresh scones." OK!
So here is my spread. Mmmmm. I wasn't hungry but you don't say no to afternoon tea and scones in a pretty park in England!
And to make things even better, a band (like a orchestra/marching band type band) was playing music from the center pavilion. At one point they started playing a Grease medley and I was pretty sure I was in heaven.
Then I fought off sleep until 8:30pm and CRASHED!
STONEHENGE
This morning I got up bright and early to go on a bus tour to Stonehenge, which is about 1 hour outside of Bath. Unfortunately it turned out to be raining. I didn't think to pack an umbrella or a rain coat so I had to venture out into the city without cover to hunt for an umbrella. It was only 9 oclock though and pretty much everything was closed. So I ended up buying an umbrella at the only open store - the tourist center - now I have an umbrella AND a souvenir!
Here is the entire scene. I stitched together 3 pics for this one!
They don't actually let people get very close to the stones so I just had to take pictures from afar and play with the zoom.
My camera does fisheye!
After the tour, I did a little shopping in Bath and hopped on the train to call it early night to be well rested for work tomorrow.
That's it for now... Look for my next never-ending blog post (as Joey calls them) next weekend from my travels in Cardiff, London, and Germany. Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment