Around London and a Visit to the Homeland

I have been negligent in my posting lately but I have a good excuse. Some of the family came over the pond for a 10 day visit and we had a great time sightseeing in London and Scotland. [Sorry some of the photos have black bars across them... evidently there were some errors during uploading]

The first order of business was to battle the jet lag with a stroll through Hyde park to Buck House.


Hyde Park


Speaker's Corner

Next, a visit to the V&A museum. The plaster cast rooms were the best part.


Plaster casts of columns at V&A


Of course the ladies had to go check out Harrod's

The next day the fam took a big bus tour while I finished some homework at school. That night we went to Blue Man Group. It was a great experience... I'm thinking of going back and sitting in the 'poncho' area.

The following day we tried to start off with a trip to the British Museum, but it was closed due to a May-day strike. Bummer.


Protecting their future, ruining our plans at the Brit


At Baker Street

Walking around we stumbled on this crazy A-list party. Of course they were happy to invite us in. Wes chatted with Samuel L Jackson about snakes on planes among other things.


Wes chats with SLJ

Then Myra ran into superman. Ok, you probably figured out by now that we were at Madame Tussads.


Super

They had on display the blade that killed Marie Antionette. Interesting bit of history.


Historic Blade

Later we caught the train to Edinburgh


The Flying Scotsman


I had to run fast to snap this photo


The Royal Mile in Edinburgh


Interesting graffiti

Leaving Edinburgh, we swung by St. Andrews (the birthplace of golf) to see if we could get a tee time.


St. Andrews Cathedral

After a long drive we reached Golspie, in 'our' home county of Sutherland


Our hotel. Funny, they didn't give us a discount.

Then we visited Dunrobin Castle, owned by the Countess of Sutherland. We thought she might welcome us with tea and scones in one of the 180 or so rooms in the castle. I guess she must have misplaced our appointment though. We settled for a tour instead.


Dunrobin Castle


The Gardens


A Falconry Demonstration


The Castle from the gardens


The Beach in Golspie. And dang if I didn't forget my swimsuit!


Shin Falls in Lairg


The big attraction is the jumping salmon. Unfortunately they weren't jumping that day.

Driving back southward, we passed Loch Ness.


Urquart Castle on Loch Ness

After driving past Ben Nevis and Loch Lemond, we reached the historic town of Stirling.


William Wallace memorial (the tower in the distance)


Stirling Castle


Argyll and Sutherland highlanders museum

They are currently in the process of restoring the palace in Stirling Castle. They had some interesting exhibits on the investigations that they are conducting in order to determine how the palace looked hundreds of years ago. They will have the palace restored in 5-6 years.


Unfinished Palace


Robert the Bruce

Back in Edinburgh, we took a walking tour around the city at night and heard about some of the horror stories from Edinburgh's seedy past. Then we were escorted to the haunted underground crypts.


Crypt under Edinburgh. Are the 'orbs' ghosts?? Decide for yourself.


Edinburgh at dusk


Where they filmed scenes from Harry Potter

After 10 days it was time to say goodbye, since the fam had to go back to work and I had to go back to my studies. We had a farewell English breakfast before they headed to the airport.


English breakfast