England! (This is REALLY long!)

Day 1-So, there are 7 of us travelling: Me, Greg, Jen (Greg's sister), Greg's mom and dad and their friends, Mark and Sharon. This is my first time meeting Mark and Sharon and they seem nice. Our plan leaves Boston at 7:45pm, and we are on the coolest plane ever!! Each seat had a TV with tons of movies to choose from, I was overwhelmed and wanted the flight to be longer than it actually was so I could watch more movies. I ended up watching 17 Again, The Proposal, and an episode of Flight of the Concords. As we're about to land in London, the sun is rising and I see Big Ben from the plane!! I took a picture which I will hopefully put on facebook. We land in London at 7am, which is actually 2am American time. Don't worry, I'm way too excited to be tired. At 9am we finally get though customs and meet up with Johnny to bring us to his house until we can check into our hotel at 2pm. Johnny drives me, Greg and Jen, while the others go in a van that Johnny hired for them. There was tons of traffic on the way to Johnny's house, but I got to see some of the English countryside and lots of sheep-all very exciting! We get to Johnny's house (which is a teeny tiny little thing) and his mom greets us with tons of sandwiches and fruit and cookies. She is awesome! This is the first time I try "Apple Tango," which is a green apple soda. I love it. This is the moment when Sharon begins to drive me insane. First of all, she has a really nasally voice and she's a smoker. Secondly, she keeps arguing with things that Greg's mom is saying. Thirdly, nothing is as awesome as Italy. She's been 3 times and LOVES IT, and this makes her way more cultured than us. However, she's never left the city of Rome. Now I'm starting to get tired and cranky and I just want to sleep. Finally, it's time to check in! Because British people all drive teeny tiny hatchback cars that barely fit 4 people, Johnny has to have his friend come and help cart us all to the hotel. During the ride over, Sharon asks "why didn't Johnny's parents put us up?" Bitch. We get to the hotel. It's the Royal Comfort Inn in Kettering. It's pretty nice, it has a bed and that's all I care about at the moment. So, Johnny leaves us saying that he'll be picking us all up again at 7, for dinner. So, Greg and I immediately go to sleep and wake up around 5:30. We decide to walk around the town until Johnny comes to get us. Unfortunately, everything closes at 5:30!!! (Well, everything except for pubs). This is really annoying. I mean, I guess it's kind of cool for the people of England, because you know you're getting off work at 5:30, no matter what, but geeze! At 7, Johnny and his parents arrive to bring us to dinner. We go to some pub called "the Park House" and I got some type of barbecue chicken. However, they're barbecue sauce is a little different from ours; it wasn't gross, it was just weird. Greg got "bangers and mash" (sausage and mashed potatoes) and gave me a bite of the sausage. It was the MOST DELICIOUS SAUSAGE I'VE EVER HAD and I'm not a fan of sausage. At dinner, we get to know Johnny's mom and step dad, Sue and Sammy. Sammy reminds Greg and I of Austin Powers-messed up teeth, same voice and has the same inflection of his words...? Sue is the nicest woman I've ever met. She's so happy and British and funny. Instead of saying "what's up? or how's is going," British people say "are you alright?" It really throws you off at first. But whenever Sue sees Jen, she always says "Jenny! Are you alright?!" I'll have to do an impression for you because it's cute. So, dinner was fun and we all go back and go to sleep. Good news! Our hotel room is right over a bar! So we get to listen to Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling" all night! (actually, this first day I didn't care because I was so exhausted!

Day 2-Greg and I wake up at 11:30!! Today is a relaxation day, so we just walk around the town of Kettering. This is the day we discover "Greggs." It's what I like to call British Panera. They have the most delicious pastries and sandwiches. I think this is the day I got my first doughnut from them. It's seriously looks like a sub roll filled with whipped cream and covered in sugar. It was the most delicious thing I've ever had! I also had a sausage roll, which is a flaky pastry with sausage in it. So good! We also decide to try to find postcards. After going to a million stores in the mall and throughout town, I finally decide to ask someone. She has no idea what I'm talking about, but tells me to go to some store around the corner. We get there and it's like some sort of kitchen store. I ask the woman there if they sell postcards and she laughs in my face. But then she tells me to go to some convenience store across the street. Surprisingly, they actually have postcards!! So, we get some and go directly to the post office to fill them out and mail them! I took a picture of Greg dropping them in the mailbox because their mailboxes are pretty cool looking. Then we go to the grocery store and spend about half an hour in the chip aisle, or "crisps" as they call them. They have chips that look like Lays, but they're called "Walkers." They have a million different flavors of chips, like prawn (shrimp), turkey and stuffing, roast chicken, breakfast (eggs and bacon), and Worcestershire sauce. Their Cheetos are called "wotsits?!" (I like to say that with a British accent). Aside from chips, we discover than British people have it made! They basically have dinners prepared for them (like fresh veggies, mashed potatoes, meat), they just have to bring it home and cook it for like 30 minutes. I know you're thinking "hey, we have that, too." No, my friends. These are serious, non-processed, healthy meals. They also have a lot of sandwiches, which Greg and I ended up living off of. So, after spending about 10 pounds on candy, we go and meet Jen, Johnny and his parents for dinner. We didn't invite Mark and Sharon because they weren't in their room and we didn't feel like looking for them/waiting for them. We went to an Italian restaurant across the street from the hotel. Literally, 5 minutes after we sit down, Mark and Sharon walk in and look a little pissed off that we didn't invite them. I ordered chicken parm and it was really bland. Greg ordered lemonade and they gave him Sprite. Apparently that's what they call lemonade. OMG! For dessert, I got a banana split. It was too good to describe!! The bananas were like cooked on the grill and caramelized and topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. The bananas were warm and awesome. Oh man, that was so good and I almost forgot about it.

Day 3-This is the day of the blessing. This is a British tradition that takes place post-wedding, but pretty much it's just like a wedding, so I don't know why they bother with two. For the first half of the day we just walk around the town again and hit up some Greggs. I introduced Greg's dad to the doughnut at Greggs and I'm pretty sure he owes me big time. He loved those things as much as I did. We went to the Kettering museum, and it was not very exciting, but it passed the time. Eventually, it's time to go to the blessing and Johnny has 3 of his friends come to drive us over to the church. The church is in Grafton Village, which is so cute! The houses all have thatched roofs (thatched meaning they have hay on their roof rather than shingles. I didn't know what it meant). The church was teeny tiny and really old. It was made out of stone and looked really neat. The Vicker (the pastor guy who did the blessing) has known Johnny his whole life. Johnny warned us that the vicker was a little bit crazy and a serious talker, so avoid him at all costs. He introduced "Team America" and said we were all from the national park that Greg works at in New Hampshire. He kept making comments about Bear Brook and Greg was like "uh oh, he's done his research and he's going to end up talking to me all night." Greg is seriously stressing that he's going to get stuck talking to this guy and I just laugh and laugh because I know it's true. So anyway, during the ceremony the vicker keeps making crazy comments like "if anyone's wearing Reeboks, Jen can inspect them for you. She looks a little bored up here." The blessing ends and we have to get pictures taken outside. They photographer is one of Johnny's friends, Phil. His assistant is Phil's 5 year old son, Louie, who is totally awesome! Phil would line everyone up to take a picture and Louie would be standing right in front of his dad shouting out the same orders his dad just said and taking pictures with his own camera. Then we head over to the reception, which is at the hotel we're staying in. I'm freakin' starving and it takes them forever to get the buffet ready. I finally get to go get food and they have all kinds of crap that I don't recognize. I grabbed a bunch of sausage, some fried balls, and lots of veggies. The sausage was awesome, so were the veggies, but the fried balls ended up being fried mushrooms and they were totally nasty. Jen ate them for me. Johnny's band played at the reception. They were pretty good, but they were no Bloc Party. Johnny gave me a free CD, to spread the word in America. Let me know if you want a copy. So, we're hanging out, waiting for the cake to be served and we see the vicker walk in. He's lingering around our table, but thankfully there's no seats and Greg and I looks like we're having a serious conversation. I look at the vicker standing behind Greg and I see that he's holding a map of Bear Brook!! He's just waiting for the second he can talk to Greg and Greg is freaking out! Finally, we get some cake cake and it looks really delicious-chocolate cake with white frosting. I take a huge bite and realize it's RAISINS!!!! The frosting is that fondit stuff, so that's really gross, too!! It was the nastiest cake I've ever had. Jen says "it's Johnny's favorite. Notice how I'm not eating my own wedding cake..." Jerk.

Day 4- This is another day to hang out in Kettering. Frankly, Greg and I have walked the entire town and we're a little bored with it. Around 3, Johnny's family comes to pick us up to take us to dinner. We go to a restaurant that has a carvery. This is when I first learn the awesomeness that is Yorkshire pudding. I asked Johnny's sister Amy (who's totally cool and has a really hot boyfriend) what it was and she said it's the best thing I'll ever eat. This was not exactly a lie. Yorkshire pudding is basically a biscuit that kind of looks like a cup. You're supposed to fill it with gravy and stuffing. MMMMM. At dinner, Sharon is complaining about how her hotel room (a smoking room) smells like stale cigarettes. She's such a bitch. I talked to Amy a lot about her trip to America. It was her first time here and her goal for the trip was to get a Macy's bag, buy Hershey bars, and buy Uggs. (1 pound=$1.55, so the Uggs would be a lot cheaper here). She really did not like the Hershey bars, but she brought some to her class (she teaches kindergarten) and they loved them. It's funny because Amy's degree is in Geology because she's obsessed with dinosaurs. I was like "and now you're teaching kindergarten...?'" and she was like "Well, we have a week of studying dinosaurs, so it's cool." She's funny. After dinner, Johnny's parents take us all to this cafe called the airport, or something... It's really neat because it's a cafe located at a tiny private airport and you can watch all kinds of crazy planes take off and land. They bought us all a hot cocoa, which was a little watery. Don't worry, Sharon let everyone know how the cocoa was not a good as the cocoa in Italy. She's a bitch because Sue and Sammy bought it for us. She should be thankful she was even invited to dinner this time! Shit!

Day 5- Today we check out of our hotel in Kettering and check into the Premier Inn in Wellingborough, the town where Johnny lives. This hotel is a lot nicer and a lot quieter, but they don't have phones in the rooms, nor do they have free internet! It was like 5 pounds/hour, which is like $8/hour. Yeah right! Also, this is the first time we go to London. Johnny is going to be our tour guide. We take the train into London and on the train he's giving us all the rundown. Telling us how there's lots of pickpockets in London, be quick getting on and off the tube, don't get lost...he's so funny because he's just trying to make everyone happy. So, the first thing we do is take the underground train (the tube) to Covent Gardens, which is like a flea market/Times Square kind of place. So far, I'm not a huge fan of London because it seems really stressful and there's so many people!! Next, we start walking around and all of the sudden, I see Big Ben!!! The sight of it literally takes my breath away! It's so much cooler in real life. It top part is all gold and shiny, and it's so huge. And I got to hear it chime! Awesome! Johnny takes us to this really neat restaurant on the River Thames (pronounced Tems). It's literally a boat sitting on the river, right across from the London Eye (the giant ferris wheel in London). I actually forget what I got to eat. Some kind of sandwich, I think. It was a neat restaurant, but Sharon complained about how she's getting sea sick. Bitch. When we're done eating, Johnny suggests we go on the Eye. Sharon says she's too sea sick to even think about going on it. I get really depressed because I feel like this is my one chance to go on the Eye and she's ruining it for me. Next, we go to Buckingham Palace which wasn't too exciting. They have those guards with the tall, black, fuzzy hats, that are really serious and don't move. The queen was at the Palace, so it was all gated off and we couldn't get close to the guards to try to make them laugh. Then we went to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Tower Bridge was another thing that took be breath away. It's so big and beautiful and bright blue! The Tower of London was pretty neat, but it was closed by the time we got there. This is a castle where Henry VIII lived and the Beefeaters are the guards there. I was a little sad that everything was closed up because I wanted to see a Beefeater. This was the end of our London trip, and I decided that I officially love London.

Day 6-Today Johnny had to go to work decided to send us to Nottingham castle because it's an easy train ride and the castle is right by the train station. Greg's dad has gout and his foot was hurting so he didn't go. This made me sad because he's pretty funny and likes to bitch about Sharon. When we arrive at the castle, it has all kinds of Robin Hood stuff outside and I realize THIS IS WHERE ROBIN HOOD IS FROM!!! My dad and I used to watch Robin Hood all the time, so I was really excited to be there. Finding the entrance to the castle was a little bit difficult. We walked all the way around the thing before we found the door. One of the doors we passed was a tiny, wooden, green door that had two signs on it: one said "Nottingham Castle" the other said "DANGER OF DEATH! HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRICITY!" Greg's mom looks at the door and is like "Oh, I think this is the entrance!" and then she starts reaching for it to go in! I yell "THAT SAYS DANGER OF DEATH!!" She's like "Oh, I just saw the Nottingham Castle sign..." It was pretty funny. When we finally got in the castle, it was pretty lame. I was expecting to be in a real castle with fancy rooms, but this was a museum with a bunch of art. Boring. But then I saw a sign that advertised cave tours, so we decided to hook that up. This tour was really awesome. The castle had tons of caves dug underneath it for dungeons and secret passages and stuff. The tour guide was interesting and told us all kinds of cool stories about the caves. We also learned that Robin Hood may not be real, and the castle was set on fire in the 1800's, and that's why it's now a museum; the rest of it was destroyed. Overall, it was a pretty neat day.

Day 7-Greg's parents and Mark and Sharon left to go to Ireland for a few days, so Greg and I got to hang out with only Jen and Johnny (when he got off work). This is when the fun starts. Jen, Greg, and I went decided to go back to London to do somethings we wanted to do the other day, but couldn't: 1. Tower of London tour, 2. London Eye 3. The London Bridge Experience (Katie would love this) 4. Abbey Road and 5. The Jack the Ripper Tour (Greg's entire motivation for coming to London). We did the Tower of London tour first. This was really cool because the Beefeaters give the tours and I learned a lot. At the Tower of London, we got to see the crown jewels!! This included a 530 karat diamond! Holy MOLEY was that thing HUGE! The crown jewels were all really beautiful and amazing. Next we went to the London Bridge Experience. This is an hour long thing with 40 minutes of history on the London Bridge and then 20 minutes of a "self guided tour of the London Bridge tombs!!" Going through the tomb was basically like going though a haunted house-people jumping out at you, severed heads hanging, people dying of the plague, you know. It was actually a little bit lame, but I was sacred. When we finished this, it was about 5pm. The Jack the Ripper Tour started at 6:45pm, so we started walking in that direction to figure out where it was and to get something to eat. Online it said to get information for the tour at the Tower Hill underground station. When we get to the station, there's a tiny little man holding a handwritten poster that says "Jack the Ripper Tour." I went up to talk to him and he was little strange and was going on and on about Jack the Ripper and trying to explain the tour to us. As we were walking away from him, Jen bursts out laughing because she thinks that guy was crazy and is totally not worth our time. I agree, but I'm afraid to say so because I know this was Greg's dream for the trip. Finally, we all decide against going on the tour, but Greg seems pissy because his dream turned out to be lame. We think we're relatively close to the London Eye, so we start walking that way. Seriously, like 3 miles later we can see the Eye, but it still seems pretty far away. Greg, still a little pissy, convinces us to keep walking and not take the tube. We make it to the Eye and we go up right as the sun's setting. The Eye was so cool! You're basically in a glass ball on the ferris wheel and you can see tons of stuff. I think I took about 20 pictures of Big Ben. When we're done with the Eye, we're all cranky and staring, so we eat some sandwiches and then head home.

Day 8-Cadbury World!! Cadbury is the main brand of chocolate in England and it's so delicious! The Cadbury here is made by Hershey's, so it's not as good. So, Greg, Jen and I decided to go to Cadbury World which is pretty much the Cadbury factory. The first thing we did there was this thing called "Essence." You get to "invent your own chocolate treat." Basically, they have like 15 different things to choose from like marshmallows, gummy bears, rice krispies, coconut, etc. and they put it in a cup and pour this warm liquidy chocolate on it. Oh my God! It was so warm and delicious. I went for marshmallows (in honor of Rachel) and that basically made my trip to Cadbury World complete. Then we went on the factory tour, which was kind of lame because you just went to different rooms and watched videos of where chocolate comes from and how it's made. We did get to see chocolate getting made, and candy bars getting wrapped up while on the conveyor belt, but everything else was videos. There was a ride within the factory called "Cadabra." We decided to go to it and when we got there there was no line and the girl running the ride made us get on, despite the fact that it's basically a ride for toddlers-a tiny car that goes around a track and goes through "Beanville" where these little cocoa beans (that look like California Raisins) live. It was really embarrassing, but they took our picture while we were on it and Jen and I bought magnets. Hilarious. Finally, we went to the Cadbury store and Greg and I bought 25 pounds worth of candy. Yeah, that's basically $40. I hope to bring some with me to VA, so I'm trying to practice self control. After Cadbury World, we went back to Johnny's house where he prepared a Lamb Roast for us. The silly American that I am thought he slaved away in the kitchen all day, but it took only 30 minutes to cook, thanks to the prepared British foods. Everything was really delicious and it was a nice way to say goodbye to Jen, Johnny and his family.

Day 9-This is the day we leave England. What a sad day. Nothing too exciting happened. I watched My Sister's Keeper, The Hangover and Transformers 2 on the plane ride. Also, some guy got caught smoking in the bathroom on the plane, and a state trooper came on the plane when we ladned and arrested him!!

Phew!! That's the England trip, in a nutshell. Basically, I ate a lot of sausage and a lot of chocolate. I'm sure I'll have tons more to say about it when I get to VA!