I flew from Dubrovnik to Copenhagen, Denmark where I had an overnight ready to board the ms Eurodam the next day.

20 days in the Baltic

I really didn’t get a whole lot of time to explore the Baltic as I was doing a lot of training and getting ready to take over the ms Noordam 20 days later.

What I did see of the Baltic was amazing, the weather was really good and the views were amazing. Work was good and I have a strong feeling that I will be back in the Baltic in the future.

One thing that was really annoying was the fact that I didn’t have a Russian visa or seaman’s book so i couldn’t get off the ship in Russia. next time.

We managed to get the train from Preston to Ambleside in the Lake District. The plan was to spend the next three days here in the country allowing Ryan to do some more study and also taking advantage of the hills for hiking.

Ambleside is a really nice town, it is not as tourist like as the other towns nearby and is within hiking and walking distance to the lakes and hills. We did a bit of a walk around on our first day there just to check the place out, had a few drinks to.

The Creek through Ambleside

We were super luck that on the Saturday the weather was amazing and we set out to hike. We started at the information center but decided that we didn’t need a map. I don’t count this as a mistake but a map probably would have resolved some hardship later on in the hike. Anyway we set off towards the fell (it is between a mountain and a hill) that we could see from our room the night before.

“The Target”

So we made a few wrong turns getting out of town but ended up going across a soccer field and along a river. We ran into some people who said the only bridge was on private property so we took off the shoes and crossed the river, it was only shallow and we dominated it.

down the river

We then got out of the river and started up the fell, this is where we learnt our first lesson on “Hiking in the English Hills”, If you see a large clump of trees, don’t head into it. As we found out the reason there is a large clump of trees and everywhere around it is farm land and developed by farmers is because below the trees there is not very faviourable terrain. We quickly hit 90% inclines and found ourselves climbing instead of hiking. This was silly, but we continued up the fell. The ground was loose as well which made it interesting to say the least. We both made it to the top but don’t think we will be going rock climbing anytime soon.

This picture does not do the slope justice, Ryan has some on his camera so i will upload those.

Once we made it to the top it was amazing, the view was great largely due to the weather. I will let the pictures do the talking on this one.

at the top

The view from the top

Ambleside

After sitting down and having an apple we headed towards the lake as it was swim time. Where we came out at the river it was to deep and we needed to cross, so some people passing by in a canoe gave us a lift across the river, it was nice of them.

yay we made it

We then went to the water, Ryan went for a swim but I decided to skip it. We decided at this point that we would go to one of the local pubs for some Ales. The next morning it was harder to get out of bed.

Preston is what I lake to describe as the Heart of the UK, It is a lot different to the south of the England…..Really different.
Bath to Preston at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

We said good bye to Stacy and got on the bus to Preston, we had a quick stop in Birmingham (it smelt like stolen stuff) and then continued on to Preston, It took the whole day to travel the distance (as you can see from the map). Once in Preston Laure picked us up from the bus station and we went to our Hotel. We staid in the Travelodge in the center of Preston as Ryan needed some quite time away from the party atmosphere of the hostels to study.

Oh Preston

Where we were staying was interesting, the travel lodge looked like it was converted from some sort of institution, the doors were two narrow to be a hospital but it smelt of detol and smoke. The outside area looked a bit rough, as we were driving into Preston everything was closed, this would have been fine except it was 4.30 in the afternoon.

bro and the stro

Anyway after checking in and dropping our stuff we went out to dinner with laura and exchanged tales from home and abroard. We opted for a quiet night as the party town that is bath had taken it out of us, also the next day we deicded to go to the Lake District which is meant to be the most beautiful part of England.

my money is on the swan

The alarm on my pda is a piece of shit, so Laura work us up with a phone call and we got ready for the day. The drive out to the Lake district was about 1.5 – 2 hours, it is nice country side and is the greenest I have seen England. The Lake District is very nice, the towns around it are a bit touristy but it is not to bad. It looks as though the hiking there would be amazing so we decided to stay there on the weekend after our stay in Preston for another night or two.

laura and ryan

The main thing we did at the lake district was go for a walk and look into the hostels in the area, also work out transport back there as Laura had to work.

Art House photo

On the drive back to Preston we saw a brewery that had a bear called “Brodie’s Prime” probably the best part of the trip so far…..not really but anyway it was good to see me represented in a beer.

its brodie’s prime…..yeeaaaassssss

We then drove back to Preston and went to dinner.

It was another quiet night as Laura had work in the morn and Ryan had dedicated the next day to study, my plan was to sleep in, which is exactly what I did.

So this weekend we are heading back to the Lake District to stay, then on monday we have another marithon day of travel from the Lake District to London, It will take about 8 or 9 hours……awsome.

The last few days have gone by really quickly, I have to admit that we have been partying a bit. There were a number of factors that led to this party time. We went to Kylie’s house on saturday and had a walk around her area, it was all very nice, then we went to some of her friends house and had a couple of drinks.

It was raining when we woke up….we were not prepared

It was a good (and cheap) night all in all but on the Sunday we had to get up and go to the megabus for a 2.5 hour ride to bristol. I love megabus, it was 6 pound and gets you along way, anyway we then were walking along the street to catch a bus to bath were we were going to watch the cricket, and staying 2 nights. I was yelled at by someone on a stopped bus, she sounded like she had been smoking and drinking all her life, which is exactly what she has been doing.

London to Bath at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

It was Stacy beare. I new I would see her in bath but was not prepaired to see her again so soon after the alaska fam trip. So we got on the bus with her and continued to bath, checked in at the hostel and went to see the sights (pubs). There are a lot of pubs in bath, and england but many in bath. We did a pub crawl to see the city then went on a guided city walk that was a comedian showing us all over the place, it was hella funny.

The Gang

We went out and had a few more drinks that night but realising we had the cricket the next day we had a sleep.

a bridge in bath that has shops and a pub on it

On waking up it was raining…..heavy and it didn’t look like it was going to stop. We walked to the bath cricket ground and were told that it had been canceled, ryan cried. So we went and sat in one of the many pubs.

Kylie took many more photos both days so you can see them on her facebook. All the photos I have to date I have taken and uploaded to flickr, I will probably work on putting up Ryan’s soon as he has some good ones.

I took someones advice (sam and rachel) and took my stitches out of my arm. I had a piece of skin taken to make sure I don’t have the cancer, I have been telling people here that I was bitten by a white tale spider and the flesh eating venom has just been neutrilized by my bodies natural enzymes, now I can get it stitched up.

This was done in Perth and I needed to have the stitches out 7 days later. Following their advice I took them out myself, I thought all was well until I woke up covered in blood (flash backs) and my wound reopened. After 12 hours of bleeding I decided the doctor needed to be seen. We found a walk in doctor and he said it all looked good and to come back in 7 days to have some more stitches in…..If I want. Anyway I will see what happens in the next week, I hope I don’t need to use the penicillin meds he prescribed for me.

Once we had finished at the the doctor and a reading of a very informative “drink responsibly” book we went to have lunch in a pub. Today we had the last English thing, it was a English breakfast, always good. So far we have had pies, bangers and mash, English breakfast and fish and chips. I think that is all the main ones covered.

After breakfast / lunch we went on a walk to Buckingham palace, it hadn’t changed much since I was last year. We continued into Hyde park where we walked around the man made lake thing that we both decided would not be good to swim in.

So we decided that it would be a good idea to walk from our hotel near Victoria Station to London Tower, it is quite the distance but is a nice walk.

We started and were actually to early to go into TATE museum near us so we continued on past London eye and to TATE modern, it is a big building that was used in the movie “children of men” (gold movie). We went in and saw all the art and what not, nice stuff, but I am still struggling with the concept of “art”, what makes one squiggle on a page mean more than another? anyway that’s how art is.

The River Thames, London Eye and Westminster Abby

We then stopped for a beer at young’s brewery outlet, had a dark stout which tasted really smooth…….for 10 in the morning. One thing if forgot to mention is that the weather has been out of control. there is not comparison to when I was here in November. We have been getting around in a shirt and shorts the whole time, it has been great and I really hope that it keeps up this way.

Ryan and Westminster Abby……meh

After the beer we continued walking up the river and past London bridge, we continued over tower bridge to London Tower……which is more of a castle but I can understand how it would have looked like a tower back in the day. This is something that we decided we wanted to see so we got tickets and went for a tour. One thing I did not know is that the crown jewels are held at London tower, needless to say they are shiny and are worth some where in the vicinity of 250,000 pounds.

Tower Bridge

We walked the walls and got to see a lot of the city, but caught the tube back to Victoria station as the walk had made us a little sleepy and we wanted a sleep before we went out on the town.

The White Tower in the Tower of London

The Tower of London and some dodge guy

When we got back there was a whole new group of people in our room. We are staying in a hostel with 6 beds in the room and people only seem to stay a night or so, nothing more. This group were from Texas and were traveling for a few weeks before continuing studies in Paris.

We went out on the town and had a jolly time. Also Ryan’s cousin Kate joined us. Myself and Kate enjoyed Ryan’s drunken antics and where amused for many hours. nothing suss