85. Stonehenge!

Day five in England, new year’s eve, what do we do? Visit STONEHENGE!
I was thrilled. I mean really, really, thrilled to finally be going.

We’ve had a fair amount of sunlight since we got here, and we haven’t seen a drop of rain yet, but today when we woke up, everything was covered with a layer of frost! I know, it probably doesn’t sound too exciting, but I’ve only ever seen snow once, and that was more like driving three hours to the top of a mountain to see melting ice on a fairly sunny Melbourne day.

This spider web was completely frozen. I thought it was awesome.

My uncle drove us for about 4 hours till we reached Stonehenge, and we had a good look, walking around and taking pictures. It wasn’t nearly as big as I thought it would be, but I was still impressed. We stopped by woodhenge as well, which was no where near as impressive, but interesting all the same. We drove another 4 hours back to Birmingham, which I would’ve found annoying, if England weren’t so darn pretty. I was staring out of the window completely enthralled the whole way.

It was a fairly quiet new year’s celebration. My family, my mum’s brother’s family and my mum’s sister’s family watched the fireworks on TV together and wished each other a happy new year when the clock struck 12. Hugs all round. It was really nice.

84. Family Reunion. Ish.

Day four in england: My aunt and two little cousins living in Ireland flew over to my Uncle’s house in Birmingham where I’m staying to meet us. Wow. I haven’t seen these kids since we moved to Australia.

The older of the pair, ‘S’, is 9 years old. I remember back when she was 3 or 4, when we all still lived in Sri Lanka, she was more like a little sister than a cousin to me. Then again, when we all lived in the same country, all my cousins seemed like siblings to me. We’re all spread out across the world now, and even on those rare occasions we meet, we hardly know what to say to each other.

Anyway, I said a couple of words to ‘S’, but she was very quiet so I couldn’t say a whole lot. It was great to see her again all the same.

It was also really great to see her younger brother ‘D’, aged 7. The last time I saw him, he was throwing his pacifier out of the crib he was lying in and I spent that afternoon picking it up and returning it to him every time he threw it. I vaguely remember it as the day he said his first word, but I’m not sure how accurate that is.

We barely spoke at all. In fact, he didn’t seem to want to make eye-contact with me or my brother. I’m sure he had no memory of us whatsoever. Still, it was great to finally put a face to the name.

Having four younger cousins around made me feel ‘old’ for the first time. I’m far too used to being the little one in the family.

Oh, and assuming that my mum’s four siblings aren’t planning on having more kids, I’ve now officially met all seven cousins from mum’s side of the family. I’m pretty stoked.

83. London, baby!

Day three in England, and my Uncle drove us to England!
We went there using the London underground. It’s every bit as stuffed and over-crowded as I’d hoped it would be. We spent a good deal of time on the trains going from one tourist spot to the next, but I got excited every time we stepped on board.

Buckingham Palace, St James’s Park, The London Eye, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, London Tower, Tower Bridge…

I’m just going to post a few of my photos to save myself the trouble of typing out a description.

Vacation makes one lazy.

82. Stratford-Upon Avon

For day 2 in England, my uncle drove us to Stratford-Upon Avon to have a look at Shakespeare’s Birthplace.

I loved being there. Just knowing that I was standing in a spot with so much history to it was, well, whoa. Interesting that a place like that could be home to a genius. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed photos inside but the garden was really pretty.

We also had a look at Shakespeare’s final resting place. It’s convenient that he was born and buried in the same area. Makes for much less walking.

It was interesting to think that the man who wrote some of history’s greatest plays could be buried not two feet away.

Of course, I took pictures like mad today as well.

81. Warwick Castle.

My mum’s crazy about castles so, for our first proper day in England, my uncle drove us to Warwick Castle. Seeing as how it was my first real day in the country, I threw on a jacket and thought it’d be enough to keep me warm.
It wasn’t.
At least now I’ve learnt.

Warwick castle was pretty amazing. I’ve been to one other castle before, somewhere in Australia, but that was nowhere near as big as this.

Whoops. There’s more to the picture, but I’ve no idea how to change the image size yet. Bear with me.

We had a look at the dungeon first, then we walked through the castle and had a look at the mannequins they had set up to look like people from the ‘olden days’.

I took, literally, hundreds of pictures like this today.

We climbed spiralling stair case after spiralling stair case and made our way across the castle turrets. Once we were safely back on the ground, I had a go at archery. A couple of souvenirs, and we made our way back to Birmingham.

We capped the day with dinner at an aunt’s house. I’m not entirely sure how I’m related to her, but I call her aunt all the same.

Overall, this first day in England was great.

80. Whoa, England.

We landed in Heathrow at 4 AM. My uncle, who I haven’t seen since I was 6 years old, came to pick us up at the airport.
It was a little awkward at first. My brother and I made an attempt at conversation while mum and dad went to a booth to exchange their dollars into pounds.
Stepping outside was shocking. It was a warm summer day in Australia when we boarded the first plane, so I was just wearing a T-shirt and a thin jacket. We were all shivering.
Our uncle spent the next three ours driving us to Birmingham, where hand his family lives. I didn’t talk much in the car, I was too busy staring out of the window thinking “Wow, this is England!”. The sun was out for the most part. It was brilliant.

When we got to the house, we met my aunt who, again, I haven’t seen since I was 6 and my two little cousins. One, aged 10, who I’d only ever met once when he was a baby and another aged 4, who I’d never met at all.

The 4 year old, ‘N’, seemed reserved at first but after I started helping her in her attempts to destroy the pink princess barbie doll my mum brought for her, she took a liking to me. She’s a cute kid.

The 10 year old, ‘S’, was born visually impaired. That is to say, he can’t see a thing. He also has communication difficulties and trouble learning. I think he’s a much brighter kid than any of us expected. He spends most of his time playing songs on a keyboard my uncle and aunt bought for him, and he claps along with the music. He seems really shy, he can obviously tell there’s new people around. He doesn’t seem to know what to make of it.

My cousin ‘N’ spent a lot of the day playing games with me. She took me aside to paint horses for a while, and then she asked me to read to her. Cute, cute, kid. The English accent definitely helps.

England is awesome so far.

79. Christmas in the Sky.

We boarded a plane in Australia at 1PM Christmas Day.
We landed in Kuala Lumpur 8 hours later.
We spent 3 hours in transit, then boarded our next plane.
Another 13 hours in the air till we reached Heathrow.

It didn’t feel especially Christmas-y. Though they did serve turkey on the plane.

I watched six movies between Malaysia and England. Six.
Igor, Mama-Mia!, The Women, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2, and another I’m having trouble remembering the name of.

There was also a bejewelled tournament between me and my brother.

Woo, flying.

78. Christmas Eve.

Today’s Christmas Eve. It’s not particularly exciting. Our family’s not that big on Christmas.
I mean, we usually put up a tree and decorate but it seemed kind of pointless this year. We’re flying to England tomorrow.
I can’t wait! We’ve been looking forward to this for months.
It’ll easily be the highlight of these holidays. When you’re not doing anything worth mention for a long period of time, the days kind of seem to melt together.
1 PM tomorrow, we’ll be boarding the first plane.
Doesn’t sound like much of a Christmas, but then again, spending Christmas in the sky should count for something.

77. 10,000 Dreams Interpreted.

I occasionally have dreams in which I’m running away from something. Or someone.
I’m being chased or hunted. I can never remember what it is I’m running from, I just remember running and I don’t stop.

Every now and then, when there’s an event coming up that I’m not looking forward to, I dream about falling into a hole.
It’s black, it’s deep, and I just keep falling and falling until it scares me to the point where I wake up.

Usually, I have really boring dreams.
I’m at school, my class is sitting down and we’re just having a regular English lesson.
All my friends are in a field, and we’re just running around, laughing, playing tag.

But then I go and dream about a friend sleeping on my kitchen counter.

76. Whoosh.

I spent most of today watching The Office as well.

On a completely unrelated topic, Phoebe’s sister-in-law Alice on Friends also plays Kitty on That 70’s Show.
That 70’s Show has a character who is a red head named Donna.
Catherine Tate’s character on Doctor Who is also a red head named Donna.
The finale of Doctor Who season 3 involves the creation of the ‘Doctor-Donna’.
On the episode of Scrubs titled “My Karma”, Jordan is attended to by a redhead who introduces herself as Doctor Donna.
On the Scrubs episode titled “My White Whale”, Jack’s pediatrician is played by Law and Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni.
SVU’s Detective Munch’s first partner was Det. Cassidy, played by Dean Winters.
Winters played the character Tom in the movie PS, I Love You.
The character of Daniel Connelly in PS, I Love You was played by Harry Connick Jr.
Harry Connick Jr. played Grace’s husband Leo on Will & Grace.
Will & Grace’s character Grace Adler is played by Debra Messing.
Messing appeared as Jerry Seinfeld’s date in two episodes of Seinfeld. (‘The Wait Out’ and ‘The Yada Yada’)
On Seinfeld episode ‘The Millennium’, Jerry’s girlfriend was played by Lauren Graham.
Lauren Graham played the character of Joan Baxter in Evan Almighty.
The lead role of Evan Baxter in Evan Almighty was played by Steve Carell.
Steve Carell plays Michael Scott on The Office.

Hey, I suppose it wasn’t unrelated topic after all.

I watch too much TV.