So the countdown to my return is even shorter now, you will all be blessed/cursed with my presence very soon. To answer your question ahead of time my mom will be picking my up from the airport (Hey mom, can you pick me up from the airport). I will be ariving in S'toon at 17:45, by that point I will have been up for about 24 hours so I will just be going home to bed (in a pink room I gather), but if you are wanting to see me at the airport everyone is more than welcome to see me there, I just won't be up for huge visit and party party.

As some of you know I am not coming home to a job so I will have all the time in the world to tell you my adventures abroad, and yes mom I will be looking for a job as well ;)

Tonight I went to go see my broadway show, still not going to tell you what it was till I get home and see you in person, but I will tell you that it was great. It was not HUGE like the Lion King or Les Mis, but still big in its own right and fun.

I have been spending that past few days walking around shops and markets playin with toys and whatnot. Trying to find all the odd requests that people have been giving me, I should guess coming from my friends that it woulnt' be as simple as "all I got was this shirt" type of requests, but I have been having a blast going around London anyway, got lost today too even, that was... well... never thought that I would see a fruit stand outside of a sex peep shop (there is more to the story, but you will have to wait).

I don't think I am going to post again unless something needs to be told, so I will see you all very soon and miss you all.

Love Don

Don't have alot to report really, have been takin in London slowely. Went yesterday to see the guards change at Buckingham Palace. They do their big song and dance at 11:00a.m, so I showed up at about 10:45 and the place was packed. I waited in the crowd for 30min only to see the marching back walk by for 30sec. I am going to give it another go to get a better seat now that I know which way they go (my luck they will change it up).

I am heading out into the county with Emily to visit one of her friends this weekend so we will see if it is any different than our flat yellow prairies.

I have been looking at all the broadway shows out here and think that I am going to have to take one in. The only problem is that there is so many, looks like everything that was ever made is playing here at the same time. I know all of you will have a recomendation, and I think that I have made up my mind as to which show I am going to see, but I am not going to tell you till after I see it, I may even wait till I get home, or just not tell you at all =)

One place if you have the time when out here is to check out Picadilly Circus, that place is a mad house. There are tons of little shops, food, theatres, and cinema's. It has loads to look at, I have been there twice, once at night when all the people are out for shows and clubs, and during the day with the rest of the lost tourists.

WOW, just looked at my watch and I have been gone for 22 days (officially my longest trip away ever) and will be coming home in 8. Doesn't seem like I have been gone for that long, guess time flies when you are havin fun.

Talk to you all soon

So I have been traveling pretty much non-stop since I got here so I am taking a couple day's just to hang around Emily's to give my legs a rest. I knew that there would be alot of walking, but I never would have expected the ammount that I have done already. To give a rough estimate, you all know where I live, I walk on average to the river and back. Now that I am back in London I am doing alot less walking because they actually have a functioning transit system here, unlike Saskatoon I am finding.

I have had some time to think about my trip to Budapest, I had fun while out there, spent an entire day at the mineral baths, got a massage, took a day off really and lounged in the pools. The one that we went to was the largest in Budapest, and we spent half the day there and didn't see everything. Don't really want to get into great detail about it, but if you like art and architechture then you will love Budapest. There are more museums there then we had time to go see, and the buildings there are fantastic. Every one of them has added design to it, statues coming out the side and stone murals set in them, they look fantastic. There was alot of parks there as well, we went a bit early in the season so things were just starting to bud, but later in the season or mid summer it would be geourgeous.

I have finished my first book out here, I brought Neil Gaiman's new book to read then forgot it in London for my Scotland trip so I bought one in the airport. Yes I know I cracked and bought the Davinci Code. Was a fun read, but having read "the holy blood and the holy grail" I like that one better but was a harder read. Having traveled in the underground here a bit I recognized some of the names of the stations from "Neverwhere" (another Neil Gaiman book), so I picked that one up and am going to read it again, think it will be fun traveling the city seeing the stations in the book.

Tomorow I head out and start traveling London and seeing the sites here, so will have some more updates in a few as they come to me.

Miss you all and hope things are going as well for you as they are for me...

Well I just got back from Hungary, and have a bit of time to play with some of the photos that I have taken. There are a bunch that I took in Budapest but they arn't as good as the ones from Scotland that I have been promising. There is more picture that go with each one but I just want you to get some of the best that I have so far.

Many, if not all of you, have seen Braveheart, well this is a picture of the Wallace Monument.



Mom, I assure you that there was no drinking of whiskey in the middle of the afternoon ontop of castle ruins, honest...


er, maybe a little.

Did a bit of hiking in the highlands, cant really tell by the picture, but it was pouring that day, but I went up anyway, and when you see the rest of the photo's, you will see how worth it it was.

So when in Scotland, the home of golf, you must hit at least one ball. So while on the Isle of Skye at the northern most tip in the original home of the Clan MacDonald with winds around 40 km/h (yes that is not a typo, it was that freakin windy) and rain blowing sideways, I had our guide do a little caddying for me. Needless to say didn't work out all that well... but made one hell of a photo.

(yes that is a little kids plastic golf set)

Here is a photo of everyone on the tour, won't bother putting down the names, but when I get home I will let you know where everyone is from.


Well that is somewhat the highlight of my trip so far, there are lots of other great photos but will not bore you with them here (gonna have to wait 3 weeks for that MUAH HA HA HA). I am off to bed now, will post in a couple of days.

P.S. to the american boys, hope these photos of me don't tarnish your perfect image of me that you had =)

Well it is sunday evening here, rainy, windy, the normal London weather I am finding. All of Emily's flatmates are from South Africa and they seem to be having a hard time understanding why I don't find 5 degrees not cold?

Last night we went out to a club, it was a special 70's 80's retro night. It was a super fun, there were some awsome outfits there.

Has been a lazy sunday which is good after all the running I have been doing the first week and a bit out here.

Talk to you all in a few day's.

I am not sure how many of you are reading this blog, but you are more than welcome to post replies on it. If there is anything that any of you want while I am out here (within reasonable size, I only have one pack) just shoot me an email or reply here.

Today I went to see the castle in edinburgh. I can't feel my legs and am not even sure that I have feet left, I think I am just on stubs at this point, which would explain why I keep triping. There was alot of stuff to take in, didn't take as many pictures in there cause anything worth taking a picture of they wouldn't let you, like the crown jewels.

I really think that I am getting spoiled on this trip so far, I met a fantastic bunch of people from all around the world on my tour of Scotland. I was the second oldest on the tour (I feel old), but everyone was early to mid 20's and there was alot of partying. There were people from France, Italy, South Africa, Australia and me from Canada. I was the lone Canadian on the trip. Tonight I am going over to the Italians for dinner, they are all studying at the university here.

Tomorow I head back to London and Emily's. Speaking of being spoiled she has been guiding me through the underground all this time from the moment I got off the plane to the last stop before the airport to Scotland. But my luck has run out, tomorow when I arive back in London I am on my own to her flat. The only thing that gives me confidence in being able to do it is while Emily was taking me around London that first day, I saw lots of lost backpackers staring at a map, so really when I get back to London I will just blend right into the crowd.

Well the next post will have some pictures finnaly for you, not sure which ones to put up, so will find two or three that really give you the feel and heart of Scotland.

Well I have just finnished my tour of Scotland and cannot say enough good things about it, I had a blast. I am here in Edinburgh for the next two days, then back to London. I will have a few photos to put up when i get back to Emily's.

The computer here at the hostel is free, but it is a old, well used, iMac so you all can guess how I feel about it.

I wasn't sure if I was going to be taking that many pictures, but the tour guide was SO good and funny that I really started to get into it, and the places that we went to were better than I ever could have imagined. Needless to say I am at about 380 pictures so far, so if you want to be bored with the highlands of scotland I will be doing slideshows when I get home, I have all of them marked on a map with the the stories writen out, so for you history buffs I am sure you will like it.
But I am off, will post again tomorow night.

So I think that I have discovered what is THE number one hazard to north american travelers in Europe is... The roads... now you all are thinking "but we know they drive on the other side of the road", and you are correct there, BUT there are certain habits that we have from childhood that can get you killed out here. Let me tell you what that habit is, it is checking the road for oncoming cars when you are ready to bolt out and j-walk. Why is that a bad habit that is going to get you killed out here, cause when we are getting ready to go, we first look left to check the first lane of traffic coming to us, even step out a little, so while you step out and look left, and don't see the cars coming, it is cause it is coming from the right to take you out from behind. I don't know how many times I have done that so far, but I am now only using crosswalk's and waiting for the little green dude to tell me its ok (my mom will be so proud). There is one saving grace out here for us stupid travelers, at all of the crosswalks in London, painted on the ground it says "Look Left" or "Look Right", so while I am in london I am staring at the ground for it to tell me where to go.

So I am writing this in the hostel in Scotland, if I look out the window I can see the castle. The hostel is right on high street so I don't have that far to go to see everything. Tomorow morning I leave on my tour of Scotland so will not be able to write in here, but I am sure I will have something to post when I get back.

Hope the weather is nice for you all at home, it has been your standard UK weather out here, damp, cloudy, misty... But still about 5-10 degrees.

Well I am here. The flight was good, the layover in Toronto sucked, and custom's only wanted to play 20 questions for about 5 min. They were really nice about it all but after beeing awake for 20 hours and flying for half of that, I was a little out of it so it got old fast.

Emily met me at the airport, and we did some quick bootin around the city. It feel's like I have been up for about a week now, and to avoid bad jet lag I am just staying up to get into the hours over here (note: this is Emily's idea not to let me sleep, I think it is really just some evil science experament on me).

Have some boring pictures of big ben and the Millenium wheel I will put up later.

I leave on my trip to Scotland tomorow morning so I don't know if I will be able to post there, so you may not hear from me for a bit, but I will have lots of pics for you to see.

Lataz all.