We arrived in London this morning, survived highly suspicious immigration officials and rode the tube to our hostel in a little borough without issue. We dropped our backpacks off for the day and discovered that navigating the subway and enjoying our neighborhood in Brent is worlds more enjoyable without 40lbs on our backs. We also developed a routine that I'm sure we'll repeat at every new hostel we visit henceforth: the bed bug check. Minutes after checking in to our first room at our very highly rated, very welcoming, clean hostel, Nathan, my knight in shining green packpacking gear, slowly peeled our white sheets back and scanned the wooden frames for telltale signs. Not only did he find a large clearly bedbug shaped half alive insect on the ledge right next to his pillow, but a small larvae in the seam of his blanket. We were quickly switched to a different room (where we will not be using our sheets), but hey, now we know exactly what these buggers (!) look like and have dodged one potential speedbump in our voyage. We had a lovely fish and chips/small grocery store dinner and are off on our first London evening.
More interesting things to come, we promise,
Sarah
PS: Here's our itinerary!
June 9-10 Sightseeing in London and staying at a Hostel in Brent, a little outside the city.
June 10th-11th Spending the weekend in Birmingham before heading to the Lake District!
June 12-15th Spending four days playing outside in Ambleside in the Lake District.
June 6-7th Spending the weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland before heading to our first farm in Wales!
June 20-25th. Working at Old Chapel Farm http://oldchapelfarm.org/
June 28th and 29th Heading back to London to see Mumford and Sons play a concert in Hyde park!
June 30th-July 2nd Sightsee in Amsterdam for three days.
July 3rd-5th Taking a train to Luxembourg where we'll meet up with my uncle and aunt who are living there with their three sons. They are bringing us to a a 4th of july celebration at the US embassy on Monday!
5-6th Staying in Pisa before our second farm in Tuscany!
July 5-17th Working on "Penelope's Farm" in Tuscany, Italy.
July 18th and 18th Camping in Florence!
July 20-21st Camping in Rome!
July 22-23 Naples and Pompeii!
July 22-30th Here our plans are open, we hope to find a second Italian farm to work at, visit Cinque Terre along the coast and hopefully take a ferry to Greece for a weekend.
August 1-4th Staying in Gimmelwald, Switzerland for a few days.
August 4th-14th Open plans again, hopefully finding another farm with openings and seeing some of Germany before we fly out.
August 16th Flying home! Sarah has two days at home after this before starting school in Arizona on the 22nd, Nathan soon to follow.
Hope Nathan is equally as good at spotting the bad E. Coli !
ReplyDeleteDad
Jolly good news ! Aunt Wendy and I spent a long weekend hiking and touring the Lake Country and it was magnificent - try to visit the home of the author of "Peter Rabbit". Looking forward to following your adventures through Europe. Have fun and be safe.
ReplyDeleteDad & Sandy
Hey Sarah & Nathan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for including up in your blogs. We look forward to keeping up with you on your travels.I'm sure Uncle Rick will give you a ride in his WWll Jeep.
G'Pa Bob & G'Ma Grace