NFL weekend London

October 22 - 26 /12
Another week of antibiotics, doctors visits, and relaxing.


Saturday October 27 / 12

Took the train to London and met up with my previous host, Christoffer, from Malmo, Sweden.
We met at the train station and headed into the centre for the NFL pre-game rally.

There were tons of people there, all sporting their favourite teams jersey. There was representations of all 32 teams.


We listened to different players and people talk on stage and just embraced the atmosphere.

We bought tickets to the show, We will Rock You, featuring Queen.

So after we had seen the rally, we went for dinner then to the show.

The show was incredible; great story, acting, music and singing. It was fantastic.

After the show we went back to the station to get our luggage and then we had to find a hotel because our original couch surfing host ditched out on us. We found one just a little ways out of town and settled there for the night.


Sunday October 28 / 12 GAME DAY!

Up early enough to head to our next planned hotel to drop off our luggage.

We got breakfast / lunch then headed to Wimbley Stadium.

We picked up our tickets and checked out the tail gate parties and rally.

 The stadium was great and the atmosphere was amazing.

As you can see, Chris and I had great seats.

The game started exciting, as the St. Louis Rams scored off the opening drive.

Unfortunately they did not score again and the New England Patriots just kicked ass.

I got to see Tom Brady in action, throwing some nice passes.

It was great to see the game. The stadium was roaring with excitement despite the blowout.




Monday October 29 / 12

Walked around a bit of London and did a bit of shopping with Christoffer.

Then took the train back to Cambridge.

Feeling healthy again, I had only 2 more days in England before heading out for the next part of my journey, starting in Turkey.

Bristol, England

Saturday October 20 /12 continued.

Made it to Bristol in good time. It was still light enough to get a couple hours of site seeing in.

The Bristol Cathedral was founded in 1140.

A Gothic style architecture that took approximately 700 years to construct.

St. Mary Redcliffe is an Anglican parish church constructed from the 12th - 15th centuries.

Also featuring the Gothic style architecture.

We walked through some beautiful parks and different city squares, including the Millennium Square that featured this silver globe thing and some fountains.



We got some dinner then after going back to the hotel briefly, we set out to the pubs and clubs where I continued to enjoy my fruit juices (slight sarcasm).

Ross and I went to one very big and happening night club. We checked our coats and Ross convinced me to give him my ID instead of leaving in my coat. So we did that and went on exploring the club.
It had several different levels and dance floors. Ross and I enjoyed watching the many many drunk people and enjoyed dancing to all sorts of music.
It was a good night but just as we were leaving the club, Ross realised that he lost my ID. We searched the club for it but had no luck. Luckily on Monday Ross called and had my drivers licence ID sent to us in Cambridge.

Sunday October 21 / 12

One last sight before hitting the road.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge.

The idea originated in 1753 originally for a stone bridge with later plans for a cast iron structure. An attempt to build in 1831 was stopped by the Bristol Riots, and a revised version was completed in 1864.

The bridge is 245ft above water level with an overall width of 31ft and span of 702ft.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge was well known as a suicide bridge and  between 1974 and 1993.

127 people fell to their deaths.

In 1998 barriers were installed on the bridge to prevent people jumping.

A short drive down from the bridge was a great viewing point of the cliffs, river and bridges.





Then we were off to the famous Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is marked as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The sites was said to be built from 2600 to 1700 BC.

The audio guide tour was interesting as it spoke about how the people back in that day could lift and move these stones.

 It was interesting that the stones and formation are so old, but in the end.. it was just a bunch of stones.

So we listened and learned and walked around the stones in about 30 minutes then jumped back in the car and headed to Cambridge.

Bath, England

October 15 - 18 / 12
Spent the week at various doctors appointments. Back on antibiotics, I did a lot of sleeping and relaxing at Ross's house.


Friday October 19 /12

Off to Bath with Ross, arriving in the late evening. We checked into our hotel and set off for some dinner. We found a nice restaurant with Spanish tapas, which were delicious. We hit up a couple pubs, Ross had a couple beers and enjoyed some different fruit juices.

Saturday October 20 /12

Up early to see the beautiful city of Bath.

This is the Bath Abby. An Anglican parish church founded in the 7th century.  Rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries and major restoration work was carried out in the 1860s giving it its Gothic architectural look you see in this picture.

Next to the Bath Abby is the famous Roman Baths museum.

Ross and I did an audio guided tour through museum.

The temple was constructed in 60-70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years. The baths were modified in the 12, 16 & 18th centuries.

The museum houses artifacts from the Roman period including objects which were thrown into the Sacred Spring, presumably as offerings to the goddess.

It was an interesting tour.

After, we walked around the city.

An area called the circus, was highly rated on trip advisor's top things to do in Bath.
So we checked it out, but it was not so exciting. Just a circle of buildings.

An example of Georgian architecture from 1754 - 1768.

Not really knowing what else to do, we checked out the Herschel Museum of Astronomy.

A small museum in Herschel's former home.

The museum opened in 1981 and is dedicated to Herschel and his major contributions to astronomy.








William Herschel manufactured telescopes and made his most famous discovery, the planet Uranus in 1781, using a telescope of his own design.




Next stop, Bristol, England.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Thursday October 11 /12

A sunny beautiful day that we decided was best spent on the beach.

First we had some brunch in a restaurant with a great view of the harbour.

This beach was a sandy / small pebble beach, filled with quite a few people.

We basked in the sun, had a couple drinks, and swam in the refreshing ocean.


Later after dinner we stumbled upon an outdoor live jazz music bar.
One man played the saxophone and banjo and the other man played the guitar and sang. It was great.

Next to this bar was a building that we could hear was also playing live music. We checked it out and it turned out to be a private party for a biology/ pathology conference. Ross scored some free wine and we wanted to stay, but we were not dressed to fit the occasion.
We finished the night off in an Irish pub

Friday October 12 /12

Time for site seeing.

After breakfast we walked around the old town's city walls.

2km of wall encircle the old town.

It was a nice walk around the town's perimeter.

View of the town from the top of the walls.

View of the sea and the 11th century fortress.

We took a cable car, 405 meters up Mount Srd for even better views of Dubrovnik as a whole.

You can see the old town, surrounded by the walls and Lokrum island (which we will visit tomorrow).

This is the old town's main road by night.

There were a number of important football, and by football I mean soccer, games on.

Ross wanted to see the Scotland Wales game, but they were only showing Germany Ireland and England San Marino. They were interesting games and the pubs were packed.

After the games we found the skybar where the music was pumping and the people were dancing. Ross and I joined in and had a fun night.







Saturday October 13 /12

The day began with heat and sunshine.

We had a bit of a late start in the day but took the ferry to Lokrum island in the afternoon.

A gorgeous island found in 1023.

The island is a nature reserve and a special forest vegetation reserve.

It is forbidden to stay on the island overnight.

Home to several peacocks and beautiful rocky beaches.


Ross and I enjoyed the sun and the sea.

We explored the island and did a bit of rock climbing.

This is Ross swimming in a small lake called Mrtvo More aka the Dead Sea.

Crystal clear water flowing in from a small cave.

The last ferry back to Dubrovnik left at 1700.

Ross and I walked around the town snapping some pictures of some of the old architectural buildings, statue's and fountains.

We walk to the other side of the old town to get a picture of the entrance gate.

You can see the sky - our beautiful day turning black.

Ross and I decided we should get back to the hostel before the down pour.

As we were walking back.. people were becoming a bit frantic, all walking in the opposite direction Ross and I were walking. All of a sudden the wind picked up and umbrellas started to fall over. The wind was so strong one of the umbrellas went air borne and flew over Ross and I, up and away.
There was one more huge gust of wind, which made tables blow over and we heard glass breaking. Ross and I reached the scene and the wind had died.

2 tourists were injured. One middle aged women had a huge gash in her head from the broken glass - I tended to her. The other tourist was young female with a smaller cut to the head and a chipped tooth. She was in shock and Ross was tending to her. Having a bit of language barrier with the tourist, I managed to get across that I was a nurse and it was really important that we keep pressure on the head wound. I stood there for about 20-30 minutes, holding paper at a constant pressure to the wound, until the ambulance finally came.

It was a bit intense, and surreal as Ross and I were walking toward the disaster but were completely unaffected by it.

We rested in the hostel a bit before heading back out for dinner. After dinner, we set out in the down pouring rain to try and find this bar that we read about. We were unsuccessful and completely soaking wet. We wanted to stop some where for dessert  and the only place we found open along the way, happened to be a fancy hotel restaurant. We were dripping wet when we entered and got a bit of a look from the server but he seated us and we enjoyed some drink and delicious dessert.

Sunday October 14 /12

Despite having a great time in Croatia and Bosnia, I had 2-3 more abscesses form. So I decided to go back to England with Ross to seek proper medical attention.

Our flight left later in the afternoon so we went to the beach to enjoy the beautiful sea views one last time.

We played some cards then caught a taxi to the airport.

After an uneventful flight, we arrived in London around 7pm. Took the train to Cambridge and got settled at Ross's place.

Split, Croatia

Grgur Ninski - Bishop in 10th century.
Now a huge statue that is symbolic for the city.

Tuesday, October 9 /12

Arrived in Split at 9am and found our hostel.

We went for breakfast - not pizza this time.

Ross ordered eggs and sausage, which we learned that sausage = hot dog, which is so disappointing when you are looking forward to having a nice juicy breakfast sausage.

After passing by the huge wizard looking statue, our first site to see was the cathedral and bell tower.

We walked up several stairs to the top of the bell tower for fantastic views of Split.

There was an underground bazaar with some touristy shops and a museum.
We decided to check out the museum and it turned out to be several rooms that all looked the exact same with nothing but some plain rocks in them. It was so ridiculous that someone could actually charge tourists to see this
'museum' that Ross and I just laughed hysterically pretending that it was the most interesting thing we had ever seen.

There was a chapel on our map that we thought we would check out. But we had troubles finding it. We did a bit of rock climbing, thinking that maybe we could get in the back way.. but turned out to be a dead end.

We continued to walk around trying to find it. When we finally stumbled upon it, it was closed.

There was an open gate to the chapel around the side, that said no trespassing. We just walked in a little ways to get a picture of the chapel to say we saw it.

We went for a nice dinner and to a few pubs after, but the place was pretty dead. We walked around the old part a bit and got some photos.









Wednesday, October 10 /12

We woke up to a beautiful sun shining day. We ate breakfast in the Diocletian's Palace square.

As you can see, it was very yummy.

We bought our bus tickets for our next destination, packed up our bags and headed to Dubrovnik around 3pm.

We arrived around 8pm and got settled in our hostel, which was in the middle of the old town. We had dinner and some beers.

Hvar, Croatia

Saturday, October 6 /12

Hostel Orange terrace

We arrived in Hvar around 430pm and made our way to the hostel, called Hostel Orange.

We had dinner by the ocean and went walking along the coast line.

Ross was eager to see what the water was like so he ran down the rocks to the sea and he slipped. Nevertheless, he and I danced the night away in a club.. wet foot and all.



Sunday October 7 /12

Went to the town square for breakfast - pizza, a perfectly healthy breakfast, right?

This is the Cathedral of St. Stephen.

Built between the 16th-17th centuries.

We walked around a bit, then it was off to the beach.. which is rock based, not sand.

We laid on a stack of recliner chairs and basked in the sun.

Ross did some snorkeling and we played some cards.

We went for dinner at a place with a rooftop terrace. The food was good and the place had a nice atmosphere because there was a huge celebration going on, we think they were Norwegians, having a good time.

We walked around a bit and had some dessert at a place with live music. We went to some pubs but didn't stay out too late.

Monday October 8 /12

Pizza breakfast again! I swear that's all they had in this town for breakfast.

Then we climbed the Hvar Fortress.



Originally built in the 16th century and reconstructed several times due to various destructions.

It had a fantastic view from the top of Hvar town.

We had some ice cream and went to the beach again for the afternoon.

It was more windy than yesterday so we only stayed an hour or 2 then went back to the hostel and played cards on the terrace.

 It had a great view for the sun set.

We enjoyed dinner at the harbour and then had an early night.




I listened to the Saskatchewan Rough Rider game that played at 10pm our time. They beat Toronto and it was a good game to listen to. We packed up our bags because we left via the ferry at 745am the next morning back to Split.