Tom's Regular Travel Update #1 - Page 2

Man I sure had some brilliant luck on the flight to London. First I saw "Ray", then "The Spongebob Squarepants Movie"!!!!! It was so awesome, though I think most people on the plane went to sleep before they saw what the movie was, because I'm pretty sure I was the only person laughing in wonder at the brilliant scene set on David Hasselhoff's back.

When I arrived in London, it was very very cold. The cab driver told me that it had been snowing a couple of days before I arrived. That reminds me, never catch a taxi from Heathrow. The taxi fare was actually more than my entire food, drink and entertainment budget for the 5 days in Bangkok.

Check out this photo... check it, check it (taken with camera phone by the way)

I was in London for a couple of weeks, not really doing much, just mooching around. Luckily my brother Chris lives in London so I dossed on his couch. Good couch, too. I went to see some sights; turns out there's all sorts of historical stuff in London, you just head in a random direction and you walk past the place where Jack the Ripper bought his morning paper or where Jimi Hendrix met Winston Churchill. Or whoever.

This is just one of London's varied and interesting speciality stores.
(It says 'Eels' if your eyesight is too bad to read it)

Smart Cars

One strange thing about London is that it is overrun by tiny cars. The smallest of the tiny cars is the Smart Car. They are so tiny. I swear the other day I was walking along the footpath and a Smart Car ran into the back of me foot. It drove straight up me leg and hid in my back pocket. I had to coax the poor thing out with a cornish pasty. I think it was more scared of me than the other way round. Anyway, the interesting thing is that here in England they have replaced the classic 'Punch Bug' game of getting to punch someone for free whenever you see a VW Beetle with the same thing only when you see a Smart Car instead of a beetle. Very entertaining.

Smart car with friend (Smart Car on left)

Then Davey (from Colombia) showed up for a little while.

Davey outside a random cafe

Hilariously, Davey got deathly sick soon after he arrived in London. He was shivering and sweating and all sorts of other signs of imminent death. So I did what any responsible friend would do - I went with other friends to the UK's biggest theme park, Alton Towers!!! Man it was awesome!!! !!! Dave stayed at the flat on the couch. Anyway, this is a roller coaster that goes vertically down into a hole in the ground!!!shift111

Vertical roller-coaster!!!

This next coaster strapped you in, then swivelled you so you faced the ground, then you went shooting off. Along the track, not off the coaster. There were two loading platforms, and interestingly, some people got stuck in the seats hanging facing down in the coaster on the other loading platform, and they were still stuck there every time we went on the coaster (to the other platform, of course) for the next hour.

Swivelly-upside-down coaster!!!

There was also a ghost train where you had a gun and you shot the zombies, and a teacup ride but it had stopped running by the time we found it, and a real castle and all sorts of other wonders and joys.

Alton Towers happened to be near Nottingham, and so we stayed there for the weekend. We went to the oldest pub in England, allegedly, and also to Nottingham castle, and we saw a statue of Robin Hood.

Oldest Inn in England

Robin Hood, wearing a drunk girl, as was the style at the time

Upon returning from Nottingham, I discovered that Davey was still alive, so we went to Spain.

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