Our four months on the road is drawing to an end. We will soon be packing our bags and flying home. We arrive back in Regina on May 10th. The time has gone by much more quickly than we thought it would. We have seen a lot of different people and places and have enjoyed it all.
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said “Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards”. It will take some time for us to sort through what we have experienced. But, one thing is clear – we would do it again in a heartbeat! Thanks for reading our blog and sharing this adventure with us. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain We have been enjoying the traditional sites of London but last night we were treated to something very special. The Royal Albert Hall, London’s premiere concert venue, is about a 30 minute walk from our flat. We attended a concert called ‘Night of 1000 Voices’ which was a fundraiser for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. It involved some of the biggest names from Broadway and London’s West End, a several hundred-voice mass choir, the City of London Philharmonic and the Royal Albert Hall’s impressive pipe organ.
The performers sang the biggest hits from musicals such as Les Misérables, The Lion King, Miss Saigon, Evita, etc. It was amazing to hear these great musicians in such a special venue. Royal Albert Hall was built in 1871 and has been refurbished in recent years. We had a superb view of everything from the nose bleed seats (we were as high as you could go). Today we got together with the son of one of my dad’s cousins. Tony and I had never met so it was nice to be able to connect with part of our family that never left the UK. After lunch we all went to Westminster Abbey and had a good look around. Tony is an avid amateur genealogist and while he hasn’t discovered any wealthy aristocrat ancestors in our family he hasn’t given up the search. I have posted a few pictures from the past few days that you can check out on the United Kingdom page. We left Dublin this morning by ferry and arrived in Holyhead, Wales about three and a half hours later. We then took a train through Wales. After and hour or so we transferred to another train and arrived in London just before 6:00 pm. We have a great flat in Kensington - lots of restaurants nearby as well as grocery stores. The tube station, Earl's Court, is just a short walk away so we have good access to wherever we want to go.
Its hard to believe that after four months we are now down to our final week on the road. I have posted a short video of some of the things we saw in the Republic of Ireland - check it out on the Ireland page. On our first day in the Republic of Ireland we jumped on a bus and headed south to the Wicklow Mountains National Park. This part of Ireland has been the location for a number of Hollywood
movies such as Braveheart, Excalibur and the Count of Monte Cristo and it is not hard to see why. We also spent some time at the ruins of a monastery established over a thousand years ago. We hiked through the woods and later in the day visited the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland, built in the 12th century. Today we visited Dublin’s number one tourist attraction – The Guinness Storehouse. This attraction chronicles the history of Ireland’s national drink in one of the old buildings where the brewery is still located. It was actually very interesting to see how the world’s most famous stout ale is made. In the afternoon we visited Kilmainham Gaol – one of Europe’s most notorious prisons. Built in 1796 it has housed prisoners as young as five. It played an important role in the history of Ireland as many political prisoners were kept here during the struggle for independence and a number of them were executed here as well. It was a sobering experience. Check out some of the photos posted on the Ireland page. |
AuthorIn January, 2012, Curt and Char left their jobs in Canada to spend four months travelling around the world. Archives
May 2012
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