Awentsbury Hotel Birmingham

With time rapidly dwindling I went down to Banbury way this afternoon to visit my brother et famille before I leave, taking the opportunity to say goobye to two young nephews - one of whom was able to appreciate some of the implications of what I am doing, "But what if you get sick?" he asked. :-)

Back up to Stoke in the late evening. Last day of preparations tomorrow.

... t be bothered with the shopping crowds. Having to fight your way through the likes of Primark (hell on earth in terms for shopping and I'm a shop-a-holic so it must be bad) or on the escalators in the Bull Ring just didn't appeal today. So I saved my pennies for a rainy day - that will probably be tomorrow.
Ok get some sleep - with 10 days to go I need to keep the battery charged. More to follow in the next few days .......

... 2 Meter von mir die Decke und ein leichter Sommerregen ergoß sich über die auf dem Tisch darunter stehenden Computer. Keine Ahnung, wo das ganze Wasser plötzlich herkam, aber der Hausmeister vermutete gleich einen duschenden Gast einen Stock höher. Jedenfalls mßte ich den Raum verlassen und die Rechner in der VSO eigenen Bibliothek nebenan haben leider nur einen sehr begrenzten Internetanschluß. Und das alles noch vor dem Frühstück - das verspricht ein spannendes Wochendende ...

... on the wall. The street along the old town has a lot of cafeteria and departmental stores. I went shopping for a while before going for the 615pm organ musical in the chapel. For student, it only cost 4 Euro and lasted for more than 1.5 hours. Seriously speaking, I had set the expectation too high. I thought the music with the organ will be very grand and holy but I don't find it as fantastic. The piece is Bach's music. After a while, I start to notice people leaving ...

... Earl of Leicester, transformed Kenilworth from a medieval fortress into one of the greatest Tudor palaces so he could entertain Queen Elizabeth I in style for 19 days in 1575, costing millions of pounds. The Keep was breeched during the Civil War in the 1600s. The Great Hall where they dined was huge. It was so cold ...

... and we had a great view of course over fields and little villages.













We did heaps of mud and stiles and Stephen entertained us with two face plants. We eventually found our way to the village of Weston-sub-Edge. It had a 13th ...

... ticket to London on the National Express Coach for 13 pound 50 for both of us. Got it heaps cheaper because booking 3 days in advance ($31). Went for a hot chocolate at Costa’s in a lovely Tudor building. Changed $200 Aus to 79 pounds, bought a vegetable pastie and then went through Shakespeare’s birthplace 9 pounds ($21). Lovely home from the 1500s ...

... another pretty little Cotswold village with a stream, pub and a trout farm. We had a map with directions and they were very bad directions, because we got lost from box 1 and ended up doing the walk back to front and totally wrong sections. It snowed the whole time and was wet snow so after a couple of ...

... old buildings – Lord Leicester Hospital- timber-framed buildings built in the 1500s. Okens House, near the Castle Gates and Mill Street – a gorgeous cobblestoned street of pre-fire houses that survived the great fire of 1694 destroying most of the medieval town.















Stephen and ...

... they work in the restaurant car on the train between Moscow and Irkutsk. · -25 degrees centigrade is not cold (at least according to our Siberian host) · Lake Baikal contains 20% of the world's fresh water. · Ulan Bator means "red hero" · Qingdao Ocean University is the best Ocean University in China. · However hard you bargain for things, within hours you will see the same item on sale for less than you paid. · A Chinese umbrella has a ...