If God gives you lemons, go make some lemonade.
From Nice, Nat and I took at 12hr hour train ride to Rome, This was actually not all that bad, the ride went quick, and wit the knowledge that we shall be able to have dinner in Rome when we arrive, we were both looking forward to our stay.
Once in Rome, we continued onto our hotel, greeted by an Indian man at reception, we were shown to our room. It was a medium sized room, wooden floor boards, broken window, stained bed sheets and no ensuit, instead we shared a 'murder room' with the other people on our floor (which might I add, wasn't even in the hotel building, but in a building around the corner from it). I say murder room as this room particularly resembles the room from Saw. If you have not seen this movie, spoilers: people die in there. Oh, and did i mention that there were also other peoples pubic hair lining the bath tub? How attractive....
After my wonderful experience in the 'hostel' in Tokyo, were Maree and I stayed for one night, and I received bed bugs from, I decided that my money was worth more than stained bed sheets and pubic hair lined murder rooms. So after dinner, I went down and complained. Talking to the Indian man for over 1hr, he finally relented and gave us another room....although not without some pleasant sexism added on his behalf when he told me to stay in the lobby while Nat was shown the room to see if he approved.
This room was 10000% better, and we were upgraded without charge!
The next day we went to the Vatican, We took a 2.5hr tour, which ended up being a 4hr tour, but it was definitely worth it. The Sistine Chapel was unbelievable, to think that Micheal Angelo was a sculptor that had never painted in his life before he pained the Chapel. It was truly a masterpiece.
From our wonderful experience, we then moved onto a not so wonderful experienced at lunch where we were charged 34Euro for 2 plates of spaghetti and 2 coffees. The coffees costing 5Euro each. I don't even know how this is possible in Italy!!!
The next few days we filled with walking the whole of Rome and catching yet another train to Florence. It was so wonderful reuniting with my parents again. I had such an amazing time going around Florence, seeing the sights (the many, many museums) and just being with my parents again. It is something that I shall never forget.
From climbing hills, seeing sights....not climbing the bell tower (sorry mum), and eating lots and lots of the BEST PIZZA I'VE EVER EATEN, we moved onto London. Unfortunately getting up at 5am for the plane trip out was totally unnecessary, as we ended up waiting for a non existent taxi to never arrive and had to call the owner of the hotel to drive us to the airport 1hr later. (Note, this man got up especially to do this for us, and didn't take our money to say thank you, he was truly a lovely man!!!) Once in London we hired a car and drove a good 1.5hrs, on very little sleep, to Portsmouth, where we ended up turning straight back around because the traffic was so bad and there were no parking places left, ANYWHERE!! Running on what was now, even less energy, we travelled back into London centre to see Sweeney Todd. Unfortunately our train detoured and what was normally only a 30mins trip took 1.5hrs. This only started our very bad luck of travelling.
Today we left Nat to go back to work, and mum, dad and myself got into the car to drive to Oxford (normally a 1hr trip)....with unbelievable traffic (totally grid locked) on the M25, we detoured, adding another 2hrs onto the trip. finally making it to Oxford (after dropping dad off for a meeting) mum and I visited Hogwarts...well, at least where some of it was filmed. It was SO cool!! piecing together all the scenes in different areas of Christchurch University (Hogwarts). Mum and I also visited a really cute shop called the Alice shop. Neither of us realised that Louis Carolle was from Oxford, and so there is a rather large amount of Alice in Wonderland memorabilia, which I cannot complain about, in fact I loved it. :D
considering we didn't do much in Oxford, time seemed to fly by, as 4hrs later we met dad and stated our trek to Coventry. My dad was born here, and I was lucky enough to be driven past my dad's old house. It's so strange and intriguing when your parents relay their memories of places.
again, what was suppose to be a 1 hr trip turned into a 3hr trip (this time because we go totally lost) we finally arrived at our hotel, and let me tell you, I have never been more grateful to be able to walk. after feeling car sick for 3/4 of the 6hrs of unnecessary driving, I was very happy to be walking around on land once again.
Tomorrow mum and I shall go into Coventry town and explore whilst dad goes to Birmingham for more meetings. I cannot get over how lucky I am to be able to spend this time with my parents, and as i sit here writing this, with both of them asleep behind me, I can't help but smile with happiness.
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