Home from a DAMN Good Vacation

Hi, remember me?  You know, that Charles guy who used to post about comics, movies, TV shows and whatnot before dropping off the face of the Earth three weeks ago?

Well, my wife Lori and I are finally home from an exhausting but incredible tour of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  Visiting Ireland has been top on my bucket list of things to do before I die since I was sixteen years old and after saving up our tax refunds for the past three years, Lori and I finally decided to do the trip properly.

We bookended our vacation in London, with stops in Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh and numerous other smaller cities and villages in between.  Most of our vacation was spent in an intense two-week Globus bus tour with getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning and getting to bed around 11 p.m. or later, essentially rounding the entire area of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

We hit as many famous landmarks and locations as we could, including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, The London Eye, Hyde Park, The Ring of Kerry, Blarney Castle, Edinburgh Castle, the Globe Theatre, the home of William Shakespeare, and even the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street (even though 221B doesn't technically exist).

And yes, there were many pubs to be found with much beer to be consumed with fish and chips (No mushy peas, thanks).  This one, the Conan Doyle in Edinburgh, Scotland, was obviously my favorite.

Oh, and as you might expect, I was always on the lookout for Doctor Who filming landmarks.  Here's the view from Westminster Bridge in London, where I kept waiting for the Daleks to start ambling across at any moment.

Imagine my disappointment that the London Eye wasn't activating any Autons or that the Cybermen weren't marching down the steps at St. Paul's Cathedral.  Ah, well...Maybe next time I visit.

So normal blogging here at DAMN Good Coffee...and HOT will hopefully resume tomorrow with my long-winded review of The Amazing Spider-Man that I saw earlier this afternoon.  I'm sorry for not being able to post at least a few things here and there during my trip, but time and decent wi-fi access were extremely hard to come by with our rather punishing schedule.  And hey, it was supposed to be a vacation after all, right?  If you'd like to check out some more pictures, I should have them up soon at my Facebook page here.

In the immortal words of Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, here we go again...