It's getting closer and closer...

Today I hung out with my two previously mentioned, also London-bound friends, Vera and Charissa. Besides baking cupcakes and topping them with a frosting that didn't quite look like the picture did, we also went into town to see if we could find something for our host families/people from our work experience placements.

First, we went to this little shop that I actually had never been to before: I probably still wouldn't have been to it, if I hadn't accidentally walked passed it and looked inside last Friday.
It's, I believe, a shop/archive/centre with all kinds of history of our town, but they also sold some typical Dutch souvenirs (you know, with the blue/white print on them).
For instance, they had keychains and magnets looking like the wooden shoes on the side.

I ended up buying two tiny blue/white-like-the-wooden-shoes-on-the-side trays shaped like a teapot on which you can leave your used teabags, so you can use them again. I bought one for Tom and Amanda and one for Madeleine, I suppose.
Furthermore, I bought a square oven glove with an old mill on it (again in the blue/white print). Besides that, I also bought two postcards, but those are for Postcrossing (:
When we wanted to leave, the people working there also gave us two other postcards so we could show the people there what our town looks like. Unfortunately, these postcards are a little outdated and lots of the buildings that are on there are now gone/replaced or changed.
The people in the shop/archive/whateveritwas were really nice! Lovely people (:

Then we went to the bank so I could put all my piggybank-savings-for-London on my account and after some more useless walking around, we went home again.
That's when we booked our tickets to the London Eye! (we had to use a credit card, again! seriously! what's it with international financial traffic that makes it impossible to use something like iDEAL instead of a credit card?)

What I didn't mention yet, is that the plans regarding coming to London have, again, changed: my dad and I decided that it was to much of a hassle and it would be way too rushed if we travelled to London together by means of a ROADTRIP. Therefore, we decided that on Saturday May 12, he'll fly back to Amsterdam and I'll take the train from Edinburgh Waverley to London King's Cross.
So that's what we're doing!
The funny thing is, because some planes are a bit retarded and don't fly straight to Amsterdam from Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon, my dad is taking a flight which includes a transfer in... I bet you got it right: London!
His plane from London to Amsterdam takes off at about the same time my train arrives in London :P

Besides booking plane and train tickets this weekend, we also made a reservation at Calsay House, a B&B, in Stirling (yes, I decided that it would just suck for my dad to be alone while I'd be having fun in a student dorm, and I would probably feel very guilty, so I decided we should just find a place in a B&B) and we made a reservation for a rental car.

We also tried to get a room in a B&B in Dundee, but so far, we haven't been very successful, yet... It's getting a bit on my nerves, as we're leaving in 8 days!

I suppose it'll all get sorted in time and until then:

I'll keep you posted,

20 days!

Yes, you read it right: only 20 more days until take-off! So far time has been flying by and on the 10th of May I'll be doing the same!

I thought it was about time to give you another update on the process so far, so here it is!

Tonight my dad had a Skype-conversation with Amanda (Tom is currently in Toronto so he wasn't available) to talk things through about when we would be arriving in London, and so on, and so on. I don't exactly know what else they discussed.
At some point they had me come into the room as well to join the conversation because Amanda wanted to know what I usually eat for breakfast.
She actually turned out nicer than I had anticipated (in the emails she was a bit... short of words is perhaps the way to put it). So that's good!
Amanda and Tom would like us to bring a 'good-sized chunk' (I think that's how she said it :P) of Old Amsterdam (which is a cheese). Apparently it is possible to carry cheese with you for two-three days without refrigerating it. This remains a riddle to me, but if my dad says it's possible I'll just believe him (a girl's got to be able to believe her dad, right?).
But, considering I'm from the cheese-country ánd they want us to bring cheese with us, I bought this goodie for them that I found the other day. Matches the Dutch cheese, don't you think?

Think they'll appreciate it?
Well, either way, I do think it's fun to give and it looks nice (and Dutch :P).

So after the talk with Amanda our plans regarding our ROADTRIP have changed a little bit. This is what our three days will probably be like:
- Thursday 10 May: arrive at Edingburgh airport, rent a car, drive to Dundee, visit uni, take a stroll through the city, drive to Stirling to sleep at an accommodation at the campus of the uni!
- Friday 11 May: wake up lazily and take a stroll through the city, back to the uni for the tour/visit, grab things and start driving in our rental and off to London! on our way to London, we'll probably spend the night in York (my dad says it's a great and very picturesque city, and as I mentioned before, I'll just believe him if he says so).
- Saturday 12 May: continue our ROADTRIP to London, drop off the car, do something, get to Tom and Amanda, chill and relax and then in the evening my dad'll have to go back into the city to catch a plane.

So. That'll be three crazy fun days.
Our initial plan was to start driving towards London on Satuday and arrive on Sunday, but Tom won't be there that weekend and Amanda is busy that Sunday so they'd rather have us come on Saturday. Which is fine too. Means I'll have an extra day in London! Maybe I'll meet Vera so we can buy a birthday-present for Charissa (:

I don't think there's much else left to say, so in that case:

I'll keep you posted,