(To be fair, my observations on this trip may be a bit off, as I was sick as a dog for most of the trip.)

London is a fantastic city. If I had my way, I would probably live and work in London, and have a vacation home in Ireland.

London is a very busy city, with tons of ways to entertain yourself.

Smack dab in the middle of London, they have this one insanely big antenna tower which must handle all of the television, radio and cell phone transmissions for the U.K. It looks strangely like IG-88, one of the bounty hunters from ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’

The drivers in London are a bit crazed. Considering that people drive on the opposite side of the road from the U.S., I’m amazed that more American tourists don’t end up as street-pizza by wandering into traffic. I think I saved my mother’s life about six times in London.

The Tower of London is not, as I once assumed, a tower. It is actually more of a giant, old fortress. It’s actually very cool, and contains the largest collection of antique weaponry I have ever seen.

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum is wild. Many of the figures are spookily realistic. Since many of the figures are just standing around in the rooms, without any ropes around them, it’s fun to strike a pose, stop moving, wait a few minutes until someone comes up, thinking that you’re a wax figure of someone famous, and starts examining you to figure out who you’re supposed to be, then say ‘Hello’ to them. They will jump out of their skins. Much fun.

I stopped at ‘Forbidden Planet’, the world famous comic book store in London. It was interesting to note that there are almost as many female comic fans as male.

The food in England was horrible. Even the Coca-Cola tasted gross.  Without exaggeration, I lost about 10lbs during my week in England.  The only thing I found to be remotely palatable were the hamburgers.  With courage rivaling that of sky-divers and bungee jumpers, I did try Haggis, a Scottish delicacy, which is, if I remember correctly, sheep stomach, stuffed with various plants, and boiled. It tasted like evil.  To be fair, the other food in Scotland was far better than the food in England.

England, Scotland and Wales were all filled with endless miles of  breath-takingly beautiful scenery. With apologies to Wales, the scenery is all that I actually remember of that country. Although, I am sure that some of the quaint villages we passed through were in Wales. (There were so many that they all kind of blended together.)

I am fairly convinced that male tour guides are only in the business to hit on female tourists.

One of the coolest things about London is that it is still filled with beautiful, old buildings. Even many of the apartment buildings have stunning old architecture.

There is a severe shortage of public toilets in the UK. When you do find one, our delicate American behinds are shocked to find that, in most cases, the British toilet paper is very similar to the wax paper that we use to wrap fishes in. Rather unpleasant.

The popular music in the UK is very reminiscent of 80’s pop from the U.S.

When we drove in and out of Scotland, there was a man playing the bagpipes, standing beside the highway, right at the border. I wonder if he is paid to do this, or if he just likes to do it. I also wonder, if he is paid, is it to welcome tourists, or to drive the English away.  Just kidding, I actually like bagpipe music.

Stonehenge was very cool, but much smaller than I had imagined. I didn’t feel any of its supposed mystical energy, but that may have been because my mind was too busy thinking ‘Holy @*&%!! I’m at Stonehenge!’.

Finally, I was surprised to find that there were far more sheep in the UK than humans. If the people there aren’t careful, there may soon be some sort of ‘Planet of the Sheep’ revolt underway.