Europe - Trip 1

Day 11 - January 18, 2002

Having a brew at the Blackie Boy near the station in Newcastle

Sarah was off to work in the morning so we lazed around the house until 1 when we caught the train into Newcastle for the afternoon. We wandered around for a few minutes and then decided that it was time for lunch and a pint. We stopped off at the Blackie Boy (think coal people) for a couple and some £1.60 burgers.

Inside the keep of the New Castle in Newcastle

From there we toured the keep on the site of the old castle, which at one time was the new castle on the river, that Newcastle-on-Tyne gets its name from. Very interesting and fab views of the city including the new vertically rotating millenium footbridge (rotates up for the ships on the river). Todd had to find a toilet but the castle didn't have one so we headed to the nearest pub to use theirs. Not ones to use facilities and not reciprocate we ordered a pint after the toilet. This pattern seemed to repeat itself a few times as we drank and facilitated our way across the area of the city we were in - curse Todd's tiny bladder.

The snazzy vertically rotating Millenium Bridge on the Tyne

We did a bit more wandering and eventually headed back to the train and promptly sat in the first class car. There weren't many seats available elsewhere on the train so we felt that we were automatically bumped to first class. When the ticketing guy came around and asked us for our tickets we asked if we could just pay the difference - he suggested that for the remaining 10 minutes the extra cost wasn't worth it, especially as the first class beverage cart didn't come on until after our stop. We shuffled back to sit near the loo.

Sarah picked us up at the train station as it was raining rather hard - we headed back to her place and made and ate a lovely dinner of Meat sauce and fresh spaghetti. That night we sat and watched Tomb Raider on Sarah's nice wide-aspect-ratio TV and then went to bed.

rainy and windy as usual