…Not a Hobbit’s Tale and certainly not by Bilbo Baggins.
My apologies for the cheesy reference to Lord of the Rings, but I couldn’t resist it with a title as this. Obviously, it refers to my trip to Birmingham. It was a great week out; I had wonderful company, the food was great and the city itself was quite nice as well! Alas, it was far, far too short a time!
Saturday, 24th of July.
It was early. I got up at around 5 AM and left for the airport around 5:30 – 5:45. As it was early Saturday morning the roads were pretty much empty and it was a solid, uneventful drive to Schiphol Airport. Much to my surprise I found myself at the airport as early as 7:30, while my flight was only going at 10:15! I had already checked into my flight online, so I only had to wait to drop my luggage off. The queues at the airport weren’t nearly as gigantic as I had feared, so I had plenty of time to kill once I was past the security checks.
I took it easy and looked around the shops. I found a sweet cuddle-toy Ferret for my girlfriend, who now has to go through his plush life as Colonel Fluffykins. I had a far too expensive breakfast. For one sammich, a drink and some fresh fruit I had to pay 15 Euro! Eventually I could board and be on my way to Birmingham International Airport!
My girl was waiting for me when I finally retrieved my luggage and we made our way to the hotel that would become our little home for the week to come. We found our way through Birmingham fairly quickly without too much incident and found ourselves at the hotel in fairly short order. We got a room at the 11th floor! To our delight the room, as well as the bathroom, were very spacious and comfortable.
We didn’t do much for the rest of the day… 
Sunday, 25th of July
Our first day of exploring the inner city of Birmingham. The goal was to find, and visit, the National Sea Life Centre. We didn’t have to look around much as it was just a five minute walk from our hotel! We got our tickets and a few funny looking hats and we had a pretty good time! There were lots of things to view, from sharks to giant sea turtles. There even was a 4D-cinema! Ieven got myself a sweet mug as souvenir. Well, I say mug, but it’s pretty much pint-sized!
The day was still fairly young when we left Sea Life and so we decided to continue our explorations. Pretty quickly we stumbled onto Victoria Square and popped into the Museum & Art Gallery while we were there. The place itself was huge and I believe we ended up skipping quite a lot of it as we were tired enough already of walking around.
Monday, 26th of July
On Monday we took it fairly easy. We went to the cinema that was close to the hotel and saw the latest Shrek film. Afterwards we explored some more and went to the shopping centre and visited the Bullring shopping mall.
Tuesday, 27th of July
I had thought it was a great idea to visit the Thinktank Science Museum. From the few things I had seen and read it had looked like a good way to spend our time. After quite a bit of a walk and following sign posts, we finally found Millenium Point. Once we were inside we discovered I had severely misjudged the intended audience. It was aimed at the… younger audience. We spent a bit of time there, but quickly decided on visiting the IMAX theatre right next to it. We got some tickets for Toy Story and to my surprise I actually loved the film! I’ll just say: Spanish Buzz ftw!
Wednesday, 28th of July
Even before I flew to Birmingham I had decided I wanted to visit Aston Hall. So on Wednesday we went to New Street station and find out how we would get to Aston. Our timing was great as we were just in time to hop on board of a train that was ready to depart. I think it was only a 5-10 minute ride to Aston and after a short walk we found ourselves at the entrance of Aston Hall. I quite enjoyed the trip there. I love visiting old places with so much history!
Thursday, 29th of July
I hadn’t originally intended to visit Warwick Castle, but when we were in Birmingham we found out that it was only a half hour train ride to Warwick. According to the receptionist at the hotel it should have been a 15 minute walk from the station to the Castle itself. We decided to be a little adventurous and find out. We had no clue where the castle was located, just that it should be close to the Warwick train station. When we were in the train we already had to make a decision; do we get off at Warwick or Warwick Parkway? We didn’t know and we had to guess. We settled for getting off at Warwick and just wait and see. Turned out our guess was correct and from there on it was just a matter of following sign posts.
The day out in the castle was great and I think it was one of the best days of the week. The Jousting impressed me the most and I found it the most entertaining part of the day. However, that can be related to the fact that only just before we watched the jousting we had queued for about 15 minutes at a stand to get a coke and an ice cream!
Friday, 30th of July
On our last full day together we just decided to relax and do whatever we felt like doing. We ended up going to the cinema again to see Inception. The film was a little confusing initially, but it turned out to be very good once I got settled into the plot lines. Afterwards we went to the shopping centre again to buy new shoes for me. I had trudged around in my shoes for an entire week and I got so fed up with ‘em that I decided to buy new shoes on the spot. Eventually after having visited a few shoe shops I settled for getting a new pair of Puma’s. I’m very pleased I got that pair of shoes, they’re incredibly comfy so far!
Saturday, 31st of July.
The dreaded day of my trip home. Not a very nice day at all, as I had to say goodbye to my girl, not knowing when we’d see each other again. It’s very strange to be back in The Netherlands, alone, after having spent a week of doing all sorts of stuff in her company. My trip home was fairly uneventful and boring, except for the train ride between The Hague and Rotterdam, where a noisy bunch of folks decided to hang around in the area I was sitting in.
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