Persuasion for United Kingdom

After going to United Kingdom, we all had a lot of fun eating traditional food, going to amusement parks, and looking at exhibits in museums. We think everyone should visit the United Kingdom because they can enjoy the wonderful music and arts including Elton John, The Rolling Stones, and many other wonderful music concerts. There is also the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, where someone can listen to bagpipes! Another aspect of the UK that one can enjoy is the delicious and traditional food. This includes fish and chips, pot roast, and poached eggs, all classically tied to United Kingdom and it's culinary history. Sports are yet another great reason to go the UK. If one is a rugby, hockey, boxing, or tennis fanatic, then United Kingdom is the place to be. This country has many sporting events for those sports and more in many locations. Its an awesome experience that someone should be a part of. This is why one should come to the United Kingdom so they can immerse in the great, cultural activities.

        

Trip Budget

First we spent $9,877.00 in airfare to get to the United Kingdom. Once we got there we went to a local bank and converted $10,123 into £6,246.79. We spent a lot in food, taxi rides, entertainment places such as parks and amusement. We also spent some money on gifts for ourselves. For food we spent $4,063.92. For Hotel Fares we spent $126.00 per night for twelve nights which adds up to be $1512. We spent $1990.44 for taxi rides. We Spent $2,117.16 .Finally we spent $318.00 in miscellaneous stuff. We spent a total of $19,878.52.

Day 12 in the United Kingdom

We got up at around 10:00 AM because we were all tired from the arguing about Windsor Castle and walking around everywhere yesterday. That was the day we were all leaving United Kingdom, so we wanted to do something leisurely to save our energy for the flight. We decided to go to another museum. After getting ready and eating at the hotel, we went to the British Museum about 20 minutes away. First, we went to the Virtual Autopsy Exhibit where we saw a mummified person from about five and a half thousand years ago in Egypt. We saw how he was wrapped up in linen and matting and put in a crouched position. One of the guides explained how he was buried under hot sand, which perfectly mummified his body and created one of the best preserved mummies ever. After getting enough chills, we decided to go to the exhibit Renaissance to Goya, where alot of Spanish paintings and drawings were displayed. It seemed really boring and we ditched it for an exhibit on Ancient Asian Pottery, focusing on the drinking utensils. It just talked about how different pieces of pottery were used for different things, including religious purposes. That turned out to be boring too, except for the free plastic pot souvenirs we got when we left. In between we went to go eat some lunch at around 3:00 PM in one of the cafe's. We went to the closest one where we had some pita bread sandwiches with salami and turkey inside with some coke and chips. After that we decided to go to the gift shop, with a bunch of cheap toys, souvenirs, and minigames. After tinkering with a bunch of the stuff, and Jed dropping a glass ball majority ruled that we were going back to the hotel. It was around 4:00 PM when we got back, so we had about two or three hours to pack because the flight was at 7:35 PM. After packing for about two hours and clearing everything up, we left for London Heathrow Airport for a long twenty-four hour flight. It wasn't actually twenty-four hours because we had a stop in Detroit. When we boarded the plane we all fell asleep after having some nasty airplane food. It was a long day, and it was pretty good to be going back home.

Day 11 in the United Kingdom

The day began with a shaky start when Stephen and Ryan started to bicker about going to the Windsor Castle. They both knew that the Castle was beautiful, but Ryan said it would be a waste of our time. However, Scott, Sahil, Stephen and Jed all knew it would be a great experience to see the world's largest occupied Castle that was the official residence of the Queen herself. So we said majority rules and ended up leaving just on time to make the train at 9:45 A.M. We were able to spend £10 for the train ride to the Castle and back to London and at 10:00 A.M. we ate breakfast at the nearby Coffee shop. Sahil and Jed got the £3 bagel and the rest of us got an omelet which was £8 each. Once we arrived at the museum we first picked up our two hour self-guided tour and we used that to tour the castle. Since the Castle was so big Stephen and Scott almost got lost, twice, even with the self-guided tour. Once we were done with teasing Ryan we started to find a genuine appreciation towards the Castle and how magnificent it was and still is. The state apartments even had jewelry from the Royal collection, which was an extreme honor and treat to be able to see. There were also masterpieces that were able for viewing, each by a highly skilled artist like Rubens, Holbein, Van Dyck, and Brueghel. The Castle was quite amazing on its own; it featured floors that covered an astounding 480,000 square feet. We also learned that the castle is 900 years old and was built after William the Conqueror when he was in power. Since then the Castle has been used by a succession of monarchs. The Castle's most prominent feature to us was the ceiling especially in the state apartments, where the ceiling looked extravagant and beautifully Arcitectured  The most amazing thing to Sahil was the use of attention to detail and one example that he used was the attention to detail on the outside walls, where years were put in to make each wall look perfect. The whole castle was amazing and all of us considered it to be one of the most amazing works of art that we had ever seen. After the self-guided video was finished we decided to pay £17 for the tour of the Castle and then we went to go on the train. Overall the Castle was awe inspiring and it was something that took your breath away with its antique and unique design.
      
below is a picture we took of the state apartments                                                                                                                

Day 10 in the United Kingdom

Today was the day we were going to watch the hockey tournament. It wasn't the same one we were going on Day 8; this time, we were going to watch the finals, maybe even some of the quarter finals. The tourney wasn't until 3:00, so we had some time to kill in the morning. Everyone ate the same breakfast as before, to be honest, some of us were getting tired of it, but we were too lazy to go eat breakfast somewhere else (we should though before we leave to go home). We looked online and found a free tour of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, so we decided to go and see what it was all about. We took a tour of RAL Space, and saw many things including the Mid Infra-Red Instrument (MIRI), Atacama Large Milimetre Array project (ALMA), and the Milimetre Wave Technology Facility (MWT). There was a second tour of their International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC), but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to go. MIRI is a science instrument module that will be launched into space and gather data for scientists. It's called MIRI because it has a camera and a spectrograph that sees light int he mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, wavelengths that are too long for human eyes to see. It will allow scientists to "see" distant galaxies, newly forming stars, and faintly visible comets. ALMA is basically an array of radio telescopes in the Atacama desert of Northern Chile. The project is an international partnership between countries all over the world, so although we didn't get to see the actual things (which was a bummer), we saw project designs among other things. Theoretically, a signal from the sky is captured by two or more antennas which are combined in order to analyze the signal and obtain information about its source (whether it's a star, planet, or galaxy). Combining radio waves collected by several antennas can produce images. ALMA needs to be so precise to operate, it's electronics and all 66 antennas must work in perfect synchrony, with a precision of one millionth of a millionth of a second! The MWT facility was actually very interesting. All MWT is is a scanner that uses millimeter wave energy to detect items, and we saw a lot of scanners in use. They're most commonly seen in airports, where they'll scan people and luggage to check for concealed illegal objects. There are two types, active and passive. Active scanners direct the wave energy at the subject and then "read" the reflected energy. Passive systems read only the raw energy that is naturally emitted. Airports usually use active millimeter wave scanners. After a very educational tour, we finally got back and was pumped up to go see the hockey tournament, at Whitgift School. It was interesting because it was an indoor competition, that meant no ice skates, and no roller blades either! The game is played with a small ball, rather than a puck. There is also a lot of physical contact, which is to be expected in a game such as indoor hockey. We looked up the rules, and they were so specific that they even said that the lighting had to be a certain level! As we were watching, all of us were surprised by the ferocity and speed the players had on both teams. Every shot, every steal was so engaging. We had the pleasure of staying and watching the grand finals between Exeter and Rossall. Rossall won barely with a score of 3 - 2. After an exciting day, we went to the nearby Alberts Table to eat dinner. We got the English Veal and spelt lasagne with mushroom sauce (courtesy of Ryan), Ravioli with English spring vegetables, cauliflower and vegetable roasting juices. For dessert, we had caramelised lemon tarts with Kentish raspberry, blueberris and Cornish clotted cream. It was a great day, and everyone went back to the hotel feeling tired yet satisfied, as we started to wrap up our trip in the UK.

A dish at the RAL Space Center that we saw on the tour

A snapshot of the indoor hockey finals

Day 9 in the United Kingdom

We woke up at 9:00 A.M. and we were so grateful being able to finally get a decent night of sleep. Once we were all ready to leave, we went to go eat our breakfast. At first we were skeptical on eating a meal indigenous to any other country besides America. However, once we had our first bite of scones, we found that they were delicious and almost similar to a crescent roll you would have in America. After we finished eating our Scones and drinking our tea we paid the waiter £30 pounds and left to go to the Billiard match. Before we left for the match we did a little research on Billiards and we found out that Billiards originated in the UK and that the UK was the first country to make a governing body for the game. All though Billiards is not particularly popular in America it is much more popular in the UK. Billiards is played with two players in each match and in the match we watched the two players were Joe Atkinson and Jeff Dunham (not the comedian, a professional pool player). The Game involved many skillful moves that none of us could ever imagine doing, especially Scott, who was for a lack of better words, uncoordinated. The players began by seeing who would start off and begin the match. This was done by seeing which player could get their ball the closest to the opposite pocket to which they were standing towards without it actually going in. Because the game was Speed Pool Jeff got to start off and had to try to get in all his balls as fast as he could. Jeff managed to make a swift round and he got an almost record setting time of 45 seconds, compared to the record time of 43 seconds. Next it was Joe Atkinson's turn; he was fast as well but had a few slip-ups and was only able to get the balls in a mere 55 seconds. After the results were announced Jeff Dunham walked away with a two foot trophy and a whopping £1000 pounds. Once the match was over we went and ate Lunch at McDonalds, and then paid the McDonalds 35 pounds and took the rest of the day off for a leisurely stroll of the area. We learned many things in this one day like how Billiards can be quite hard and that it actually takes skill to play the game.
 
An actual Billiards Table at the professional match

Day 8 in the United Kingdom

It's day 8, and the skies are cloudy. The weather channel said that there was a chance of rain today, so we decided on a plan to dodge it. Early in the morning, we would go to a park, then head over to a school to see a school hockey championship of 16-18 year olds. Everyone set out with fresh bacon in our stomachs and happy faces. We drove (well not us exactly, but yeah) to the Peak District National Park in England. Turns out along the way, Jed, the planner for the this day, didn't realize that the park was three hours away. Which meant that no hockey game for us. It was going to have to be postponed until a later date. However, regardless, when we all got there, everyone was pumped. We decided to bike, because walking trails required too much effort, so we went to rent some bikes. They cost 12.50 each in the British Pound, which is about 20 dollars in USD. Sahil spent so long trying to find a bike that the rest of us almost left without him! We finally set out on a trail called the Trans Pennine Trail, long enough for all of us to get some good exercise and enjoy Mother Nature. We saw so many things that it's hard to remember and write them all down. The entire trail was 215 miles, so we knew straight out that we weren't going to be able to see everything we wanted. There were all kinds of different trees and lots of grass. Even though it was off-road we even saw people riding on horses! Unfortunately there weren't any tours that were going on, so we weren't able to learn about anything, only watch. The trail goes through many different towns, so we stopped and rested at some of them, even pausing to browse some of the shops there. We had delicious peanut and butter sandwiches that we made ourselves, so it was pretty awesome. There were also lots of canals, and riversides, where we stopped and took many group photos. The trail went through lots of disused railway lines; at least we didn't try to ride on the tracks :D. Everyone was exhausted by the time we turned back and biked towards the exit. Everyone was sweating (even though it was 50 degrees) and eager to go back to the hotel and take a nice hot shower. We went to eat at a next door restaurant called Bryon. It was famed for its burgers, making us all convinced that we should go there, after all, who doesn't like a nice juicy burger? We also had hot, crunchy, fires and a brownie sundae for dessert. Most of us were surprised by the brownie sundae, we thought that that was pretty cool. Our day was finally done, and everyone felt somewhat revived by our exercise and relaxation at the park, it was pretty fun.

A river on the trail

An arch we saw on the trail

A sign we found for memory

Day 7 in the United Kingdom

We all woke up at 8:00 AM excited to go to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, an amusement park with a lot of fun attractions. We had some complementary breakfast, and got on a taxi. It only took about 5 minutes to get there, so our eagerness was quickly satisfied. Apparently, it wasn't cold enough in the 40 degrees, so we went to the Magical Ice Kingdom. They had a lot of cool sculptures made of ice, and guess what? It was snowing! They had machines in the ceiling that dropped mock snow. It was realistic because it was cold and you could make snowballs with it. After Ryan got into a snow fight with Scott, we decided to go to the Stalagmite Forest and Ice Castle. It was full of ice trees, bears, squirrels, foxes, rabbits and other cold creatures. After we made our way through the freezing forest without slipping, we saw the huge castle. It had huge ice bricks that formed a medieval castle. We were fortunate that the staff gave coats, boots, hats, and gloves but we had to pay for it. Inside the castle a king was sitting on his throne with some other statues here and there. After we were all super cold, we went to go eat some lunch at around 2:00 PM. We went to a restaurant at the Winter Wonderland because we didn't want to go anywhere out. There was a nice restaurant called The House of St. Nicholas where we had some grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and coke. After we let our food settle for an hour, we wanted to go on some rides. Jed was really excited about going on the Star Flyer, a thing where you sit in a booth, and a lift brings you in the air where you swing around a center post. It was just like flying. It made Sahil's stomach jump and he almost threw up. Other than that, it was really fun. After that, we went to Coaster Crazy, a roller coaster with a lot of spins and bumps. We were all beat after 3 hours of roller coasters, so we went back to the hotel to relax and watch some television and sleep.

These are one of the animals in the forest. 

            

Day 6 in the United Kingdom

We woke up bright and early at 5:00 A.M., with Stephen sleeping in tell 5:30. Once we woke him up we slammed him into the bathroom and told him to take a shower. Once we were ready we left at 6:30 A.M. to go to the Science Museum in London. Since the Museum opens at 10:00 A.M. we got a good amount of time to eat breakfast before we headed out to the museum. The Museum was amazing. Especially compared to what we expected, which was we wouldn't learn anything new and it would be extremely boring. The worst part about the museum was the extremely long lines for each exhibit. By 12:00 P.M. we were starving so we ate some lunch at the Deep Blue and everyone got the the ribs with the macaroni and cheese. It was delicious, something very unexpected from museum food. Once we were finished eating we headed back to the exhibits. Some of our most favorite exhibits were the robot exhibit, where a real robot that looked similar to a human would mimic everything you did. Our second most favorite exhibit and Sahil's favorite exhibit was the re-creation of James Watson's workshop. In  the workshop there were some of his creations that led to his steam engine and the significance of each on the UK was shown underneath. The Museum had many futuristic creations and re-creations of the past as well. The technology in the museum was out of this world and extremely cool to all of us. The museum even made connections with Google showing us how advanced technology-wise the museum was. Overall the museum had so many exhibits it was mind boggling and we could have spent at least a day at each exhibit asking questions about it and looking at it. However we only had eight hours and we spent every minute looking at the museum. Once we headed back to our hotel when the day was done we were exhausted and speaking on behalf of everyone we crashed as soon as we hit our beds, skipping dinner entirely.
This is a picture of part of the Energy Hall exhibit:

Day 5 in the United Kingdom

After we woke up at around 8:30 AM, we walked downstairs and had some complimentary breakfast again at the hotel. We stuffed ourselves with some hot waffles, donuts, orange juice, cereal and coffee. We hadn't gotten ready yet, so we went upstairs to shower and get ready. We took a taxi to the Imperial War Museum, where we got to explore worldwide conflicts throughout history. It didn't take that long-only about 15 minutes. Anyways, when we got there, we saw a lot of cool stuff about the history of warfare. First we visited the Large Exhibits Gallery because it sounded really interesting. It turned out to be a lot of replicas and originals of british cars, tanks, missiles, and airplanes. The planes were hung from the ceiling, just like the Space Museum in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. They had a lot of hands on activities, and they let you sit in the cars! Jed was excited to sit in a cool old transport car used to transfer supplies to soldiers in the battle, but he couldn't because he was too tall! His head bumped the top of it. He was jealous when Stephen and Scott got to sit in it. After we saw almost everything in that exhibit, we went to another one called the Secret War. This exhibit was kind of boring, but it gave us something to think about. It talked about the use of highly-trained elite forces and why the need for secret agencies are under debate. It also had displays on the weapons used by the elite forces, including the M16 and other powerful weapons. After about four hours we all decided we were tired and hungry, so we went to go grab some lunch. It turns out that there's a lot of cafes in the museum itself. We chose the Kitchen Front Cafe'. We all had some great Chicken Pot Pies, Beef Stew and Red Bean Soup. After that, we went back to the hotel and watched some television. After we got bored of watching Super Nanny and Hell's Kitchen, we wanted to watch a movie. The one we thought was the best was Seven Phsycopaths. The movie was okay, with a lot of shooting and yelling. It was pretty action-packed. At around 8:00 PM, we went to get some more pizza from the same place we got it last time, Prezzo Eastbourne. We got the same pizza because that's the one we liked. After that, we were beat, so we went to sleep in the newly cleaned sheets (housekeeping).

This is a front picture of the Museum.

Day 4 in the United Kingdom

Today we all discussed how lucky we were to have visited the UK. Thinking about it, we thought about how it would suck if we went to Japan, or Russia, and not understand anything they said, either because of their funky accent, or if they just didn't understand English. We decided that today was going to be our relax day, meaning without any intense physical exercise; so after a breakfast of bacon sausages and eggs, we went back to our room and talked about what we wanted to do. After much talking and debate (we're talking about a lot of talking and debate), we decided to go listen to some music. In addition, we all agreed to spend the whole day exploring different aspects and styles of music. We went to the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, a music venue, and listened to Blood Red Shoes. There were elements of punk, hardcore, post-rock, electronica, jazz and full on metal. Blood Red Shoes are two people, Laura-Mary Carter (vocals and guitar) and Steven Ansell (vocals and drums), and their album Hysterics was released on Hassle Records to huge critical acclaim in 2008. After that, we went to O'Neill's near O2 and ate a scrumptious lunch of Irish beef burgers and sodas, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, the whole deal. We then went to the St Paul Cathedral for Cancer Research UK's (a research group that researching a cure for cancer) biennial Christmas Carol Concert. There was St Paul's Cathedral choir, the Band of the Scots Guards, and extremely talented soloists. All proceeds from that event went directly towards Cancer Research UK's life-saving research. We then took a stroll around town, and when we got tired we took a taxi to the Cecil Sharp House, home to the English Folk Dance and Song Society, where we watched what we supposed would be considered a musical called "Maypoles to Mistletoe". It was a journey through the different seasons, exploring each month through music, dance, songs and stories, and all the while, they were focused on folk traditions. The entire day was a great experience, where we got to appreciate different varieties of music. We also bought lots of snacks to eat while we were being entertained, so dinner wasn't a problem at all. I'm sure that most of us would agree that that was a great day.

The "Maypoles to Mistletoe" crew


http://www.efdss.org/events/eventsdetails/eventsId/558/displaydate/2012-12-09 

Day 3 in the United Kingdom

The day began with a long drive to the famous Pembrockeshire national park at 6:00 A.M., we were forced to leave early in order to be able to stay for the six hours our tour guide suggested. All of us were very excited after we saw and heard about the park from the tour guide, except for Stephen. We all tried to cheer him up by stopping at his favorite place, the candy store, and got his favorite, chocolate truffles. While we were stopped we decided to eat breakfast at Burger King and we each had a croissant with an egg and sausage on the inside. Once we reached the park we were kind of lost even with the tour guide, we couldn't seem to find any beautiful places like we heard about from her. However, once we were about twenty minutes into the tour we began to see the true beauty in the park. There were so many places for us to stop and take pictures and believe me whenever we got the chance to take a picture we took it. After the amazing tour we decided to eat lunch at 2:00 and got one of the most delicious meals we had ever tasted. Scott got the world famous fish and chips, which he said were salubrious. After we finished eating we went back to see the scenery. The scenery was much like that of a farm at first and it was very rural. The scenery started to get much more tropical by the end of the tour, with a shoreline that was breath-taking. The water was a nice cool blue that looked like water from the Bahamas. Everyone was astounded by the scenery, with all the rocks that made the park look like an oasis. These gorgeous cliffs were something that not even Stephen could ignore. We also saw that penguins all looked great, but it was almost odd seeing them first hand in warm weather and on rocks. It was almost like something you would only see in fantasies or movies. After we were finished with the tour we paid the tour guide 190 pounds and we said goodbye. Afterwards we started to head back to the hotel at 6:00 P.M., after a good six hours at the national park. Once we reached the hotel after six hours of driving all of us crashed and fell asleep. This was one trip that will never be forgotten and we only hope that we will be able to have this much fun on the rest of our trip in the UK.

This is a beautiful picture that Sahil took of the park

Day 2 in the United Kingdom

After a good night's sleep, everyone woke up feeling extremely happy. We ate our breakfast at the hotel and got ready to go to Stonehenge. Stonehenge is the mysterious collection in rocks arranged in a circle and dating back to 3000 B.C. Apparently, Stonehenge was formed by a culture that had no written records, so all the theories concerning the rocks are shrouded in mystery. When we got off the taxi cab at the entrance to Stonehenge, everyone was pumped and ready to go, until we realized it wasn't exciting at all. It isn't a hands-on exhibit; Stephen really wanted to get his hands on the rocks. The line was really long, and we didn't anticipate that there was going to be so many. Too be honest, most of us found Stonehenge pretty boring. Just standing a couple of feet behind the boulders, on a path taking pictures. Oh well, no memory's a bad memory. However, we did discover something cool. There is a stone, called the "Heel Stone" that is just outside of the main entrance to Stonehenge. When a person stands withing Stonehenge, and faces north-east through the entrance towards the heel stone, they can see the sun rise above the stone at summer solstice. It's pretty interesting how maybe ancient civilizations had a lot of cool ideas that we don't even know about. It was great exercise we figured, and we ate lunch at the Fisherton Mill Cafe and everyone ordered the Stonebaked Sandwich with grilled bacon, goats cheese and roasted tomatoes. Except for Ryan. He wanted to be different from everyone and ordered the Somerset Camembert with Hot apple chutney. We also drank freshly squeezed Italian blood orange juice. Ryan immediately regretted ordering what he ordered, he spent hours in the restroom trying to get the taste out. It was pretty funny. Because of the wonderful food, everyone got extremely sleepy and was hit by jet lag... so we went back to the hotel and slept until the next morning, occasionally waking up to eat stuff, play cards, and watch TV. It was a great second day.

A picture we took of Stonehenge up close

Day 1 in the United Kingdom

We all arrived at 6:35 AM in the morning of December 15th in London. We were all a little sleepy and tired from jet lag. The airport was LHR, a major international airport. After we got out of the plane, we went to baggage claim. It was really hard to find it because the airport was so huge. We got lost twice! Anyways, after we left the airport, we got a cab to Bill's Restaurant half an hour away for some good breakfast. We had some English Muffins, poached eggs, home fries, toast, and mushrooms and guacamole. It was delicious. After we filled our stomachs and Jed payed them 46 pounds, we went to the Garden View Hotel where we checked in and freshened up. It was a 3 star hotel for a decent price.When we were ready to go, we took a taxi to the Battle of Hastings Battlefield and Museum. The museum was for a famous battle in Hastings, England and a lot of people passed away. We got there at about 10:30 AM after taking a cab for an hour and a half. When we got there, we looked at the museum where we had hands on exhibits showing the guns that were used in the battle. We also saw a lot of videos of historical documentaries. It was pretty boring, although Stephen enjoyed the guns.  After that, we went on a short walk to the pond and fed some ducks that were nearby. That got us extremely bored. We were lucky to pack our boots, because the ground was really muddy and rocky. We weren't allowed to go on the actual battlefield because of the bad weather that messed it up. Everyone was really bummed. We stayed there for about four hours. We were all pretty tired and hungry, so we went to Prezzo Eastbourne, a local pizzeria and we had an extra large hand tossed pizza. It had sausage, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers and pepperoni. It was delicious! It was way better than any pizza we had here. After that, we took the cab to the Beauport Park Golf Course where we played for 18 holes. It wasn't all that exciting, but at least we got to relax a little bit. We got tired of swinging, so we finished up and left.Once again, we went in a cab to go eat some dinner. We stopped at a nice little restaurant called Maggie's. According to Scott's iPhone, it had great reviews. The reviews were right! We had some BBQ Chicken, chips and peas, pork chops, and potatoes. It was all really delicious. After we ate our fill, we took a taxi back to the hotel at around 8:00 PM. We had a long day, and we crashed as soon as we laid down.

Travel Itenary

Day 1 (December 15th):

We flew from RDU to LHR with one stop in Detroit. It took roughly Twenty-Four hours. After breakfast, we visited Hastings Battlefield Abbey and Museum.

Day 2 (December 16th):

 We visited Stonehenge after breakfast, with lunch and dinner to follow.

Day 3 (December 17th):

Went to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and enjoyed the scenery with a tour guide.

Day 4 (December 18th):

Go listen to 02 Shepherd's Bush Empire "Blood Red Shoes", Maypoles to Mistletoe and Christmas Carol Concert at Cancer Research UK Saint Paul Cathedral.

Day 5 (December 19th):

Visited the Imperial War Museum and watched The Seven Psychopaths. 

Day 6 (December 20th):

Went to the Science Museum in London with many exhibits.

Day 7 (December 21st):

Visited the Magical Ice Kingdom in Hyde Park.

Day 8 (December 22nd):

We all went to the Peak District National Park in London.

Day 9 (December 23rd):

Saw a professional Billiards match in a contest for money.

Day 10 (December 24th):
Went to a Hockey Tournament

Day 11 (December 25th):

Saw the beautiful Windsor Castle with elegant design.
Day 12 (December 26th):
We went to the British Museum to see the exhibits on history of many countries and discoveries. We also flew from LHR to RDU with a stop at Detroit Metro Airport. Twenty-Four hours total travel time.