London Baby!

This past weekend we took a little jaunt over to London...FUN! I had been once before with Joy and my friend Shauna while Grant was deployed, but this was Grant's first time. We LOVED it...loved it, loved it, loved it! Here's a little rundown of what we got to see and do over the weekend.....

This is the neighborhood around the Victoria area where we stayed. Every street looks like this. Adorable! I could have wandered around with my camera forever...

Our first day we decided to try and see as many sights as we could. While we saw a good chunk of the city, our feet were not happy! We walked from our hotel, which was around Victoria Station, past Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Parliment (which I didn't get pictures of...boo on me! Next trip!) all the way down the river to the Tower of London, then back up the river to the Tate Modern across to the Imperial War Musuem...and then we finally decided to take the Tube. After that we walked from Soho to Trafalgar Square back to our hotel. Those who may have been to London know how stinkin' far that is!

Our first major stop of the day was the Tower of London. Its actually not a tower, its a huge fortress. William I started building it in 1077 with the original "tower" (the main building in the picture) and it was eventually expanded into the 18 acre complex that it is now. It has a ton of military history and because of all the security, the crown jewels are kept there, to include on 530 carat Star of Africa diamond. Its HUGE...and they don't let you take pictures....unfortunately.

From there we headed across the Tower Bridge in search of the Tate Modern and the Imperial War Museum. The idea for the day was to alternate history with art that way we both saw stuff that we were into. Unfortunately, my art stop was a bomb. We spent a pointless 45 minutes in the Tate Modern Museum. Now, I know modern art is funky, but I've learned from being the Art History Major that there is some really good stuff amidst the funkiness! I was hoping to find some there but no luck (with the exception of a few cool pieces). Needless to say, I was not impressed.....Grant (NOT the art history major) was REALLY not impressed! So we headed to the Imperial War Museum. This is Grant in front of the Imperial War Museum. HE is thrilled. I am not, I am wishing at this point that I could be shopping, but I am trying to be supportive by taking a picture of how thrilled he is. :)

We eventually made it over to the British Museum which has some really amazing stuff in it that we both were equally thrilled with. As in, the Rosetta Stone (WOW!), Assyrian and Egyptian Artifacts, lots of other stuff, and these things that you see to the left. These are part of a huge group of Greek Statues called the Elgin Marbles. Lord Elgin was a British Ambassador who purchased a huge number of marble statues and reliefs from the Parthenon and brought them back to Britan in order to preserve them. Now its a huge controversy because the Greeks want them back...not going to bore you with all those details. Anyway, these things are AMAZING despite the no heads, no arms look. At one time they sat with a huge number of other statues lining the edge of the roof of the Parthenon (otherwise known as a frieze...look, my major is coming in handy!). I mean seriously, it looks like someone draped material over posed bodies....how they managed to do that out of stone will forever amaze me!

So day #2, we met up with our friends J & Lisa...for those who don't know about the San Diego clan, this is Grant's brother's wife's sister and her husband (get all that?! :)). They just moved to the UK from San Diego, which, I have to admit, is really nice to have people that we know from before actually living in a relatively close time zone! Our day of adventures started with a train station that they were supposed to arrive at catching on fire....sheesh. Luckily they made it just in time for us to join the ridiculous mass of people who were all pressed up against the gates of Buckinham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. Here's a little of the parade (as much as we could see from where we were standing!):

After braving the crowds, we walked over to see the horse guards who guard some other building a ways away from the palace. Apparantly, they used to guard some sort of palace which isn't a palace anymore, so they actually don't guard anything...they just get to stand there while thousands of tourists take their pictures or take goofy pictures around them while they don't move a muscle. When i asked a local policeman why that was he said , "They do it for tourists...you know, people like you". Nice. Thanks Dude. We all still thought it was cool.

We spent the rest of our day chitchatting about the oddities of living in Europe (of which there are many! not to say its not worth it, its just fun to laugh about), dashing around trying to both find the place we were supposed to go wine tasting at AND make it during our reserved time, wandering around markets, hanging out in pubs, and watching the Blue Man Group. Doesn't get much better than that!

Sunday we took the train out to Rochester, which is the town that J & Lisa actually moved to. Its about an hour train ride outside of London. The countryside on the ride there was beautiful! Its always good to get outside of the cities that you visit to see a little bit more of what the place you're visiting has to offer. They showed us around the main part of town, took us to the cathedral and castle there in Rochester...and then we spent the rest of our day in a pub with Cider and Guinness and hanging out at their cute little flat....a great way to spend a Sunday! We were so thankful to get to spend some time with a few familiar faces. Grant, being the adventuresome one, tried Black Pudding while we were there. I can't remember what's in it, but I think its something along the lines of pig guts or something not so tasty. Apparantly the Brits love it....and apparantly, so does Grant. :) Here's a few more pictures of their cute little town (where, again, I could have wandered around all day with my camera and taken pictures):

And that was that! All in all a great trip....put it down on your list of places to see at some point in your lifetime! We didn't even scratch the surface, so at some point, we're headed back for sure! And, just for fun, here are my favorite random/creative/"I just like them" shots from the trip (if you look close, you can see the reflection of the Tower Bridge in Grant's sunglasses). Cheers!

The First....

I've always thought that "blog" was the strangest word I've ever heard. Ok, more like the dumbest word I've ever heard. So...since I thought the word was ridiculous, I resolved never to do it. However, I've recently had a change of heart and realized that it may be a good alternative to all those mass emails that I have neglected to send out recently. Or, that it may be a better way to share photos of our travels without clogging inboxes. Or, maybe, just maybe, there may be some unknown therapy in sitting down to write about our life, our experiences, our travels, or whatever may happen to come out when I sit down at the keyboard.

All this to say, I've decided to give it a shot. So....welcome! This is us...or at least little snapshots of our day to day lives that we want to share with you. We hope you enjoy the thoughts, illustrating pictures and keeping up with us as we capture as much of life together as we can.