Are you ready???

I don't know about you, but personally, I'm not quite ready.....for school to start that is. Today was my last full day of sleeping in (which I took full advantage of) and "wasting the day away." I tried to convince Eric to play hookie so we could go to the river because it was HOT today, but no luck. However, the plan is to go this Sunday instead! Anyone want to come with? :)

There are parts of going back to school that I'm looking forward too....like having a schedule (pathetic, I know), seeing the cute kids (we'll see how long that lasts), and not being home alone most of the day. Then there are the parts I'm not looking forward to...like having a schedule, seeing the cute kids....oh wait...

Really, I am looking forward to going back, but how did the summer go by so fast???

London #2

Here are the last few pictures of our time in London....

While we were there we figured we should go see a show! Thanks to the vote from all of you that I took a few months ago, we decided to go see The Phantom of the Opera. :) It was a very tiny theatre called "Her Majesty's Theatre" but the show was amazing! We were not allowed to take pictures inside as the props are a "secret" or something and we couldn't sneak them because there were lots of people watching! We got the last three seats left so it was nice that the theatre was small since our seats were in the balcony. The music was so good though!

On our last day in London we were actually able to meet up with Eric's brother, Scott, as he was returning from the middle east through London. We went to see St. Paul's Cathedral first that day and it was beautiful! We couldn't get a great shot of the outside because it was so big, but oh well. Also, no pictures allowed on the inside either. It was also a Sunday, so we only got limited access, as there was a service going on at the time we were there.

After St. Paul's, we (well Christina and I) decided we needed to have tea and crumpets in London! The tea was good and the scone was very tasty!




This is the tube stop at St. Paul's as we left to go to the Tower of London.
This is probably one of the only group pictures we got.



The Tower of London! I was excited to see a "real" castle! It was quite large and we spent a long time seeing everything...including the present crown jewels! No pictures allowed of those! They were amazing though!

This is what one of the bedrooms supposedly looked like. Impressive, but very drafty and cold! Good thing there were lots of fireplaces!

These are the famous ravens that they keep at the Tower. Supposedly, as long as the ravens are there, the Tower will never fall...I guess it's worked so far! :)

This was inside the prison tower of the castle. These were helmets that they guards would were...they were REALLY heavy!

In the torture tower there were examples of different ways that prisoners were tortured. This was one I hadn't seen before! This one is the opposite of the "rack" (where they stretch you). Here, they squish you instead! Fun!

This is the Tower Bridge, right outside the castle, that many people mistake for the London Bridge. While we were at the castle, we also got to see a bunch of the armour that King Henry VIII had made. Apparently he really liked his armour and had LOTS of it! Again, no pictures we allowed, but it was really cool to see!

This was an interesting contrast of the old with the new. Between towers, you can see a very modern building that looked like a rocket (among other things!) :) It was kind of strange to see the difference.

The next blog will be on to ROME!

London #1

Sorry this has taken so long, but it takes a while to sort through all the pictures and decide what to post and what not to. I'm starting with London, which is where we started, and we'll see how many posts this takes! :) Our flight over was pretty good, and our first order of business after finding our hostel, was to find lunch!

This is us at O'Neill's, a kind of scottish type bar/restaurant, that was really close to our hostel. For those of you who don't know, Christina, one of Eric's co-workers, travelled with us as well.


We went to the British Museum right after lunch to try to stay awake for the afternoon and evening. This is the Rosetta stone - from about 196 BC I think - and was used to translate ancient hieroglyphics.



There was a huge egyptian section of the museum with lots of mummies. These are real cat mummies...kinda funny. Behind the mummies you can see an xray that shows the cat inside.

Going down into the Tube! Every stop was different and I thought this one was fun because it was ALL in mosaics. Pretty impressive.

This was the view from the hostel we were staying at. I just thought the buildings were really pretty.

We thought this was pretty funny. At many of the crosswalks in London there was a special button for "equestrians" to use to cross. It was about 6 or 7 feet up too!

On our second day, we started at Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. The flag was all the way up, so the Queen was at home! Can you imagine living here?

There were TONS of people there, so it was very hard to see, but we got a few pictures. The funny part was that during the ceremony the band was playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" and other Sousa songs. Weird..

Next, we walked by Hyde park to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We had to get a picture in the London phone booth...which were actually kind of hard to find! Big Ben is in the background.

This is front entrance of Westminster Abbey. It was very impressive and really detailed on the outside. We weren't allowed pictures on the inside, though we did try to sneak a few that didn't turn out. One of my favorite parts was actually the "Poets Corner" of the Abbey. Many famous writers are buried there and we saw the "tombs" of Jane Austin, T.S. Elliot...and lot of others.

This is the back entrance to the Abbey...pretty impressive for a back door, eh? After this, we went back to our hostel to get dinner and go see a show! More pictures to come!