England

I love to travel! I am so happy that I am finally on my trip to Europe that I have been trying to do for years! England has been so beautiful and I am just eating up all this history and culture! I think I have been totally spoiled by the weather though, because I am beginning to think that they all lie when they say London is rainy and yucky. When we had a layover here on the way to Nepal it was gorgeous, and it has been sunny every day we have been here so far! :)

This is probably not quite so exciting for all of you to read, but I know there are a few (Mom) who want to know every detail. :) Here is goes...

Thursday, May 28th
After a long and hurried last day of school/packing up my classroom I rushed to my parents to get ready to go to the airport. Our flight left at 8:00pm, which was nice because I was able to sleep through most of the flight. Our plane landed at around noon, so I was able to semi-trick my body into thinking I had just slept through the night and it was now a new day...not 5AM.

Friday, May 29th
Kelly, Mike and I arrived in London on the 29th. After checking into our hotel we went headed to the Thames for a boat cruise. It was nice to see the city before we set out to explore it the next day. We walked around a bit and then headed to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with Hannah and Simon for dinner. We decided to get some authentic English food, so after following the 'blip' on Simon's iPhone we arrived at The Chippy, a fish and chips restaurant near Soho. The food was great and it was fun to begin to catch up with Hannah and Simon. We walked around a bit after dinner and then got some ice cream at Rendezvous, a really cute place we had ice cream at the last time we were in London. We were pretty tired after all of our travels that day, so we said our goodbyes to Hannah and Simon and went back to the hotel.

Saturday, May 30th: London
We started the morning at the Tower of London. We went on the audio tour, which was cool because it had accounts from prisoners and the Beefeaters. The tour was beautiful, but nothing was quite as impressive as the jewels! It's amazing to think of the history each crown and jewel holds. Our tour of the tower lasted about 3 hours, so by the time we were done we needed lunch. We walked the streets of London and stumbled upon a fun pub called the Walrus and the Carpenter (which we later figured out is a chain). I liked it because it was named after a poem in Through the Looking Glass. After lunch we walked to St. Paul's. It is enormous! In fact, the dome is second to only the Sistine. There is a balcony way up in the dome called the whisper room--you can whisper to the wall and a person across the dome can hear you. We of course, decided to make the climb, and I do mean climb, to the room. It was a GIANT spiral staircase that went on for what seemed like forever (since the dome is something like 800 feet, I am assuming around 6 floors). It was fun to try out the whisper, though you did feel a bit silly talking to a wall. :) No dome climb would be complete without a few more flights of even smaller, steeper, spiral stairs, so we went all the way to the top. Despite being completely out of breath by the time we reached the top, this was my favorite part. The top of the dome is outside and you can walk all the way around to see most of London. It was beautiful! From atop St. Paul's we were able to see our next destination: walking across Millennium Bridge to visit the Globe theater. Apparently our bird's eye view didn't help us too much though because we accidentally started walking parallel to the Thames instead of straight towards it...whoops. :) Our diverted journey did take us by some beautiful buildings though. Once we were back on track we walked over the bridge to the Globe Theater and then went to the Taite Museum of Modern Art. Our feet were beyond tired at that point, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel to eat dinner at the restaurant nearby and to play cards. It was a long, but fun second day.

Sunday, May 31st: Leave London, head to Benton (Hannah and Simon's house).

We left our hotel and took the tube to Paddington (the same Paddington that the bear is named after) to catch a train to Diddcot. Hannah picked us up from there and we set our exploring their cute village and surrounding areas. We had a mini 'pub crawl' (that's what I am choosing to call it) along the Thames, starting in Benton at a grill for lunch then heading to Henley-on-Thames, a cute little town on the river with shops and pubs. We had a cider (YUM) at the Angel on the River and then headed to Wallingford where we had another cider at the Boat House. I liked this place best because it had a really nice patio right on the river. It has been absolutely beautiful the whole time we have been here, so sitting outside has been awesome! After our cider we had excellent Indian food at another cute place across the street from the pub.

Monday, June 1st: Oxford

Kelly, Mike, Hannah and I went to Oxford today, it was so beautiful! We toured the area and did a little shopping. Highlights included going 'punting' on the Thames and getting what the Brits call a 'smoothie' and a cookie. (Well there was a lot more that was fun and great there, but I'm tired now). :)


So that's the trip so far, enjoying every minute of it...even if some are painful (like when the giant wooden sign fell on my shin and instantly bruised the whole of it-don't worry mom, I'm fine. I'm a quick healer!)

Tomorrow we leave EARLY for Brussels. I'm excited to explore a new place and to see Kacy and Tara! I'm sad that we have to leave Hannah and Simon, but I get to see them again before I head back home, so I get to spend some more time with them in about a week! I will try to update more as I go, but not sure when I will have the chance/time again. Until then...cheers! ;)