London {Part III}: Day 2

I hope you guys aren't getting sick of these London posts!  I last left off on our first day spent in London--the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Eye, a city bus tour, yada, yada, yada.  We spent our second (and final) day outside of London.  We signed up for a coach bus tour that took us to three different locations and lasted the entire day.  I think we boarded our bus by 9:00 and returned back to London at 19:30.  Yup...it was a long day.

The first stop was Windsor Castle, which is the largest inhabited castle in the world, the longest occupied castle in Europe, and a functioning royal home.  One of Britain's major tourist attractions, Windsor Castle is frequently used by the Queen as a royal palace as well as her weekend home. The castle is an important ceremonial location and is often used for state banquets and other official engagements.  We were told by our tour guide that the Queen was spending a lot of time at Windsor Castle to escape the hubbub of the Olympics  Games (at that time, the city was still preparing for it) and that we'd know she was at Windsor Castle if we saw her flag atop the castle's Round Tower.

Some of these photos are out of order and I couldn't get some of them to move into the right spot!

There is a nice little garden area in what used to be the moat. Apparently, the moat kept drying up, so some king (remember how I told you I'm not a good tour listener? that's where Wikipedia comes in handy for you, hence the link to Windsor Castle above) turned the moat into a garden for the queen. Pretty, huh?

On the way into the castle, we walked through the Windsor Royal Shopping Center, where there were some pretty cool shops and a really great place that we had lunch at.

There wasn't anything particularly fancy about this castle and let's face it, we
were tired from the bus ride and extremely hungry.  We just wanted to get our pictures and get out of there.  When we first got to London and toured the Tower, we saw all kinds of guardsmen in uniforms adorned with the letters E and R.  Similarly, the gates and buildings had the letters on them too.  We knew they had something to do with the royal family, but didn't know exactly what they stood for.  So we asked around.  We asked two British women and would you believe that they didn't even know?  Finally, someone told us that they stood for "Elizabeth Regina," regina being the Latin word for Queen.  So it means Queen Elizabeth.  And how fitting because...

You see that flag?  The Queen was in the house!  We didn't get to see her though.  You would have thought the place would have been a little bit busier with her there in terms of security and everything, but not really.  It was pretty quiet except for all us tourists!

The lights had cute little crowns on them.  Loved them!

Loved seeing the guards at their posts.  See how he's left a light white line on the ground?  That has to get tiresome and boring.  But that's coming from someone with no stamina.

After that, we rode another two hours to Bath, England to see the Roman Baths.  If you want to experience being two places at once, this is the place to be.  I mean, you're basically in Rome, in England!  The Roman Baths is just that--a complex once used by Romans for public bathing during the Roman occupation of Britain (under the rule of Emperor Claudius; apparently in 43 A.D.).  I was so intrigued by the place--not just the Roman Baths, but the city itself.  If I ever go back to England, I think I'm going to stay in Bath!

Typical European city...open square, live music, dominating cathedral--beautiful.

The Roman Baths staff thought of everything!  Free backpacks to lug our heavy kids up and down those stairs.  If only the places in Rome did this!

View of the baths from above.

Just hanging out with the locals!

Another 30-minute bus ride got us to our last stop--the Stone Henge!  Okay, so am I the only person who thought the Stone Henge was in Ireland? I was beyond thrilled to get to see this.  I'll let you guys read about this on your own (see link above) because, frankly, it took me three days to do this post.  Not sure why (connection really slow, photos too large?), but I'm just going to leave you with these awe-inspiring photos.  I'm so glad that Vaiosina could see this.  Not that she'd remember it at all years from now, but I just love my little world traveler!

Just....wow!

I'll never forget this trip and the wonderful time we had with our friends.  I definitely want to go back to England once more before we PCS.

Tomorrow, we start our summer leave!  For the next two weeks, our little family will be spending every waking moment together.  Unfortunately, the clock is ticking until Malu's deployment, but we won't be thinking about that over the next 5 days because we'll be soaking up some more sun in BARCELONA!

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we travel.  I hate flying these days!

Talk to you guys soon!

London {Part II} : Day 1

How cool is it that you can get to London in just 1.5 hours?  Way cool.  And guess what?  It only cost us about $80--round trip.  If you're ever in Germany, whether to live or visit, www.germanwings.com is the way to go.  You can do what's called blind booking and depending on what time of the year it is and where you're trying to go, you can get flights as low as 39.99 Euro.  Trust me!  I've seen it.

Anyway...I digress.

London...in one word:  EXHAUSTING

Okay, here's another one:  AWESOME

Our flight took off at 7:00 a.m., so we were up and at 'em at 4:00.  You can imagine how tired we were by the time we landed in London.  But hey, we sucked it up and immediately hit the ground running.

In the essence of time, I'll just let our pictures do most of the talking.  I will link the major places we visited to websites just because I don't have the energy to go into history, facts, details, etc.  Plus, let's face the facts...when you're out and about with a toddler with no husband to help, you're not really listening to the tour guide or reading displays.  You're busy quelling cries and/or screams and trying not to lose sight of said toddler.  It's exhausting.  I always just say or think, "I'll Google this stuff later."  

We took a train from the airport to Liverpool Station.

From there, we took a cab to our 'flat'.  Ha! I still crack up when I say that!  Just a note...lodging in most European cities can be pretty expensive.  When we travel, we almost always stay in an apartment versus a hotel.  You'd be amazed at how many nice apartments are out there...and we've had a few great ones.  If you ever plan on traveling out to this side of the world...www.homeaway.com is the way to go! Our flat in London was just okay.  We were in quite a rush to find a place to stay and settled on whatever we could find that looked decent.  The apartment itself was decent...

...the neighborhood?  Not so much.  Like the art work?  And it's not so much that the neighborhood was bad, there was just a lot of graffiti and bars nearby.  Oh well, it was a place to crash each night!  Plus, there were some really cool restaurants nearby as well.

So I think I can vouch for our whole group when I say that we set out to do some very particular things while in London. 

Take a picture near one of the signature Royal Phonebooths....Check!

Exchange our U.S. dollars for some British Pounds....Check! 
Aren't they pretty?

Do some damage with said British Pounds...Check! 

And did we ever!  Within minutes we found sidewalk sales down the street from our flat.  Everywhere else, it was souvenirs galore!

See cars driving on the other side of the road (and riding in a car on the other side of the road)...Check!

See how they have to put reminders on the streets for tourists to check right before crossing?

Ride the 'tube' or subway in London...Check! 

You know a subway is near when you see signs for the Underground.

See members of the Royal Guard...Check!

Have some traditional British fish & chips...Check!

Yum!

Tour the Tower of London and see the Crown Jewels...Check!

No pictures, but the jewels were gorgeous.  Some serious bling-bling going on, if you know what I mean.



In front of a mural of the White Tower...and Vaiosina playing with her double-decker bus souvenir!

Vaiosina and I going into the 'Bloody Tower'

Go for a ride on the London Eye and get a great view of the city...Check!

What a ride!  When you ask Vaiosina what she did in London, she always screams, "The Eye!"

Great view of London's many bridges spanning across the River Thames

View of Westminster Palace (Parliament Building) and Big Ben

Take a tour through London on a double-decker bus...Check!

After our Tower of London tour, we were absolutely tired and content to just tour the rest of the city by bus.  We got a close-up view of Westminster Palace (Parliament Building) and Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Kensington Palace, etc.  By this time, my iPhone gave out and I couldn't take any pictures.  At least I can say I saw mostly everything!

See the Royal Family...Check!

Okay...maybe not quite.  Being in London is as close as I'm ever gonna get to these people.

Would you believe this was only Day 1?

Seriously.  But this knocked out pretty much all of our London wish list!

Thanks for sticking with me through this entire post!  Please stay tuned for Day 2 which entails our trips to Windsor Castle, the Roman Baths and Stone Henge.

London {Part I}: Olympics!

I'm kinda gonna go about posting about our trip to London in a backwards kinda way.  Since the Olympics are now in full swing, I thought I'd start with some stuff on the glimpse we got of all the Olympic Games-hoopla going on in London.  When I was thinking about whether or not to go to London, I had concerns about it being over-crowded.  Security going through the airport was a little bit tighter than usual, but other than that, it was still an enjoyable time.  Not too chaotic a crowd.  On our first day, we visited the Tower of London, which is right next to the Tower Bridge.  They'd suspended the Olympic rings from the bridge, which made for a fantastic photo opportunity for all.

When I first saw the bridge, I instantly thought it was the bridge we all know from our beloved childhood song, "London Bridge is Falling Down."  It's actually not.  That bridge is actually the next bridge upstream (along the River Thames).   This bridge, however, is an iconic symbol of London and one of the most unique bridges I've ever seen (and I've seen tons of bridges in my lifetime!).

This picture of Vaiosina was taken from within the Tower of London grounds.

Vaiosina and I made the trip with some good friends--the Eichhorst/Eddy Family.  What great traveling companions!  There's no way I would have made it through this trip without them.

That same day, we rode a double-decker bus through the city.  Among many other things we saw, we were shown the roads that were designated as Olympic lanes--roads specifically laid aside (and shut down to the general public) for members of the Olympic Committee during the Games.  Considering the traffic we saw, it looks like it's going to be a rough time for drivers over the next month or so.

So, all over London, you can spot these one-eyed Olympic mascots.  We spent almost the whole time trying to figure out what they actually were.  We tossed around the idea that maybe they were Olympic flames with one eye, to symbolize one of the main attractions in London, called The Eye (essentially a big ferris wheel, which I'll tell you about later).  Yeah...no. 

They're actually two different one-eyed fellas--named Wenlock and Mandeville.  Apparently, they represent two drops of steel from a steelworks in the city of Bolton (wherever that is).  Wenlock is an English town that helped inspired the modern Olympic games; while Mandeville is the name of the hospital considered the birthplace of the Paralympic games.   Apparently, their eyes are cameras that allow them to record everything (weird?).  They wear "friendship bands" in the colors of the Olympic rings and taxi lights in the centers of their heads as a tribute to London's famous black cabs.

Depending on where you were in London, Wenlock/Mandeville are painted differently. We took a picture of one near the aquarium, so naturally it was painted blue with fish around it.  I thought they were so cute!

Also, we were lucky enough to get a picture with Wenlock, whose head is round but points at the top, like this:

And Mandeville, whose head has ridges like this.  Mandeville was just down the road from Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

These guys were just about everywhere in London--in the form of these statues and on t-shirts, signs, backpacks...you name it.

By the way, while we took pictures with these guys, Olympic athletes would just pop in and out trying to take pictures with them too.  We bumped into folks from Cuba and saw some other Olympians around the city too.

Now, I'm not following the games too closely.  I regret admitting that I didn't even get to watch the opening ceremonies.  It's really hard to do with a rambunctious toddler around, but I've watched some good stuff so far! Go USA!

I can't believe that four years has gone by already and it's another Olympic year.  I started this blog right around the time the last Olympic games started in Beijing (holy cow...2008!).  We were in Colorado Springs at the time and my sister-in-law was living with us and training for it.  She represented American Samoa in judo.  This really reminds me of the good times we had with her.  Funny...Malu was gone for training and getting ready to deploy then too.

Anyway, there's a little bit of London for ya.  It's really cool when they show London on TV and Vaiosina yells out "The Eye!" because she's been there and absolutely loved it.

Have a great week everyone!

Sneak Peek: London 2012

The good Lord blessed us with a safe and expeditious trip to London and back.  However, we are EXHAUSTED.  Actually, that word doesn't even cover it all.

Anyway, it'll take some time for me to go through the gazillion photos I took although, truth be told, I left my good camera at our "flat" (ha ha, I still love saying that!) on the first day of our trip (the same day we woke up super extra early just to get to the airport on time), ended up using my iPhone only to have it die not even an hour later.   Still, I have dozens of photos from yesterday and will rely on my marvelous travel companions for the remaining photos. 

Until then, you can enjoy this small sneak peek (which I posted to Facebook earlier tonight)...

I'll tell you guys all about it once I catch my breath (because it's back to the grind in the a.m.--ugh!).

All this craziness over London...one thing still remains...I miss Malu badly and so does his little princess.  We missed sharing this fabulous experience with you, babe!

Have a great day everyone!