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!

Just Us & A Perfect Weekend

On Saturday, we spent the day out and about...just the three of us.  Add beautiful, summer weather and the German outdoors and what do you get?  Perfection.

We've taken to riding our bikes a lot lately.  Our trip to Lake Constance really inspired us to dust off our bikes and get them out and running!  It's been awesome...although I'm still trying to get used to riding on the roads with traffic.  It can be scary at times, especially when you're the one toting the little one!

I think I've mentioned this several times before, but Germany's (and pretty much all of Europe) outdoors are just heavily laden with trails that people hike, bike, and run all year long.  As you ride the trails, especially on a beautiful day like that day was, you run into tons of people either hiking, walking their dogs, parents/grandparents walking their kids/grandkids, people picnicking and riding bikes.  Even more so, you run into biergartens along the way--restaurants with outdoor seating where people can take a break from the trail to enjoy a nice drink and/or meal. 

On our leisurely stroll through the woods and a mere 15-20 minutes from the post gate, we stumbled upon a biergarten that we had been to before with friends called the Katzenbacherhof.  The place has a ginormous playground that Sina loves (complete with slides, swings, and a sand box), a small restaurant, and just an overall relaxing atmosphere.  And thank goodness we ran into when we did--I was needing a break.  Those trails are quite hilly! 

Here are a few pictures...

Vaiosina absolutely enjoys being out on the trails--probably because she doesn't have to exert any energy!  She actually falls asleep from time to time.  What a lucky duck.  She couldn't get enough of the little sheep.  She kept singing the "Baa Baa Black Sheep" song to herself.  It was so cute.

 

The playgrounds here are just amazing.  I mean, we have cool playgrounds back in the states, but it just seems like the ones here are much more elaborate and more fun--even to us adults!  Coincidentally enough, a lot of the equipment at this particular park had U.S. Corps of Engineers engraved on them.  Why don't they have swings like this at home?

This is my favorite picture of Vaiosina from that day.  Love that smile!  She was clapping and asking for more!

This girl is quite fearless. Even more so when daddy is around and, of course, he encourages it.  Look at her go!

We enjoyed a great lunch!  Grilled steak, wurst and potato salad.  Yum!

Didn't I tell you she couldn't stay away from those sheep?  And there's me hauling precious cargo.  There's a lake along the trail; just minutes away from home.  Love it!

We spent the rest of the weekend doing much of the same.  We've really been lucking out with this gorgeous weather!  I hope it continues at least until Malu leaves (yup, the ugly deployment is rearing its nasty head).  

Hope everyone has a great week!

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!