Arrival in US france

After flying out of Bristol England we arrived at Charles de Gaul airport in Paris. A very nice city bus took us all the way to Cergy where we were met by our friend Claire at the station. To our 16 year old niece's delight we were staying with the Lecut family with two daughters ages 16 and 13. We arrived around 8:30pm and had a very nice dinner with lemon chicken and excellent food.

The next morning we took a nice tour of their village. A picturesque stream runs though the town. In fact all of the small towns we passed were beautiful French small towns fitting my image of what a small town in the French countryside should be.

This old mill (complete with waterwheel) is now open as a restaraunt.

We all enjoyed fresh croissants, bagettes, cheese, and egg on the patio. The weather is very nice.

Visiting Exeter

Exeter contained a few old homes that were every interesting to us. We also visited the local cathedral.

No. Our children are not in a gap between two houses or simply a small alleyway. This is in fact the smallest street in the world. Nobody knew for sure what the criteria was that made this a street other than the fact that it has a plaque stating that it was the smallest street in the world. Humm.. I KNOW that matchbox cars drive on MUCH smaller streets. ;-)

Steve sat down at the table and declared himself "A rose between two thorns!"
(You can judge for yourself)

Once again we really enjoyed Mandy and Steve. And this time got to meet and enjoy their extended family. Our stay with them was certainly the most enjoyable and relaxed part of our trip to England.

Members of the crowd could jump in and compete in
the 800m roller race.

They managed to arrange to do everything I mentioned in passing. A trip to a local church and a farmers market. They even managed to arrange the British cycling tour series for the day that we visited Exeter. You would not believe the number of activities going on or the number of people in the streets and this was on a Thursday night!

While very excited to be heading to France we were sad to be leaving Mandy and Steve after just such a short visit. I am sure that we will see them again.

Thorverton and one quick stop along the way

We took the metro from our hostel to Heathrow (Easy), and a shuttle from there to the Hertz dealer (Easy Easy) and picked up our rental car ( 1 hour+ (a bit like Mexico)), and then drove out of London towards Exeter (way less than easy. Actually, downright stressful). We didn't actually have any problems, just some stressful driving, wrong turns and several short but quickly resolved panics.

We did manage to happen across this old ring of rocks stuck out in a field.. (I wonder if we could be the first to notice it? Tickets were 6 quid each, so perhaps not!)

The area around Thorverton is really spectacular rural England. The type of area you would visualize when you think of rural England. Quaint, beautiful, charming are all appropriate adjectives. Our friends Mandy and Steve greeted us with such a welcome including all of their extended family. It was very nice. We had been quite happy with our clean comfortable hostel in London but it was SO much nicer to be invited into their welcoming household. After eating a huge family potluck style meal at their house we walked the 200 yard distance down to the local pub.

Talk about what a British pub should be! Just an awesome place. Lots of old antiques on the walls and hanging about. Lots of great beer on draw. We really enjoyed ourselves.

Our children and Steve and Dave all shot a few games of darts together. I'm afraid that our daughter may have added some to the character of the place with some of her shots!

Ginger's Birthday (in London)

We went by Buckingham palace about the time of the changing of the guards. Since we were there anyway we thought that we might as well watch. It turns out that it was actually cancelled in lieu of parade practice for the Queen's birthday. Since today was not the Queen's birthday we concluded that today's parade was in fact in celebration of Ginger's birthday.

The once proud Lions of Trafagar Square are often saddled with young children.

We took a tour of the Globe theater in the afternoon. The set for the evenings play was very simple and we got to see almost all of it being built while we listened to the tour.

We had a very nice dinner at the Swan Restaurant by the Globe theater. A bit pricey but at least the quality of the food matched the cost. The performance of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors was really excellent. Aspects of it were updated and the children all really enjoyed the physical humor and much of the dialogue. They made up 3 of about 6 children in the entire 1500 person theater. Anyway, a really great day in London.

Whitehall, Westminster, and the Tower

Apparently the "egg" in London is smaller than I remember.
Our daughter picked it up as we were passing by. :-0

We were up out and about by an early 11:30 today. We grabbed some breakfast to go at the local grocery and had our breakfast in the gardens at Whitehall off of the embankment stop. Under the bridge a large troupe was playing percussion. Very good very loudly. The Garden was far enough away from the stop to make the noise pleasant. From there we headed over to Parliament and Westminster Abby.

The Beefeater's at the tower of London go through a near impossible
selection process to obtain their jobs

We headed over to the tower of London around 3. The tour is only one hour and has been consistently excellent both times we have taken it.

The tower bridge is pretty cool. We haven't been up in it yet. (Maybe tomorrow.) The Parliament building was closed today for the bank holiday. Laurel worked at a local wifi hotspot while we discovered that the Parliament building was closed and tour Westminster Abby.

Big Ben is Awesome. Our timing today was such that we got to hear it only on the half hour. If only there was another clock somewhere in the world that emulated the same chime I could know what it sounds like. ;-)

We finished the day out with dinner on Southwalk and hanging out at the youth hostel bar playing board games and catching up on the computer.

Off to London!

It was a LONG day today. Many thanks to Lydia for helping us get it started off right. We had good relatively stress free flights from Phoenix to Newark on Continental and from Newark to London Heathrow on British airways. But not much sleep.

Just another day at the office.

We arrived at 6:30am in London very tired and unable to check into our hotel room until 2pm. We made the best of it with a trip to Madam Tussuad's Wax museum. It was OK, fairly expensive and was SO overfilled with tourists that it was not enjoyable for me. However it did manage to kill some time until our very tired crew could go back to the hostel and nap.

An otherwise enjoyable walk in the park can feel like a death march

when all you want to do is rest.

Next we walked down to Hyde park (basically a big unkept grassy field in the middle of the city. We walked across Hyde Park to Kennsington gardens and palace. All very nice but we were all quite at and end and Lindsey was a trooper but fraying around the edges even faster than the rest of us. We took a tour of Kennsington palace, had a lunch/breakfast/dinner (who knows what time zone we are physically in?) and then gratefully retired to our room!

Packing and more packing

We head to Europe 2 weeks from today. We will be continuously traveling for just over 2 months. Getting all of our gear to fit in our tiny carryon suitcases has become somewhat of a puzzle. If I pack all the electronics and books that I think would be useful I'm left with enough room for a pair of shorts 2 pair underwear and 1/2 a Tshirt.

Still lots to do. Getting services suspended at home. Shutting down the house and reconfirming with all the people we will be visiting. I'm still hoping to track down some distant relatives in Bratislava.


-- Posted From My iPhone