Versailles....the land of Marie-Antoinette

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Wow, did this day start early for us. We got up at 3:30 am, had a taxi pick us up at 4:15 am so we could be at the Waterloo train station by 4:45 am for the 5:34 train to Paris. We slept pretty much all the way to Paris, we definitely needed as much sleep as we could get. We arrived in Paris around 9:30 am and immediately had a taxi take us from Gare du Nord to Gare St. Lazarre so we could catch a train to Versailles. We got to Versailles around 10:45 am and began walking around the Palace. I knew Versailles was big but had no idea that it was this big. I had been to other Palace's but none of them compared.

One of the most amazing things, I found, was that you could take pictures inside the Palace, I was floored. I had never been to a Palace, or Museum, or anywhere else touristy like this where you could take pictures. Now, I was doubly excited. (Oh, by the way, we were able to take pictures inside the Louvre as well). We walked through the Palace, visiting the Royal Chapel, the King's and Queen's Estates, and the Dauphin's Apartment. It all was fabulous, the most amazing room inside the Palace to me was the King's Hall of Mirrors. It was a very long hallway that was lined with mirrors and glass chandeliers, everything just glittered. Not only that but the windows and doors overlooked one of the gardens.


The Hall of Mirrors


After we spent over an hour inside it was time to head outside. I had been looking forward to seeing the gardens for so long. One of my favorite movies lately is Marie Antoinette, with Kirstin Dunst. I have watched that movie several times and made sure to watch it again before we left. That way I could tell where certain parts of the movie were filmed at. I love being able to visualize the movie as I am in that spot. I also had recently done a puzzle of Versailles and wanted to be able to take a picture from the same spot.


The Palace


View from the Palace


So it was not after noon and we began walking through the gardens. It was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen, or at least one of the most. There were so many flowers and fountains, just views you wouldn't believe. The ponds, gardens, canal, fountains, all looked just like they did in the movie and in my head. I was in absolute heaven. I got a lot of pictures of the Palace and the ponds up to the palace, and the fountains with the palace, and the ponds, going to the green, going out to the canal, the pictures that I had always wanted to take, I finally could. We even took time to look down on the Orangery.

We were getting a little hungry so we stopped at one of the cafes and grabbed some sandwiches and drinks and headed to the gardens to eat. We wanted to enjoy the gardens, rather than just eating in the cafe. Once done with our lunch we continued through the gardens. You can't really explain it but there are all of these little paths between the trees that just lead to fountains other hidden gardens, it's just amazing. We went to one area that was called Bosquet de la Colonnade. It was this circular structure that was nothing but huge marble pillars around a very large and ornate fountain. Just amazing.

We then decided to head down to see Marie Antoinette's estate area rather than walking through other parts of the garden. It had gotten a little chilly so we grabbed a Chocolate Chaud for the walk. Greg knew that I was looking forward to that so we wanted to make sure we squeezed it in and didn't run out of time. Our first stop was the Petit Trianon. Basically this was a mini Palace for Marie Antoinette to go to when she wanted to get away from the actual Palace. It looked like a mini version. We didn't get to see that many rooms but it was still impressive, I could live in a house that size. This too had it's own garden area that was amazing. It even had a structure called the Temple of Love which was a marble gazebo with a statue inside. There was a little river that ran around the gardens with cute bridges and such around. Also around the Petit Trianon were a Chapel, French Garden, French Pavilion, Queen's Theatre that she herself performed in, Rock, Belvedere (music parlor), Grotto, Orangery, and English Garden. Who couldn't live here. Rock was a stone formation that was hollow in the middle and had a waterfall that fell through it. It was peaceful.

We then left the Petit Trianon area to head to Petit hameau de la Reine (little hamlet of the queen), which is a mini village that Marie Antoinette had built. This is what I had been looking to most. It was such a cute village. The first building we arrived at was the Mill. I would say I loved this building but I loved all of them so you will get tired of hearing that. There was an actual mill wheel on the front of the building and had a curved staircase that went to one of the entrance ways with flowers all the way to the top. All of the buildings had thatched roofs. Then we passed by the Boudoir and the Queen's House. The Queen's House had a wooden spiral staircase on the outside that went up to the top floor. It too was exquisite. Here, we also walked through the gardens at the Queen's House and by the Billiard Room and Warming Room. The gardens contained flowers but also tomatoes, squash, eggplant (aubergine), cabbage, and so much more. Definitely a self-contained area.


The Lighthouse from the Petit hameau de la Reine

Next we walked by the Dovecote, Guard's House, and the cutest building, the Marlborough Tower. It was a small little building with what looked like a miniature lighthouse on the side, that was bright. All of these buildings surrounded a lake, complete with lily pads, swan, and carp.

We continued our journey on to the Farm where we saw the vineyard area and lots of farm animals, and 3 dogs. There was even a very large pot bellied pig that could barely lift his head, lots of donkey, sheep, goat, chickens, roosters, rabbits, and more. I liked the farm but liked the others parts of the hameau better.

Once we finished with the Petit Trianon it was on to the Grand Trianon. This is where Louis went when he wanted to get away from Versailles. It was very nice, much like the Palace, but still not as impressive as the hameau. The Grand Trianon too had its very own garden, complete with fountains.

It was now nearly 3 pm and we started to head back to the Palace so we could enjoy more of the gardens. Earlier in the day when we had come through, all of the fountains were off. When we arrived back all of the fountains were on. We walked by the canal, where rowers were out in the water, you could rent boats to go out by the half hour. We then went by the Bassin d'Apollon, this is the famous fountain with Apollo and his horses. Still stunning. We walked through the other side of the gardens on the way back to the palace so we could see more of the gardens. We saw the Bosquet de l'Encelade, an enormous circular area with a fountain of a giant that Jupiter punished by crushing him under these rocks in the fountain as well. His one finger was larger than me, I just don't see how these things were sculpted back then, it is just amazing.

Next we went to Bosquet des Domes, a circular fountain with marble statues around as well. We walked through other garden areas and fountain areas including the Bosquet du Dauphin, Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon, Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, Bassin de Neptune and Bassin du Dragon. Out of these the Bosquet des Baines d'Apollon was the most impressive. It was set back in a hill and was more of a waterfall than a typical fountain. It was all carved marble and was so peaceful. It was set on this big open grass area so you could just sit there for hours, looking at the detail on the statues, and listening to the water. It was very peaceful.


Bosquet des Baines d'Apollon

It was nearing 5 pm and we decided it was time to head back to Paris so we left Versailles and headed to the train station.

Paris, the City of ... Bikes?

Since we left Versailles a little earlier than we planned, we decided that we had time to try and go to our hotel before we hooked up with the bicycle tour that we had planned for that night. We decided to take the RER C train over to Notre Dame and walk down to our hotel. Well, this took a bit longer than we expected, so when we got off the train, we were pretty close on time. Plus, we weren't 100% sure where the hotel actually was, so we wandered to the closest area that we knew, then asked around. It turns out that we were pretty close. We got to our hotel, the Hotel Du Globe. We had the front desk call us a cab while we ditched our luggage in the room and ran next door to see about something to drink and maybe some supper (it's a 4 hour trip and no stops for supper, so you were supposed to eat before.) The meeting point was at the South Pillar of the Eiffel Tower. We got there with 10 minutes to spare and met up with the guide. He said that they normally wait around a little extra, so we ran over to one of the stands and split a jambon au fromage baguette (it was just a ham and cheese sandwich, it just sounds a whole lot fancier in French, don't you think?)


Tami and me getting ready to ride out


While we were waiting, one of the other tourists asked if we had been to Georgia. Since it was Game Day, I had worn one of my UGA shirts to show solidarity. I also thought it would be fun to see if anyone commented on it, but imagine my shock that the only person who did was from Australia. While we waited, we talked with her a little more. It turns out that she had a friend who played basketball for UGA and had visited Athens awhile back. She was taking 6 months to tour the world with four other friends and had been to many different places, including going back to Athens. It was interesting to hear about everywhere that she had been and get some tips of good places to go in Europe. Also, we could tell our tour guide was from the States and it turns out that he was from Madison, Wisconsin.

Anyway, we walked over to the HQ of Fat Tire Bike Tours and got our bikes. We then took a 20 minute ride over to Notre Dame, passing through the Latin Quarter. We stopped at Notre Dame for pictures and to hear a little bit about it. After that, we went across the bridge and had ice cream from a little place that makes their own daily and is only available on the one island. While we finished our ice cream, we got a little more history of Paris as well as interesting stories about the current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë. The most interesting was that during a big party at the Hotel de Ville which was open to everyone, he was stabbed while mingling with the crowd. Before he was taken to the hospital, he insisted that the party should continue since it was in honor of the people of France. That takes class.


Tami and me at Notre Dame


Riding at night.... and those are reflective vests, we weren't really lit up like Christmas trees.

We hit the road again and went by Conciergerie, which is where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned for 72 days before she was executed. We heard a lot of fascinating stuff about that before we headed over to the Pont des Arts, which is the bridge that connects the Academie Française and the Louvre across the Seine River. It is a really nice wooden planked, wrought iron, pedestrian bridge where a scene from the last episode of Sex and the City was filmed. It's a popular spot with students for picnics and there were many out there when we passed by, we had to walk the bikes across to make sure we didn't run into people. Then we got to the coolest part of the tour where we got to ride around the courtyard of the Louvre, we even did laps around the big fountain. It was really nice seeing everything lit up and fun to ride around in the area seeing everything.


Tami and me at the Louvre

Then we headed up to the Place de la Concorde, which is where many people, including Marie Antoinette, were executed. Now it is a really beautiful area with a large obelisk in the center. We then went up closer to the Eiffel Tower and parked the bikes to get onto the boat for our evening cruise up the Seine river. The boating company that we were on was called the Bateaux Mouches, and our bike group all sat together. The tour included wine, so we all had a toast. The area we were sitting in wasn't too great, so our guide suggested that we move towards the front of the boat and a few of us did. We were smart and stayed close to our Tour Guide, Adam since he had the bottles of wine. We were glad we did though because we got to talk with him and with a couple of people on the tour who were very interesting. One was the Aussie who knew about UGA, whose name was Jacqui. Another girl, Holly, was originally from Australia also, but was now living in London. Holly's father, Jim, was there also and he lived in Australia, but was originally from Rhode Island. We hung out with them, drank a lot of wine and saw the sights. This tour went further down the river than the one we had taken back in February, so we were able to see the Mini Me Statue of Liberty. We even got a "Full Monty" routine and mooned a couple of times by some guys hanging out on the side of the river (don't worry, we didn't take any pictures, so this blog will stay PG... or at least PG 13.)


The Place de la Concorde - which shows the obelisk and has the Eiffel Tower in the background.

When we got back, we collected the bikes and rode back to the Fat Tires Bike Tours Office to return the bikes. We hung out at the office for a little while and talked to one of the guys in the office who was from Texas and was an Aggies fan, so Tami bonded with him. It turns out, the whole operation is run out of Austin Texas and is setup specifically for English speaking tourists. Most of the tour guides are from the US, mostly from Texas.

We ended up going out with Jacqui and Adam for drinks afterwards and ended up meeting up with a few other of Adam's fellow tour guides at an Irish pub that was fairly close to our hotel. We ended up leaving around 2:20 am to head over to our hotel, which was about 10 minutes away. By this point, we had been going since 3:30am, so we were exhausted. It was not hard to get to sleep that night.

Louvre it or leave it

Sunday September 2, 2007


We had good intentions to get up at 6am and head over to Sacre Couer before the Louvre opened at 9am. However, our original plans didn't include hanging out at a pub until 2:30am. As you can imagine, we set the alarm for later... 7am. At 7, we decided that wasn't enough, so we went back to sleep with an 8am alarm. At 8, we push it back to 8:30. At 8:30, we felt like we couldn't push it back anymore since we had a full day, so went ahead and got up to get ready.

Part of the reason that we had chosen our hotel was that it was in walking distance of the Louvre. So we checked out of the hotel and made our way over. We ending up stopping at a little cafe for breakfast which ended up being a German cafe. They still served French food so we ended up with a chocolate banana crepe and a fromage baguette.

Part of the reason that we had planned to go to the Louvre on Sunday was that it was free on the first Sunday of every month. That was also the reason that we had planned to get there early since we expected it to be packed. We were a little apprehensive as we walked up to the entrance, but we shouldn't have worried. There was a small line, but it was moving quickly since people didn't have to buy tickets, they just had to get through security. Once inside, we got started and there sure was a lot to see.

The Louvre is a huge museum that houses tons of art. And it is huge, you could easily spend several days here looking at everything. We knew that there was a limit to the amount of art we could take in a day, so we did a little research before we started out and staked out the highlights that we wanted to see. We of course did a lot of the more famous pieces such as the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa (which was much smaller than I expected.) We really enjoyed a lot of the marble statues, particularly the Italian and French ones. The Sphinx was a really impressive site to see and we also liked seeing the Medieval Moat that is on the Lower Ground Floor which is all that remains of the original palace that was located there.


Venus de Milo



Mona Lisa


The Sphinx


Cupid and Psyche

We did take a break in the middle of our tour to have tea at a little cafe on the first floor that overlooked the entrance of the Louvre. It was nice to relax and watch the people go by and to enjoy the architecture of the actual building since it is really impressive by itself. We were glad that we got there when we did because they appeared to quit letting people in for awhile.


View of the crowds from the cafe

After we had hit a lot of the highlights and things that really interested us, we figured we would grab a quick bite and head over to the Musee Rodin. We went to the shopping center next door and grabbed a quick pizza before heading out.

An American Ware Dog in London - Part 2

Sunday August 26 2007

Today was rather uneventful. We didn't have any real plans, so figured we would try and take Willow out to Regent's Park and see how she would do. Willow rode on the bus again and did good. She made several friends on the bus since she would stare at people until they finally started petting her.

We got to the park and tried to play with Stumpy, her yellow ball. We would throw it, she would run over to it, and promptly forget it as she saw something else that would interest her. I would then go over to the ball and try to throw it. It was some weird reverse game of fetch.

Since she wasn't that interested in fetch, we just walked around. She did pretty good, although she barked at several dogs that she saw which didn't make us happy, but I guess she'll learn.








We didn't stay very long since Willow doesn't have as much energy as Daisy Adair, but she seemed to have a good time, so we were glad to take her. After that, we took Willow back to the flat and then headed into town to run some errands. Then we just came back and spent some time with all of the dogs.

Steel Bands from Outer Space

Saturday, August 25, 2007

It was a very pleasant, warm Saturday in London. Nothing major planned but we did have a few things that we wanted to do. We got up early and headed toward Notting Hill I had always wanted to go there but never had the chance in February, so finally we were going. This was the weekend of the Notting Hill Carnivale that is held once a year. It is a big Caribbean festival that had more than 1.5 million people from around the world visit last year. While the big party is not until Monday, the bank holiday, we were still looking forward to going on Saturday.

We walked down Portobello Road looking at all the street vendors at the Portobello Market. This is a huge market that is held every weekend in Notting Hill, and with the Carnivale going on it was especially big, the streets were so crowded you could barely move through them. We had been there for about an hour and half and decided we were starved, cereal doesn't stick with you long when you are walking a lot.

Here is a shot down Portobello Road at the beginning of the market


We had lunch at a New Zealand hamburger joint that we had been wanting to go to, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, yummy!!! They had over 30 different burgers to choose from, mostly hamburger and chicken, but lots of different toppings. Their oddest burger was called the Kiwi Burger and had egg, pineapple, beetroot, cheese, and relish atop a burger, not my style. While their burgers were great, their chips (french fries) were to die for. With our system refueled it was back to the market and the task at hand, shopping. Not really, we bought some tomatoes, cucumber, and a brownie, that was about it. But it was a lot of fun looking.

We also stopped in at The Travel Bookstore, this is the store that inspired the book store in the movie Notting Hill. It was a cute bookstore, with tons of travel guides to all over the world. We got our Scotland Top 10 book there, since we are going in 3 weeks.

The Travel Bookstore sign


After a few hours we decided it was time to head down to Hyde Park. This is where the steel bands were going to be playing and competing, the beginning of the actual Notting Hill Carnivale. We got there early, so we sat and had our brownie and rested a little bit, we were flat exhausted. Once we were ready we walked around and listened to several of the bands, got some videos and pictures, and walked around the park a little more. Both of us had a headache so we headed back to our flat a little earlier than planned.

A Close up of one of the steel drum players



An overall picture of one of the large steel drum groups




A beautiful bridge in the lake in Hyde Park



The rest of the night was very uneventful, watching tv, and just sitting around.

Sunday August 19, 2007

Sunday morning we decided to sleep in a little later and get caught up on our sleep. When we did get up, we finished painting our bedroom and had some paint left over, so started on the living room. Once we finished with that, we decided we would head into a different area of town which seemed to specialize in electronics and furniture.

We were able to find a lot of things that we were looking for, some necessary (cookware) and some more for fun (Tami got some scrapbooking stuff to keep up with our adventures in London.) We think we found a futon that we like that's cheap, but comfortable, so will probably go back later this week to get it.

We eventually made our way over to the Globe Theatre by way of tube and lots of walking, so we were getting pretty tired. We had tickets to see Othello at the Globe at 6:30 and had some time to kill, so we went to the pub at the Theatre and had beer (for me) and wine (for Tami) as well as a Ploughman's platter. The platter was good and had tons of food. Lots of cheese, an apple, a tomato, celery, apple chutney and lots of really soft bread. It was a perfect light supper.

If you don't know, the Globe Theatre is a replica of the original Globe theatre where many of Shakespeare's plays were originally performed.


The outside of the theatre


banner advertising Othello

One of the interesting things about the Globe Theatre is that it is an open theatre. Also, they sell standing room tickets in front of the stage, so if it starts raining, you better have a poncho or you're going to get wet. When we bought tickets, we weren't sure how comfortable standing would be, so we sprung for some of the seats. Boy was I glad we did, after all of the walking we did, our feet wouldn't have been able to stand it. Also, it did in fact rain during the performance, so I'm sure we would have been miserable.


The inside of the theatre

The show was very good, although we had no idea how long it was going to be. It was around 10:30 before we left for home (4 hours long). It was the last night of the play, so the director came out and thanked all of the cast and crew. The guy who played Othello (Eamonn Walker) was great, Tami actually recognized him from ER. He played one of the doctors during the Africa plot line, he was in several episodes. He also was in 44 episodes of Oz playing Kareem Said.


The cast taking their bows


more of the cast on the balcony

After that, we jumped on the tube and headed back to our flat. The dogs were very glad to see us.

Let the painting begin

Wanted to try to give you some pictures of why we are painting the flat. These pictures were taken in our room, the room with the biggest need of a paint job.

The first picture is what the walls looked like before. You can't tell too much the walls are a lavender-bluish color with darker purple/bluish dots everywhere. Not really sure what the dots are, don't really want to know



The second picture is the comparison of the old wall color and the new wall color.



The third picture is what the walls look like newly painted. You won't really be able to tell but the color is actually pretty close to the green from the house's living room. It looks so much better, you couldn't even imagine.

Orlando is in full Bloom!

Saturday August 18, 2007

Today was a great day. We started early and went to the Borough Market, to walk around and grab some breakfast. Greg grabbed a coffee from Monmouth Coffee that he had been reading so much about, I grabbed a hot chocolate from a patisserie next door and then we grabbed a croissant and pain au chocolate from one of the vendors set up at the Borough Market. We walked for a while and saw so much wonderful looking food, olives, cheese, bread, produce, mushrooms, tea, etc. We did stop at a few vendors and try what they had to offer.

One of the fish vendors at Borough Market, they had a shark with a fish in its mouth:


We originally had planned to have lunch at a sushi place but were not hungry enough so instead we had tea at the Shipp's Tearoom and then off to Neal's Yard Dairy where we tried (and bought) numerous cheeses.

Here is one of the walls of cheese in Neal's Yard Dairy


Our tea at Shipp's Tearoom


Then we were off to Leicester Square, where we had tickets to see In Celebration, starring Orlando Bloom. We were going to kill time before the play and shop but as we were walking past the theater we noticed a group of people standing around. We realized they were waiting on Orlando to arrive, so we decided to wait with them. Greg was fine with this because it meant less shopping for me, and no complaining about it. We waited for nearly 30 minutes when he arrived, he did not have time to sign any autographs but we got a couple pictures in and then set off to a travel bookstore that we really like and bought a couple of books. We then stopped in for a quick bite to eat before the play. One thing I did like was when Orlando arrived, out of the car jumped his big black dog, I thought it was really cool that he brings his dog with him to his plays.

The play was in the Duke of York's theatre, which is very small but very nice. We really liked the play, it was not a big production, like broadway or anything but it reminded us of our days of taking acting classes and auditioning. This was Orlando Bloom's first stage performance, I had no idea. I assumed he was a trained stage actor who turned to films but that was not the case. After the play ended we went back out side and waited for him to come out to sign autographs. We got some great photos in and I even got his autograph. He did not give out a whole lot so I was very pleased.

Here is a wonderful picture of Orlando, as he is signing my program:


Orlando's dog:


Afterwards, we headed down the street to see The Bourne Ultimatum. It was a great movie, lots of scenes in London and Paris, so we could say we knew exactly where those scenes had taken place. The theater that we went to was really awesome. It was not like a regular move theater. When you buy tickets you get assigned seats. There were 3 levels, just like a play, and there was even an actual stage and curtain that the movie screen was behind. All in all it was a really good experience. Cost a little more than a regular movie, so we won't do that a lot, but it was a good treat.

Then it was off to finding some food, we hadn't eaten an actual meal all day, just snacks and stuff mostly, so it was nice to sit down and eat real food. We went to Pizza Express, which is a very well-known restaurant here but is highly recommended in all of the magazines and books that we have. We were eating our pizza, and realized that everyone else was eating with a fork and knife, so we had to be more civilized than the American culture trained us for. Oh well, it was a very nice pizza restaurant that we would definitely go back to. We caught a bus and headed home, got back around 10 pm, I think the dogs were very happy to see us.


Disclaimer: Greg wants everyone to know that he had nothing to do with the title of this blog or the opinions expressed in the section about the actor.

It's Done!!!!!!

I (Tami) have finished my puzzle of Versailles......woo hoo, only 2 weeks until we go to Paris.

Okay, so enough kididng. The real news is that our house is sold and GONE!!!!
Yeah, no more mortgage. So we did what any other good Brit would do and celebrated at a pub.

The other news of today, Friday, is that we have finally started painting our flat, starting with our bedroom.

We will have pics of the before and after of some of the bedroom and we will have some more interesting news after the weekend is over, it will be jam-packed. Stay tuned..........

An American Ware dog in London

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Today was a beautiful day so we decided to head to Regent's Park. it is about 3 miles up the road, but we can take a bus and cut off half the distance. We thought we would try one of the dogs at the park to see how it went before we made the big trip with 2 or 3 dogs all at once. We took Daisy Adair with us, it was her first bus ride. She did extremely well.

We walked around the park for quite a long time, we stopped and had coffee and pastries for breakfast. We continued on walking and came to a restaurant next to the lake, in which they have boats for rent. We grabbed a pizza to take with us for later, when we decided to picnic.

We walked through more of the park including soccer fields, softball fields, cricket pitches, over bridges and water and on and on. We even got to walk over a bridge that went next to the zoo. We did not go to the zoo, since we had Daisy Adair with us but we did stop for a moment on the bridge to see the hyenas (huger than I have ever seen before) and a couple large warthogs. It was just a great view down the river also, didn't think it could get any better.

Here are a couple of pictures of Regent's Park





Then, we walked across the street to Primrose Hill. We again walked past lots of green space and up to the top of the Hill and I found my most favorite place ever, I think.

One of my favorite movies is The Wedding Date. In the movie there is a scene where a group of them are out playing ball (I think it is the British version of Softball). In the scene they show a shot of London, where you can see the London Eye, and so many other buildings. We have been searching for a very long time to find out where this scene takes place and could never find anything out. Well, low and behold, this is the magical spot. The most amazing views from up here can be seen, you can see so much of London. We decided THIS was our picnic spot. We put down our blanket, ate our pizza, and had a little fun with Daisy Adair. It was now after 1 pm, we had been out for well over 3 hours and decided to head back, but not before some more pictures, of course.

The view from Primrose Hill:




Daisy Adair on Primrose Hill:




Daisy Adair cutting loose:



We headed back, Daisy Adair even made a friend along the way. Once we got back to the flat we made a grocery list, went to the store, and came back to settle in for the evening. We walked at least 5 miles and we were all three exhausted.

Next weekend should be an exciting weekend, keep posted.

24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?

Today we got off to a late start. The dogs woke us up at 6:30am to be taken out, so after we brought them back in, we went back to sleep.


Daisy Adair vigilantly watching outside

We ended up sleeping until 10:00am which totally shocked us, but we were nice and rested for the day. We ended up taking the tube out to Earl's Court, grabbing some pasta and spectacular garlic bread at Zizzi and going to the British Beer Festival.



We had a lot of fun and I tried a few really great beers. Unfortunately, I was on call and couldn't try too many, but all of the ones that I tried were really good. Tami tried a few ciders and perries, but all of them were pretty bad, so it was pretty much a bust for her. She had fun anyway though.


Tami with her (bad) cider


inside the beer festival

Since we couldn't drink until they closed down, we decided to head over to Covent Garden to hang out a bit. Once we made it over there, we immediately headed for a place with ice cream to try and cool down. After that, we walked around the shops and looked and watched some of the street performers.


Covent Gardens

It was quite busy, and we ended up walking up and down a bunch of the side streets as well to check everything out. We finally ended up at a restaurant called Wahaca for supper. It was new, had only been opened for two weeks. The portions were fairly small in an order, almost like Mexican tapas, so we ended up splitting chicken tacos, frijoles tostados and chorizo and potato quesadillas. It was very good, although it was no Frontera or Cinco. We still need to find us a good tex/mex place here for a taste of home.

Since we were full, we walked down the Leicester Square to look around and to see about tickets for "In Celebration", the play that is starring Orlando Bloom. We got tickets for next weekend, which is funny since next weekend is also when we are going to see Othello at the Globe Theatre. Guess we're going for a theme next weekend.

After that, we grabbed some coffee and hot chocolate and caught a bus back home so that we could see about the puppies. They were glad see us, so we ended up taking them on a nice long walk around the neighborhood.

The search is over

Sunday turned out to be nice and relaxing. We woke up and walked into town to put money onto the card for electricity. We found a place pretty quickly, grabbed some breakfast at a little cafe while we were down there, and came back. Once we put the card into the breaker, everything started working again. We then decided that we wanted a relaxing day, and decided to have a picnic in Kensington Gardens. We took a few things from the flat and decided we would get the rest at the new Whole Foods that is right outside of the park.

We wandered around Whole Foods for awhile. This took longer than we thought since it was quite large. However, while we were there, SUCCESS! We had finally found it. Ever since we went to New Zealand In Dec 2005, we had been searching for one of the wines that we really really enjoyed, but hadn't been able to find it. The winery was called Mud House, and their Pinot Noir was excellent. However, we had finally found it. We bought a couple of bottles and plan to drink it Monday evening to see if it's still good :)



After that, we grabbed a few more things and headed over to Kensington Gardens where we had a nice picnic, played cards and did some people watching. The weather was excellent, mid 0's and sunny and we had a great day. About 3:30, we decided to head over to the Orangery and have a proper afternoon tea, which we enjoyed very much as well.


Our little picnic


The Park






Some pics of the Gardens... much prettier in the summer than they were when we saw them in Feb.

Since we were stuffed, we decided to head back home. After we got off the tube station, we decided to walk around instead since we saw a bunch of people. We followed the crowds and saw that they were having a large outdoor market going on there (which apparently they have every weekend.) We walked around for awhile and had a good time looking around. However, we were ready to get home, so we didn't stay too long. We plan to go back another weekend when we can spend some more time.