The night the lights went out in London

Friday - 3 August 2007

Today we went to Ikea, again, to purchase some more furniture. It's great, we now have a dining room table, chairs, desk chairs, clothes drying rack, and more. It is starting to feel more and more like a home. We are still waiting on our paint allowance so we can paint the walls and waiting on them to come by and fix the bathroom but it feels much better than it did.

The cutest thing we bought were 3 dog butts, in various colors. They are actually hangers for their leashes.


Saturday - 4 August 2007

Today was our first real touristy day. We got up early and headed to Buckingham Palace before they opened at 9:45 am. We got our tickets and were able to see the Mews (stables and carriages), the Royal Gallery, and 19 State Rooms. The rooms are only opened for 2 months out of the year so we really took advantage. You could only take pictures at the Mews and while in the gardens of the Palace. It was so beautiful, I wish I could have taken pictures but my batteries died and I hadn't bought more since we arrived. Oh well, there are at least a few. We will be able to go back as much as we want for the next year at no additional charge, so I will get more pictures later.

We couldn't believe the number of carriages that they had, they use one for it seems every different purpose, from weddings, to funerals, to public appearances, etc. They even had the carriage that was used in the 1800's. It was massive and so much gold on it. The sculptures and paintings on the side as well were very impressive.



We spent about an hour at the Mews and then headed to the Royal Gallery where we saw hundreds of Italian paintings and drawings that were held in the Royal family. It was kind of like being at the High Museum.

We spent over an hour there and headed to see the State Rooms. Oh My God!!!!! I thought Biltmore Estates was big, it is nothing compared to Buckingham Palace. I think the entire Biltmore could have fit into 2 or 3 rooms of the Palace. We got to see 19 rooms and that wasn't even 1/4 the size of the Palace. There was just so much gold and huge paintings and just so much there, it was amazing. They did even have a section that was nothing but the Queens wedding memorabilia, like her dress, bridesmaids dresses, gifts, crowns, etc. That was really neat to see as well. She was so young and beautiful, a blushing bride.

Once we got done at the Palace we headed to Kensington Gardens so we could have afternoon tea. We sat down and when the waitress came over we asked her about tea and we were actually too early. We didn't want to wait for it to begin, in 20 minutes, so we just ordered a scone and some tea and left. It was good but I was a little disappointed. Oh well, another day.

We then decided to head down to the Borough Market to see if it was still open. It was, but barely, most shops were closing up. We walked around and decided we definitely were going to come back and spend the day. So much fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, wine, beer, meat, sandwiches, etc. So much shopping as well. We walked over and got tickets to see Othello at the Shakespeare's Globe theater for August 19th (I know my dad will love that I am doing that on his birthday) and then headed back toward the Borough and had a few drinks at the Anchor pub.


Well, they were filming a movie or tv show or something so we got some beer (mine was Smirnoff, made with Vodka not a malt beverage like in the states) and sat at the waters edge and watched. We did get some photos of the guy jumping off the bridge, that was the scene they were filming. It was really nice weather and we had fun just sitting there and enjoying the scenery.

The first picture here is the guy on the bridge, and then you can see the film crew in the water. The second picture is him right after he actually jumped. If you notice in the first picture there is a semi with a bunch of beer kegs on it. He was supposed to be running from this when he jumps off the bridge.




We then decided we needed to get back to the puppies, since they had been up all day. We grabbed some supper to take back home from Wagamama (yummy noodles). We got home, took the dogs out, eat and started to watch Bourne Identity, when the power went out.

Well, let me tell you how happy we were about that. We have been trying to get the power turned over to our name for a week now. The agency told us that this company handles the power. We call them and they tell us it someone else, then they tell us it is yet someone else. It has been very aggravating, we have even left messages for the rental agency to call us and help us out.

We were going to call the company whom we think handles the power and our cell phone has no more money on it. Uggghhhh!! This pre-pay thing is really crappy at this point. First the cell phone, then the gas, I am already tired of it. It is now almost 10 pm and we have to find a store open so we can put more minutes on our phone, that wasn't hard, yeah! So, we call the power company, they tell us that they would not just turn the power off without any warning. They also tell us that it is probably just a blown fuse and we need to get a new fuse. Well, we don't have a flash light. We go back to the store that we topped our cell phone up at and find a flash light, well they only take cash and we only have 2.75 so we find a keychain flashing for 1 pound that comes with a battery and buy it, oh well, better than nothing. We get back to the flat, find the fuse box, call the power company back, because tripping the box did not work, and find out that we are on no other than PRE-PAY power as well. I really don't think I like this pre-pay thing.

I think it will get better now that we know what to expect. So, continuing on. It is now 11 pm and we don't have a clue who can top up the power card. We decide, we mine as well just go to sleep and get up and do it Sunday morning. Which we did, and now all is well.

See tomorrow for Sunday's blog post...

Guess what's pink!!!!

Nope, it's not Tami's hair. It's her night stand. We bought our first piece of furniture and it is pink. Greg is so thrilled, he can hardly contain himself.

When we got our flat it already had a wardrobe and 1 nightstand in the bedroom. The night stand has green drawers. Today we went to town to Greg's hair cut and the store next door had a similar night stand with pink drawers. I needed a night stand, so I got it. It was cheap also.


Greg went to an actual barber to get his hair cut. We were a little worried at first but he was really good. He was quick and surprisingly accurate in what we asked for. Greg was a little leery when he pulled out a straight razor and a flame on his ears. Very odd. It doesn't look exactly like Greg normally has but it looks pretty good, and it does look like the picture on the wall that I pointed to.

The place was immaculate and looked very new, another bonus.


Not much else to update on, all is going well, waiting on repairs still but at least we have word that it is going to be done. We are going to be given a budget as well to repaint so we are looking forward to that. They are going to repair the bathroom and the locks. Yeah!

We should have more after this weekend, we are going to get out and about London, and do some fun, touristy things.

T & G

.....and now for the rest of the story

What a whirlwind this first week has been, let me give you some of the low down

We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, around noon London time. We got through immigration smoothly and got a rental car with no problem. We decided with 5 suitcases, 4 bags, 3 dogs, and 3 dog crates that it would just be easier. We then proceeded to the cargo area to pick up the dogs. For those of you who don't know how much trouble we had getting the dogs across with our vet, that is a whole other story in itself. So, anyways, of course there were problems. Not the problems that we had anticipated. No, originally Dr. Sokol had given us medication to give to the dogs before we left (for ticks and tape worms). After some further research we found that she had to give them the drugs, after a long hassle we got her to give the meds. Well, she never changed the paperwork. So the UK had to get in touch with her to have her fix the papers. The UK girl said our vet is very "cheeky", meaning a smart ass. Not good at all. We had to wait at the cargo area for 4 hours before the dogs could leave, which meant we had to pay a penalty for them being there more than the allotted 3 hours. At least they were able to come home with us and not have to spend the night there.

It took as over 3 hours to get our keys and find out flat but we finally did, and now it was closing in on 9 pm. We were not at all happy with the place, didn't feel safe at all. So Wednesday morning we got up to go to the leasing agents office. We still had the rental car, since it was past 6 pm the night before, so we decided to return the car today. Well, of course we had a parking ticket, another thing gone wrong so far. Greg dropped me off at the leasing agents office to get started with them so he could get the rental car returned by 11 am. Well, I sat in Paul's office and cried alot, explaining how we did not feel safe and such. He listened, we discussed, we saw some properties, etc. In the mean time it took Greg until nearly 1 pm before he returned, at least he did. We saw a property that we really like, newly refurbished but only 1 bedroom. It was now after 6 pm before we made it back to the flat, and we were physically and mentally exhausted.

We waited around most of the day on Thursday, Paul finally got in touch with us and picked us up from the flat at 5 pm, to take us and the dogs to meet the landlords. They were really nice and there only concern was the noise the dogs might make. We really wanted this new place.

However, on Friday morning when we left to run errands the dogs were going crazy, barking and crying. So, we talked about it and felt a lot more comfortable at the original flat so we decided that we didn't want to lie to the new landlords and would just stay at our original flat. It is not the best and there is some work to be done but all in all we felt like we made the right decision. There are dogs all around us along with loud kids so we don't feel badly at all about the barking and crying, plus it is bigger and closer in.

Let me take the time to mention now that since we arrived on Tuesday, we have not had a shower head at all, therefore we could not take a shower. They kept telling us that they were going to get that repaired. So, finally at 6 pm on Friday, our property manager, told us that we needed to just go buy a new one and he would reimburse us, this is of course after all of the stores are closed.

Saturday morning we got up and headed out to find a shower head. We walked and walked and walked, at least 2 or 3 miles. Could not find a place with a shower head, did not realize how different there stores are here until this moment. It was almost 11 so we decided to just go out to Ikea to get some essentials for the place. We still did not even have sheets or dishes, since we had been sleeping on the futon this entire time. We spent a couple hours at Ikea and got all of the basic things we needed to live. When we got off of the train and were headed to the bus stop we found a place with a shower head, woo hoo, I was going to be able to take a shower. Well, don't get too excited, the shower was cold. We didn't know anything about the gas here, we thought it was on and we just had to get it switched over to our name.

We ran back out and went grocery shopping, still not knowing anything about the gas. We were so excited, we were actually going to get to cook supper, since we now had cookware and dishes from Ikea. Well the stove would not work. This is when Greg decided to call the gas company, around 6 or 7 pm on Saturday night. Well, we found out that we are on what they call "pre-pay" gas. We have to take our gas card to a designated spot and put money on it. We finally got that going on Sunday. Then we didn't know anything about the boiler so we still did not have any hot water, at least we had the stove though. We did decided to take a little time for ourselves to go and watch Harry Potter, we needed to unwind from the stress of everything.

While in town on Saturday we had also decided to go ahead and get a mobile internet card for the computers, so we could work on Sunday. Well, you have to have a UK checking account in order to do this, not a credit card. And of course the banks were closed since it was 5 pm on Saturday.

Sorry for the jumping, Sunday we had the stove but no hot water. We finally talked to the property manager on Monday after several calls and he had to call the previous tenants since he couldn't get in touch with the landlord and they told him about the boiler, what fun. We finally got it figured out and realized we were out of money on the pre-pay gas card. We were able to get into town and open a checking account and get mobile internet cards all before time for us to start working on Monday, we are finally making some progress. We worked all day, ran out around 6 pm here to put some money on our gas card.

Tuesday morning, almost a week after our arrival, we have finally gotten a hot shower. Thank you!!!!! We can only think that things are going to continue to get better from here.

We do not have any pics yet because we haven't done anything too exciting. This weekend we are going to do a few toursity things so we should have pics then.

Take care and we love everyone and miss everyone. T & G

we're in London

Hi everyone, just wanted to post a quick blog to let everyone know that we arrived safely and are doing ok. Everything has just been very confusing, and we still don't have reliable internet access which has kept us from posting. We are dealing with our living situation now, and should have it all sorted out soon. We'll post more after we get everything straight.

Greg and Tami

Hey! Ho! Let's Go

Wow, we suck at this blogging thing :)

We do have a couple of posts that we need to catch up on and I will try my hardest to get that out either tomorrow or the next day. However, in case anyone reading this doesn't know, we should have a lot of interesting things to blog about soon.

Tami and I will be moving to London at the end of July.

The decision to move isn't one that we took lightly. We thought long and hard about it. In the end, it all came down to the fact that we love to travel and we're ready for a new adventure. With that in mind, we're selling a good majority of what we own, storing some of it, and will take off to England soon. We will be taking the dogs with us.... they are our kids after all.

Anyway, watch this space for updates as we talk about our moving experience.

The Braves are going to the dogs

Awhile back, the Major League baseball team in our town called the Atlanta Braves had "Bark in the Park". Basically, they reserved two sections in the nose bleed sections where dog owners could bring their dogs to the games with them. This seemed like a lot of fun, so we figured we would take Willow and Daisy Adair. We love Chewy to death, but she isn't exactly the most social of dogs, so we figured she would be happier staying at home.

We also wanted to bring my Aunt Maryann out with us since she was about to move to Louisiana and wanted to get to a game before she left. It was a great excuse to spend more time with her before she left as well. It was great fun, and the Braves actually won!

Tami and Willow


Jenny and Willow


Greg and Daisy Adair



Aunt Mary Ann and her friend with the pups



The whole gang

Happy Easter

Chewy, Willow and Daisy Adair want to wish everyone a Happy Easter

Fruli or not Fruli

We're going to go back in time a little since Tami finished the posts from London until we left, but I was slower in getting my parts done. We flew out on Tuesday, Feb. 20. The day that I'm writing about is on Sunday, Feb. 18 (what can I say, Tami isn't as bad of a procrastinator as I am....)

Anyway, on Sunday, we went out to Richmond to try and meet up with Rebecca and Dan. Rebecca is Janeen's daughter and Dan is her husband. They are both from New Zealand and are on a holiday visa working in London. We had been traveling almost exclusively by subway to everywhere, and found out that they had closed the line to Richmond only on the day that we were heading out there. We figured that we could switch to a bus or something and would be fine, so we headed down there anyway. It really wasn't too bad, just a bit confusing. We took the subway most of the way to Richmond, switched to a bus for a short ride, and then switched over to a train which took us to the station. We were confused, but they directed everyone pretty well, so we weren't too worried.

When we got there, we were both worried that we wouldn't recognize them. While we had met them in New Zealand, it wasn't for a very long time and we were very jet lagged on the day that we had met them. We shouldn't have worried because we recognized them both instantly when we saw them on the street.

They took us around Richmond and we walked around the green and up the river. We went by Ham House, which is rumoured to be the most haunted house in London. Here is a picture..... I couldn't find any ghosts in it though......



You can go in, but it was closed at that time (plus it was really expensive), so we just kept walking and talking. Here is a picture of the area we were walking around



After all of that walking, it was time to start drinking. We went to the Roebuck which is where where Mick Jagger went to drink before he cleaned up his act....


Here are Dan and Rebecca


and Tami and me


After the Roebuck, we were getting pretty hungry, so we walked back into town to one of the local pubs (I forget the name) to get a Sunday roast. While it was pretty late in the afternoon, it was still packed. We had to wait awhile before we finally found a place to sit... and by then, they told us that they had run out of the food that was on the menu. It wasn't too bad though since they soon had a new menu printed up with new food. The food was wonderful, and so was the beer. Tami even drank a beer that we found called Fruli, which is a strawberry flavored beer.

After we ate, we just hung out at the pub and talked for a few hours. We had never really talked with Dan and Rebecca before, so it was a lot of fun getting to know them. We found out that they were going to be going back to New Zealand for awhile for Dan's job, so we were excited for them. After we left the pub, we went back to their place and hung out a little more. We even got to see pictures of their cruise down the Nile that they had just recently gotten back from..... It looked like they had a great time, so we had to add a new place on our list of places to go :)

It had started getting dark, and with the subway line still down, we wanted to go ahead and get back since we weren't sure how easy it was going to be, so we said our goodbyes and caught the bus to the train station which took us back to our hotel.

Bridget Jones and other movies in London

The Globe Tavern is one of the neatest buildings that I had seen in London. It is kind of located under a bridge but it is round. The door to the far left is where Bridget enters to get to her apartment that is located above the Tavern in both Bridget Jones' Diary movies. This spot is also thought to be where one of the 2 original Shakespeare Globe theatres were located.



The picture below is The Royal Courts of the Justice. Here I could see Bridgett running through the gates, past the attendant to confess her love to Mark Darcy in the second Bridgett Jones' movie. I got so tickled when we came upon it and I could actually visualize it. This happened shortly after she had been drenched by cars splashing water all over her.


The Somerset House was used in Sleepy Hollow. It was portrayed as old New York at the very end of the film. We watched the end of the movie when we got home to see the strong similarities but also you could see where the back drops ended and the actual building in the movie began.


This church was used in Shakespeare In Love. It was mainly the inside that was used but the outside was very attractive.


The Empire theatre was used as a reception area in Notting Hill. Not too much to see from the outside but it was fun to know that we were there. There was a whole section in our book of the area known as Notting Hill in which the movie was filmed but we never made it out there. Next time it is on my to do list. The book did say that the front door that was used by Hugh Grant's character has been sold, it was very popular after the movie and too many people were coming by to take pictures.


We also went to Regent's Park and walked around but could never find the spot that was used in The Wedding Date so we didn't take any pictures. There were many other movies that were filmed around London but we only concentrated on the movies that we really enjoyed and could recall scenery from.

Harry Potter in London

While in London Greg and I bought a book about movie locations in and around London. Since we are such movie buffs it was a must. We took about a day or so to just visit sites from the book and take pictures.

Harry Potter of course is pretty much my all-time favorite series of books so I knew I had to see as many of the spots where the films were done at. Although a lot of the actual school scenes were set in Oxford we did as many local London shots as we could.

Below is a picture inside of King's Cross train station at platform 4, this doubled as platform 9 3/4 in all of the Harry Potter movies. It was so neat to see it in person because it does look a lot like the movie.



We then headed across the street to St. Pancras station. The outside of this building was used in both Harry Potter and Bridget Jones' Diary. In Harry Potter this is where Ron's dad's car was parked at when Harry and Ron jumped in it and began to make it fly, since they missed their train to Hogwarts.

In the first Bridget Jones' Diary you see Bridget walking in front of the building and the second movie you see her here to pick her parent's up from the train station.


This is Leadenhall Market. The store fronts here doubled as Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies. I could see Harry and Hagrid walking through the streets for the first time and could imagine them looking in the windows at all of the wizarding gadgets.


Also in Leadenhall Market is the Lamb Tavern that doubled as the front of the Leaky Cauldron that Harry and Hagrid enter to have a ginger beer after shopping.


Here is the front of the Australian House. This building doubled as Gringot's Bank in which Harry went to retrieve some of his money in order to buy supplies for school. At one point the Australian House had to be completely blocked off because there were so many tour groups coming through to take pictures, after the first Harry Potter movie was released.


Next time we have time in London I will do an official tour for more of the Harry Potter set locations.

2 days around London

Saturday Feb 17, 2007

Today began at Kensington Palace, this is the home of many generations of royalty, including Princess Diana and Prince Charles. We got to tour the Palace and see a lot of attire from the different generations. We were also able to see some of Princess Diana's dresses and some never-before-seen pictures from a photo shoot with Vanity Fair. That was definitely the highlight, although the entire inside of the palace was impressive.

Kensington Palace also had a large garden and park outside, which was so beautiful and peaceful.


We left Kensington Palace and headed back to King's Cross for lunch at Mor-ish (we needed to change shoes, our feet hurt already). Mor-ish was a great little greek place that served all types of food. We then headed out to see some more sights of London, including Kings Cross train station and St. Pancras Station (pics in a later post). We then headed out to see some various parks. We saw a little bit of Hyde Park but mainly we sat on a park bench in Regents' Park, it was so peaceful. It was great to see so many people out and about walking, riding bikes, having picnics, or just sitting and enjoying the outdoors.

Here you can see that we visited the famous Baker Street and were able to see the statue of Sherlock Holmes. (We tried several times but couldn't get a picture without the other foreigners)


We left Baker Street and decided to enter this place called Harrod's, or better known as shopping heaven. Harrod's is a very large, expensive department store that contains pretty much every single department that you can think of any type of store having. We spent nearly 5 hours here. They had your typical clothing, purses, and shoe departments (nothing we could afford) but they also had departments like musical instruments, electronics, a pet store, furniture, a guitar exhibit, and 2 floors of nothing but food. Oh my goodness the food, I couldn't believe my eyes. They had a whole wall of nothing but cheese, which we ate a lot of on this trip, 2 rows of meats and seafood, about 8 counters of chocolate, 3 counters of coffee, a couple of tea, an entire bakery, prepared foods galore, sushi, pizza, pastas, and so on and so on. You name it they had it. They even had a Krispy Kreme donut store that had a line of about 20 people in it, man did it smell good. Anybody who likes to shop should definitely go there. They also have about 8 restaurants in this one store. We ended up stopping for a break at a small cafe and having a milk shake, yummy yummy!

Monday, Feb 19, 2007

Today was the day we went back to downtown London to take a trip on the London Eye. The Eye was built for the millennium celebration. It is a huge ferris wheel type ride that you stand inside of. They have multiple pods that go around that take nearly 30 minutes to go a full rotation. You get to see some of the most amazing views of the city from here, well worth the ride.


Above is the actual London Eye and below is Greg and me on it. We were able to see a lot of buildings from the sky that we had seen on the ground, it makes them look a lot different.


Here is a picture of Parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye.


After the London Eye we walked around downtown London some more and ended up meeting Dan for lunch. He knew we liked Mexican food so he took us to Beach Burrito, it is kind of like Willy's. A good time was had by all, and we really enjoyed getting to see him one last time before we left, too bad Rebecca couldn't have joined us. We hung out with him until he had to go back to work and then we continued on our way. We walked through Chinatown and Soho and through some other areas of London that I will mention in another post.

We then went back to Kensington Palace to have a traditional English tea. It was great. For only 9 pounds we had tea, scones, cucumber sandwiches, and lemon cake. It was so fantastic, we didn't even eat dinner that night because we were so full.

We left afternoon tea and walked through Hyde Park. We had no idea how big it was. We walked for over an hour just to get across it. At one point we saw a road and thought we were at the end, ended up being the entrance that cuts the park in half.

Tuesday Feb 20, 2007

Today was the day to go home, we were sad but ready to see our puppies. We ate breakfast at Mor-ish. It happened to be pancake day so I had a pancake for breakfast, how appropriate. We had to hop a train to the airport and then had a layover in Detroit, we ate dinner at Jose Cuervo and then headed on back to Atlanta. Greg bought me tulips as a late Valentine's Day gift that miraculously made it through customs and immigration and I was able to bring them home, all the way from London. They even survived at home for about a week.

Bonjour, Paris!

The day to Paris began very, very early. We woke up at 3:15 am to catch the early train. Once we arrived in Paris we jumped on the hop-on hop-off bus. Our first stop was to the Arc de Triomphe. We figured we would just make a quick stop here and continue on to the Eiffel Tower. However, once we got there we were so impressed, we had no idea how big the Arc was. It was mammoth, and I was in such awe. Words cannot describe how impressive it really was. There was so much detail in the carvings, every inch of the Arc was covered. There was also an eternal flame for their unnamed soldiers.


We spent about 45 minutes walking around the Arc. We decided that we did not want to get back on the bus, we were ready to hit the Eiffel Tower. If we had gotten back on the bus we would have to ride through 4 other stops before we got there so we decided to walk. We walked for about 30 minutes and noticed one of the red buses. We thought we must be getting close but we had no idea what we were in store for. We had been walking through a downtown street and when we got to the end, there in front of us was the Eiffel Tower in all of its glory. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. You see pictures of the Eiffel Tower and statues but seeing the actual thing was something entirely different than I had ever expected. It is known to everyone other than the Americans as the Tour Eiffel.



Greg and I decided to walk up the Eiffel Tower instead of taking the elevator, little did we know that this meant you had to walk up all 700 stairs to the second platform. When we started to walk up the Tower we got to the first platform (360 steps) and decided to stop and have a snack. We went to the little cafe and ate a chocolate croissant and a quiche along with some hot chocolate, all while we looked at the spectacular views from the first deck.



We were going to take the elevator up to the second platform but that is when we found out you had to walk the rest of the way, that was where the remaining 340 steps came in. We then took the elevator up the the very top of the Eiffel Tower. It was magnificent. We got to see all of the views of Paris, I never realized how big Paris was and how many buildings they have, they are all crammed in like sardines. We even saw their replica of our Statue of Liberty that they had given us.

Once we were done with the Eiffel Tower we decided to take a river cruise down the Seine River. We saw many building, bridges, gargoyles, and so much more. One of the most unique buildings that we saw was Notre Dame. I had always heard the story of Notre Dame and the Hunchback, but never had seen any pictures of it. The front was gorgeous but the back was so much more intriguing. It is very gothic looking. There are even statues going up the roof of the building. This picture is the backside of Notre Dame.



Once we got off of the river cruise we headed to the Musee du Louvre. Everyone had warned me that the Louvre would take a couple of days to go through but did not believe anyone. We did not arrive until 5 pm and they close at 6 pm so we did not actually go inside and look at an of the art, we didn't feel like we would have any time. We did however walk around the outside and take in all of the statues and beauties that the building itself had to offer.

The entrance to the Louvre is exactly how it looks in The Davinci Code, the big glass pyramid, as seen below.


We spent about 45 minutes walking around the outside of the Louvre, again, it was amazing. The age of the buildings and the detail that was put into them was nothing like I had ever seen and don't think the states will ever appreciate. We jumped back on the hop-on hop-off bus and took a small tour of the city, we rode back by Notre Dame, we also got to see the Hotel des Invalides. This is where Napoleon's Tomb is located. We did not get to go in but got to see the outside. We ended up at the Opera House, which is where we got on the bus. We did a little shopping, didn't buy anything, and also grabbed a beignets to snack on. We walked around this shopping area and decided to walk back to the train station instead of taking the bus. We walked down La Fayette street and stopped to eat a cheese crepe for supper. We got back to the train station and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the rest of London.

80's Pomp and Circumstance

Thursday morning we woke up and were eager to get out and about the city again. We started out by having breakfast at the Bakery Cafe right up the road from our hotel. The Europeans are big on very small breakfasts so we had croissants and hot chocolate to eat. We headed out on the Underground back to Buckingham Palace, our first stop. We watched the changing of the guards, there were so many people there and this isn't even peak season.

The inspection of the guard shack before the guards actually change


After the actual change they have a band that played. They played for about 15 - 20 minutes and we were shocked as we listened. The first song that they played Greg and I listened and thought, "Hmmmm, this sounds familiar", but we could never figure it out. Then the songs began that we did recognize. Are you ready? Are you sure your ready to read the songs that the Buckingham Palace Changing of the Guards ceremony had played? Ok, here we go:

Thriller
Eye of the Tiger
Love Lifts Us Up
Time After Time
You Give Love a Bad Name

What a riot. After we left the changing of the guards ceremony we headed to Trafalgar Square. This is a huge hot spot for filmmakers. Some of the movies that have been filmed here include 101 Dalmations, The Avengers, and 28 Days Later, along with others.

One of the large lion statues at Trafalgar Square


Popular spot for pigeons to hang out and take food from passerby's at Trafalgar Square


We walked around for a while and ended up eating at a nearby pub called The Porcupine. While Greg enjoyed the ale, the food was very greasy, typical of an English pub. After lunch we went to The Photographer's Gallery and saw some interesting pictures, to say the least, not my style of pics at all. We continued on foot around the Chinatown area and then on to Piccadilly Circus and the theater district at Leicester Square. Lots of lights and somewhat like Broadway in New York, but on a much smaller scale.

The play Equus in which Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter) is staring in. It doesn't open until 2/27/07.
This billboard is located near Leicester Square, the theater district.


The main square at Piccadilly Circus, lots of billboards and lights.


We then walked to a nice shopping area, called Covent Garden. We had a couple of our friends, including Lisa, had told us about it so we were eager to head there. We didn't buy anything but had fun watching the street performers and just browsing in the shops.

We headed back to Earl's Court and ate dinner at Wagamama, a noodle bar. We had to get up very, very early in the morning so we went to bed early.

Valentine's Day with the Brits

After having a nice relaxing afternoon, we got up early to try to squeeze as much as possible in on our first real day in London. We grabbed a quick breakfast at our hotel, then made our way over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. The only problem is that during the winter, they only do the changing of the guards every OTHER day, and of course this wasn't the day they were doing it. We were a little disappointed, but figured we'd come back the next day, so weren't too concerned.

It didn't seem too far, so we figured we would walk over to the House of Parliament On the way, we noticed a crowd of people gathering and figured we would check it out. It turned out to be the changing of the horse guard on one of the parade grounds. It was interesting to watch, but lasted a very long time.

One of the Horse Guard


After the changing was finished, we walked over to the House of Parliament where Big Ben is located. We also went by Westminster Abbey which is located in the same area. They were both nice and impressive, but we didn't spend too much time since we had so much to see. There were docks located really close to Big Ben, so we hopped on a boat and took a cruise down the Thames river over to the Tower Bridge.

Tami and me on the boat


Tower Bridge


When you get off at the docks close to Tower Bridge, you are right at the Tower of London, so we went in there next. We expected to get through it in an hour, but it's so huge and there is so much to see we stayed for like 3 or 4 hours. The highlight was seeing the Crown Jewels, but seeing the Ravens and all of the weapons and torture devices were very interesting also. They had one section where they had actors portraying what life was like during the times when the Tower was active. We talked with one of the guys for awhile and it turns out that his wife was in Woodstock Georgia, so he knew exactly where we were from..... small world.

Around 2:30, we figured that we weren't going to make it to lunch since we still had a lot to do, so we grabbed a quick snack at a little cafe at the Tower. After we left, we were starving since it was about 4:00, so we found an Italian restaurant called Brassierie that was close by and had a wonderful late lunch. After we were full again, we started out going across the Tower Bridge to South London and walked around. We eventually made it over to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and took a tour. It was fairly impressive, built in 1997 as a faithful reproduction of the original Theatre that was located really close to where the original was situated. It was built using wooden pegs rather than medal screws and even has a thatch roof.... the only one allowed in all of London since the Great Fire of 1666. They still do productions, but since it is an open air theatre, they only do them in the summer.

Looking up from the seats in the Globe Theatre



We stayed at the Globe until they shutdown, and by then we were exhausted. We had really wanted to go out for a nice meal for Valentine's Day, but since we ate lunch so late and we were so tired, we decided to go back to our hotel instead. When we got off the Tube station at our hotel, we went out a different exit than we normally did and were shocked to find a huge group of people, paparazzi and a line of Limo's. Apparently, their annual Brit Awards were that night and they were being held at Earl's Court which is right down the road from our hotel. We stayed for awhile to see if we could see anyone famous, but you could mainly just see people's backs as they got out of their limo's and posed for pictures. Besides, it was the Brit Awards, so we figured we wouldn't know many of the British celebs anyway.

Earl's Court where the Brit Awards were held.



We started to go to our room, but figured we should eat something, so we ran up the road to a little pizza place and got a small pizza and some bread sticks and took them back to our room. Paired with a bottle of wine, it wasn't that bad of a supper. However, I'm not going to push my luck and will be taking Tami to a proper Valentine's Day supper next year.......

Welcome To London

We left Atlanta on Monday, February 12, 2007, and arrived in London Tuesday morning. We made it to Earl's Court, where our hotel was located, without any problems. The hotel was not exactly what we expected but it was still pretty good. We got upgraded from just a basic room (which turned out to be so small that the two of us would not have even been able to turn around without hitting each other) to a suite, or actually a complete one bedroom apartment. It even had a full dishwasher in the kitchen and washing machine/dryer combo. It wasn't as nice as the website but was still much better than the room we should have gotten, we were very happy with that arrangement.

Since the first day was only a half day in town and we were a little tired we didn't venture out too far. We were starving since we hadn't had a real meal in over 12 hours, except for airplane food, so we stopped and ate at Zizzy's. This was a very cozy Italian restaurant where we had some wine and lunch and unwound from the travel. We then walked around Earl's Court and ended up at Holland Park. We just walked around the park for a little while, watching all of the owners and their dogs out for walks after work. On our way back down the main street I noticed a movie theater, the Odean, which happened to be playing Musc & Lyrics already. We stopped in and watched the movie before heading back to our room.

We did make a pit stop on the way back by the local grocery store and picked up some snacks for the room. We didn't eat too much that night as we had gorged ourselves at lunch. We had this awesome desert that some would die for. It was a warm belgian waffle topped with bananas, caramel, chocolate, whipped cream, and ice cream. Yummy!!!!

No pics for the day but there will be more on the following days.

Vegas, baby....

Tami has been torturing me for months about the great birthday present she got for me this year. In the beginning of December, two wrapped medium sized packages appeared in the den which were supposed to be my present. I was stumped, I had no idea what it was. I was told that I couldn't open them until we got back from my birthday supper, which was also a surprise. So, my birthday finally arrived on January 2nd, and it was time for us to go out to supper. Since it was a surprise, I got a blindfold and rode in the car for about 30 minutes in the dark. When she took off the blindfold, we were in the parking lot of Hartsfield Airport leaving in a couple of hours for Vegas.

I will give Tami props, she kept the secret very well. She got with my manager and work and arranged for me to be off and for someone to back me up. She also wrapped up a box of kitchen stuff that we had packed up and a new tent we had bought (the content of those two packages I previously mentioned) to throw me off the track. We had a great time in Vegas, and I'll be updating with specifics and pictures in the next couple of days.