Our 9th Anniversary in a Winter Wonderland, day 2

Sunday, December 16 2007

Today was kind of a strange day. We had our snowboarding equipment, but the Snowboarding school didn't start until the next day and we weren't quite brave enough to go and try it ourselves, so we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves. We got up and had breakfast at the hotel we were staying (our accommodations were "half-board" which meant that they provided breakfast and supper every day). It was a nice breakfast, more than you would expect for one that was included. We then wandered around town a little bit to get acclimated... found out where we had to meet for ski school, that type of thing.

Tami in front of Saas Fee


A fire hydrant in town


Eventually we made it over to the Alpin Express which takes you up the Allalin Mountain. We went up two different lifts and an underground tram which takes you up almost to the top, which is 3500 meters (about 11,483 feet). They have a revolving restaurant at the top which is supposed to be the highest in the world. The view were excellent and the food was pretty good too. After lunch, we walked around a bit at the top, but it was very cold so we didn't stay long. It was cold enough at the top that the battery in our camera didn't work properly... we had to hold it in our hands to warm it up to make it work again.

Greg in front of some mountains from Allalin


The view from our restauraunt


The view coming down the lift


We then rode the lift back down (we knew that we wouldn't be skiing down it anytime soon) and walked over to where they had a "bobsleigh" ride. It was essentially a mini roller coaster, but it was a lot of fun. After that, we walked into a few little shops in the town and just killed time until it was time to meet our group for an orientation. The orientation wasn't too terribly helpful, but at least we got to try some mulled wine for free! After that, we went back for supper at our hotel and went to bed early expecting an exhausting day with our first snowboarding lesson starting the next day.

Our 9th Anniversary in a Winter Wonderland, day 1

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Today was to be an exciting day for us. We woke up early (3:30 am) for a car to pick us up and drive us to the airport at 4:00 am. We had to be at the airport at 6:00 am and none of the trains out there would have started running early enough so we had to get a drive, we got a great deal on it though. We got to the airport in plenty of time and ate breakfast before getting on the plane, good thing we did too. The plane was delayed over 45 minutes due to a passenger having a problem with their passport, so the luggage had to be unloaded so they could remove theirs. No big deal at all, finally we were off.

We arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, which looked like most any other city, although the airport layout is awful. We then boarded a bus that would take us to Saas Fee, Switzerland, about a 3 hour bus ride. We did not know that the bus would not have any food for us to buy or that we would not stop for a break on the way, so we were happy that we had eaten on the plane and that I had brought cookies just in case.

Most of the drive was great, lots of little vineyards on the side of the mountains and seeing Lake Geneva was great. It was a clear day and with the mountains behind the Lake it was breathtaking. The last hour of the drive to Saas Fee was the most spectacular drive that I have ever been on. The closer we got to Saas Fee the more amazing it became, more snow, more mountains, more curves, just completely picturesque. There were lots of little villages in the valleys, roofs all covered in snow, just like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

One of the valleys on the mountain near Geneva:



Lake Geneva:



A castle outside of Geneva:



One of the cute snow covered villages near Saas Fee:



One of the last mountains before we got to Saas Fee:


We finally made it to Saas Fee around 3:30 pm, where we had to unload the bus and wait for our hotel electric car to pick us and our luggage up. Saas Fee is a "Car-free" town, mainly the hotels, some restaurants and bars, and a few other places have little electric cars, it is quite nice there. We made it to the hotel, checked-in to our German inspired hotel, Hotel Europa, and immediately took off for the tourist information center where we picked up a few brochures to look at.

After 4:00 pm we were able to get our snowboarding gear, so we got fitted for boots and a board. This proved to be a pain in the rear to carry around, but what else are you going to do. Once done with this we headed to the hotel for our first of 7 5-course dinners. We immediately headed back to our room and crashed, it had been a long day.

By the way, our beds were Austrian doubles, which meant that it was just 2 single beds pushed together, on hard wood floors that is not a very good thing, every time you move while you sleep the beds move too. Oh well.

Merry Christmas from the Ware's

Wishing everyone a happy holiday.

Snowboarding class 101

You fall a lot!!!!

We are doing well, unfortunately only 1 day of class remains but still having a lot of fun, we have the bruises and sore muscles to prove it.

Will write more later.

Winter Wonderland

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Though today started very early at 3:30 am, it was well worth.

We have arrived in Saas Fee, Switzerland, it is so beautiful. The drive here was like nothing I could have imagined, all the snow around, on the trees and mountains, and the little villages hidden in the valley.

Mom, this is definitely where you would like to live.

Saas Fee is a German inspired village, our hotel is even German. So far we have not done much except get our snow boarding equipment but we are at least here and on our way.

Oh yeah, we have 4 * accomodations, which means a nice room with a balcony and good view of the mountains, along with breakfast and a 5 course dinner every night, not sure our waistlines can handle it, guess we need to work it off on the slopes.

Will update you as soon as we can but wanted to let everyone know we were here!!!!

Tami & Greg

Turkey and Penguins

Saturday, December 1st 2007

Our morning started out pretty laid back today. I went to do some Christmas shopping for Tami in the morning while she stayed home. She was able to complete her shopping for me on Friday since she had the day off. After I was done, we headed over to Stacey and Joe's flat for a late Thanksgiving dinner. We had met Stacey and Joe at Bodeans when we watched the UGA - Florida game. We have been meaning to get up with them, but they are heading back to the States soon, so they are really busy. There were quite a few people there, but we were the only other Americans, so we had to help teach everyone about Thanksgiving. That meant that we all went outside and threw an American football around, teaching them how to throw it. After that, we went back in and had a huge Thanksgiving feast... the kind we missed the first time around, followed by football!

Stacey, if you're reading this, thank you so much for the Thanksgiving meal... it was wonderful and we had a great time.


Throwing the ole pigskin around.

After we had digested our food a bit, we had plans to go skating at Somerset House at 10:30, so headed over there. It was really cool, they had a big skating rink out with Torches and other lights to light up the rink. We got there early, so we grabbed a hot chocolate and watched people skating around. Finally it was our time, so we laced up our skates and hit the ice (fortunately, not literally.) We did pretty good since neither one of us fell the entire time we were out there. Compared to a lot of people, we were pretty good. However, we didn't get too fancy, so you won't see pictures of either of us doing any jumps. We skated for about an hour before they closed the rink and we headed home.


The skating was sponsered by Tiffany's, so Tami posed with the Tiffany's boxes under the tree (and no, Tami's Christmas gift is not in one of those boxes)


People skating at Somerset House


Tami taking the penguin around for a skate



Tami and me out on the ice.

Beer, Chocolate and Coffins

Saturday November 24, 2007

We got up fairly early (although not as early as on Friday), got to take a nice long, hot shower (which we can't do at our flat nowadays.... trying to work with our landlord to get that fixed) and went downstairs to have a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was a really nice buffet filled with waffles, tons of pastries and breads, cereals, yogurts, hot foods (the mushrooms were excellent), fruit and other stuff. After that, we checked out of the hotel and headed to pick up a Sightseeing bus.

We didn't have to wait too long, and rode the bus out to the Atomium. That is a huge replica of a metal molecule that was built for the 1958 Universal Exposition. It was much larger than we imagined, but still small when you compare it to something like the Eiffel Tower.

Greg with the Atomium in the background:


While we were there, we went to Mini Europe. It sounds really cheesy, and to some degree it is, but not as much as we expected. They have tons of models of famous landmarks from all over Europe. It was interesting and gave us a chance to map out things we'd like to see in other countries.

No, we didn't jet over to Paris, this is the miniature Eiffel Tower:


The most impressive model there was this one of Sacre Couer from Paris:


After we finished with Mini Europe, we hopped the sightseeing bus back into town until we made it back to Grand Place. Our first stop was to Leonidas, a chocolate shop that's supposed to be pretty good. We bought a few pieces of candy to bring back and went into a store called 250 Beers. I wish we could have spent more time there, but it was getting late and we wanted to grab some lunch. We ended up eating at 't Kelderke which was in the cellar of another restaurant. It was fairly small, but the food and service both were excellent. I had the Flemish beef and onion stew, which is braised in beer, and frites (french fries). Tami had cheese croquettes and a bowl of frites.

The interior of 't Kelderke. This is the entire restaurant.


After lunch, we went to a pub that Tami had read about while doing research on the web for our trip. It was called Le Cercueil bar, which translates into "The Morgue". It was a tiny theme bar decorated with coffins and lots of black. It was really dark when you walk in and they have black lights so everything white glows. The table we sat at was a coffin with a glass top. We both had a beer and it and it came in a ceramic skull mug. It was a pretty interesting place.

After we finished our beer, we walked over to the Sablon region and looked around the antique shops and market that was setup there. We didn't really find anything we couldn't live without, but Sablon has a lot of chocolate shops as well, so we went to Whittamers to get some tea and chocolate. Whittamers is a pretty popular chocolate shop in the area, and they have a restaurant. We both got tea and split a selection of chocolate cakes which was delicious. Now, fully stuffed with food, we walked to the nearest Metro station and rode it back to the train station to head back to London.

Our chocolate cakes:

In Brussels, but no sprouts in sight

Friday, November 23, 2007

We haven't traveled anywhere in awhile and decided it was time, we don't have another trip for three weeks, so we found a great deal online to go to Brussels, so we decided to go. We got up early this morning for an 8 am train to Belgium. When we arrived it was almost 11 am Brussels time, we decided to find our hotel to drop off bags before doing any sight-seeing. It was cold and a little rainy but still worth it.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel, a 5 star hotel that we got a great deal on, it was only 59 Euros a night. When we checked in we noticed the board on the wall that said the cheapest rooms were 499 Euros per night, woo hoo! After dropping off the bags we headed to the concierge desk to get a recommendation for lunch. The concierge pointed us to The Staff, a french restaurant. We were a little hesitant because the entire menu was in French, we had to try to figure out words from our translation book. The waitress came over and was extremely friendly to us, she helped us decipher the menu for the most part. We ended up eating penne pasta with ham, tomatoes and parmesan cheese and a curry chicken stir-fry with vegetables and sharing a half bottle of wine. It was actually very good, it was our best meal that we had while in Brussels.

Finally, we were off to see some sites. We took the bus out to Manneken Pis, the fountain of the peeing boy. This is probably the most famous thing in Brussels. He has over 600 costumes that they can put on him, and when he is wearing a costume he pees beer instead of water, oh well, no costume this time. He was actually much smaller than I had thought he would be.

Here is Manneken Pis, isn't he cute.



Next it was over to Grand Place, the big square in Brussels. We walked around here for a bit and then through the Galeries Royales de Saint-Hubert, a very upscale shopping arcade built in 1847. We did buy some chocolate but that was it.

This is the Maison du Roi (a Medieval style "kings house" set in Grand Place, though no king ever actually lived there). The crane is them putting up decorations for Christmas.



This is the Statue of Everard 't Serclaes (the myth is that you stroke the limbs for good luck, which we did, we are keeping our fingers crossed as well)



Next, we were off to the chocolate museum, yummy! We got a few samples and the lady who did the demonstration was fabulous to watch and listen to. She had such a great personality and knew her stuff.

Here is our chocolate lady with a 5 kilo block of chocolate:



The next stop was made at the Costume museum, I did enjoy it better than the one in Bath. All of the dresses were made by the same designer between 1989 and 2004, while some seemed to be from the early 80's. The drawings of the designs were neat to look at as well.

We ventured on to The Comic Strip Museum (Centre Belga de la Banda Dessinee) after a few wrong turns. I was so happy to find a Smurf statue in the lobby, I had hopes that I would see some comics of them. Most of the strips there were Dutch strips, so we couldn't read them but we finally got to a section of Jonah Et Pirlouit by Peyo in which the Smurfs were originally introduced in the 50's, I had no idea. They even had their own spin off comic book series before becoming so popular in the states as a cartoon. We really enjoyed going there.

Tami with the Baby Smurf statue:




It was time to rest and have a drink so we went to A La Mort Subite, a pub that I had read about that is supposed to be one of the best "fruit" beer bars. We each had 2 beers and split a plate of fromagge (cheese). Greg had 2 Trappist beers while I had a Cherry beer and a Faro (beer with candy sugar), they were all good. Next, we decided to walk to La Bella Maraichere, an upscale French/Belgium restaurant. We got there but really were not that hungry to pay that much for food, plus it was mainly fancy seafood, we were in the mood for something a little more low key. So, we decided to go back to Chi-Chi's, a Tex-Mex chain from the States, that we had passed a few blocks back. It was not Frontera but I guess it will do.

Time to go relax at the hotel, they have an indoor heated pool and hot tub, yes! We swam some laps, relaxed in the hot tub, swam some more laps, and relaxed a little more. We then decided to go have a drink in the hotel bar. They just so happened to have had a jazz band playing, so it was super relaxing, have a drink and listening to some jazz. At this time it was nearly 11 pm, we were ready to go to bed and get rested for day two.

Happy Turkey Day!

To celebrate Thanksgiving, we went to Bodeans, an American BBQ place, to have a Turkey dinner. While it was pretty good, it was definitely not an American style Thanksgiving and we were left craving real Thanksgiving food. However, there was pumpkin pie that was pretty good, so that made it worthwhile.


The pumpkin pie that made the meal complete.


We also found a place in town that sells some American food and bought a few things to remind us of home (most notably, Pop Tarts and grape Jelly,) although we plan to make a journey back to buy more stuff when we have more time.


Our American foods bounty... we even got Cranberry Sauce for later since Bodeans didn't include it in the Thanksgiving meal.

October Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Greg.Ware/October2007?authkey=kFNFaMWE6o8

Look Kids.... Big Ben.... Parliament

On Wednesday we started out seeing some sights from Harry Potter. We went to the Australia House, which was used for Gringott's bank in the first movie. We then went to Somerset House which was used in Sleepy Hollow as turn of the centry New York. It was being set up for ice skating for Christmas which seemed cool. We went to have lunch with some of our relatives from New Zealand, Dan and Rebecca. It was great meeting them. We had lunch at Pizza Express, which had really good pizza.

Tami and me with one of the lions at Leicester Square


We tthen went to Victoria's Station to see the place we stayed the last time we were in London. We then went to see Big Ben, Parliment, and Westminster Abbey. The abbey was very cool. There are quite a few important people buried there, including Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. My favorite part was poet's Corner, which had several poet's buried there and tributes to many others. We then took a river cruise up and down the Thames at night. It was very pretty with all of the lights. Then Greg, Tami, and I rode the London Eye. As many of you know I am terrified of heights, but I did fine with riding the eye, I did sit down most of the time, but I did enjoy the views at night. By the way, they were one of the few places that were doing something to celebrate Halloween. They got a kick out of Tami's flashing devil horns and my cat ears.

The London Eye


London Bridge from the Thames cruise



Tami, Greg and me ready for Halloween


Big Ben.... Parliament. From the London Eye


We then ate at a place called Slug and Lettuce, where I had my first taste of Fruli. It is a wonderful strawberry flavored beer. I loved it!!!! Then we headed home and packed for our trip home. We had a great time in London and seeing Greg, Tami, Chewy, Willow, and Daisy. We can't wait to see them again!!

Paris, the city of Wares

We got up really early Tuesday morning and rode the train to Paris. Paris was absolutely amazing. I never thought I would get to see Paris in person, and it was more amazing than I could have imagined. We started at La Madeline, which was a really beautiful old church. We rode on a hop on hop off bus to get around and it was open to the sky. Even though it was a little cold, we braved the top to take in the spectacular views.

We rode the bus over to the Louvre first. The Louvre was closed on Tuesdays, but we had not planned to go in anyway because it takes several days to see anything. The outside was very cool. The palace part was beautiful and the pyramids looked really neat. We had lunch at a cafe on Ponte Neuf. I got a croquet monsieur, which is a ham and cheese sandwich covered with melted cheese, very safe but very good.

We then went to Notre Dame, which was Huge!!! It took quite a while to go through, but was worth the trip. The stain glass was amazing. We bought some really good crepes off of a street vendor.
Stained Glass window from Notre Dame (a puzzle Mom and Kaye did)


The family at the back of Notre Dame


We then walked up part of the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. It was a lot bigger than I imagined. The detail was great and we really enjoyed it. We rode around to the Trocadero, which gave us a great view of the Eiffel Tower. It was amazing.

My brother and me at the Trocadero with the view of the Eiffel Tower


Eating candy floss with Tami in front of the Eiffel Tower


We were a little short on time, so we headed back to the train. Our day in Paris was wonderful!!

Mom and Dad on the Open Top bus going through the streets of Paris

National Ware's European Vacation, Part 2

On Sunday we took the long train ride to Windsor Castle. It was well worth the ride once we got there. There is a little town all around the castle with tons of shops. But we ignored all of that (although it was hard to ignore shopping) and headed straight to the main event. The castle was huge!! At the beginning of the tour there was a doll house that was four stories high. The detail was amazing. There was a gallery there that had some drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. There were a lot of weapons and also a set of china that was in the shape of pineapples. The china bankrupted the company to make it. The remaining state rooms were very ornate and beautiful. The view from the castle to the town below was really cool, even though it was rainy. (Imagine that, rain in England.) We the ate at Wagamama's in Windsor. It was really yummy!!

One of the best shots of Windsor:



We left Windsor castle and took the long train ride back to London, and went straight to Kensington Palace. Kensington Palace was a lot more drab than Windsor Castle, but there was a great Princess Diana exhibit that showcased some of her dresses and had some film about her life.

Here is a gold flower as part of Diana's Memorial:


We left the palace and went to the nearby Orangery and had tea. Since the time had changed the night before we walked through a nearly pitch black Kensington Gardens to catch the Tube to Piccadilly Circus. We went to a sports bar to watch the Giants beat the Dolphins (yay!!!!) It was not much of a game since it was wet and they had the roof open over Wembley Stadium, but it was still fun to see.

We started Monday with a climb up Primrose Hill for some amazing morning views of London.



On Monday we spent a lot of time at Harrod's. Harrod's is a seven story department store. They sell everything there you can imagine. To give you an idea there are about a dozen restaurants in this department store, not counting all of the food counters. They even sell pets and musical instruments.

A memorial to Diana and Dodi at Harrod's:


We shopped around Harrod's for quite a while until Greg finished work for the day, then we headed to a really neat shopping area called Covent Gardens. There was a guy there that was juggling and riding a unicycle. He was really entertaining.


We decided that it was then time to head to a pub. We chose the Lamb and Flag pub. It is one of the oldest pubs in London. We had a quick ale and moved on to dinner at Gourmet Burger Kitchen. The burgers were very good. We then turned in for a early night, because tomorrow is....Paris!!!

National Ware's European Vacation, Part 1

October 29, 2007

Friday we arrived and it was fairly uneventful, except that we had the yummiest fish and chips at this pub called The Black Cap. It was really nice to have real food after all of that airplane food. Although Tami and I did have quite an adventure going to pick up our London Passes. We were riding the Tube (subway) back and we did not know the train doors were closing. Tami made it in (well most of her did).Her shoulders and my purse kind of got caught in the doors. After a little tugging, I got my purse out and Tami was free from the doors inside the car. Yes, on my first day in London I had to ride the subway by myself. We met up at the next stop and all was well.

Me and Tami at Piccadilly Circus to pick up the London Passes:



Saturday was very busy. We started off at the Tower of London, which was really neat. We saw the Crown Jewels, which were more spectacular than I imagined. We then walked across the Tower Bridge, which gave a great view of the Thames. We then went to Borough Market, which was crazy with people. We bought a lot of food and enjoyed a lovely picnic in the church courtyard nearby.

View of the entrance to The Tower of London:



We then went to a place called Vinopolis, where all of us tasted wine and absinthe (see Tami's previous Vinopolis post for an absinthe explanation). Greg, Tami, and I also tasted whiskey, which was pretty good, but very strong. We then went back in time at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. The theatre was built as the original Globe was before it burned. It was a very interesting tour. Then we had proper British tea at Shipp's Tearoom. We had little sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam, and of course tea.

We walked across London Bridge, which had beautiful views of the Tower Bridge. No pictures were taken of London Bridge as it is, in fact, a very boring bridge.



We then ventured over to Piccadilly Circus, which is like New York's Times Square with all of the lights and a lot of traffic. We made our way to a barbecue place called Bodean's, which had ok barbecue, but a great atmosphere. Greg and Tami even showed us a part of London that they didn't mean to on the walk over (we saw people with very little clothing to give you an idea).

Mom and Dad at the Fountain in Piccadilly Circus:



Greg and Tami had heard that the UGA Alumni Assoc of London was meeting there to watch the GA vs. FL game. It was so much fun. There were a few GA fans but more FL fans there to watch the game. There were also a lot of Miami fans and NY Giants fans that were there, since the game was the next day. Tami screamed herself silly, since she had not gotten to see a game yet this season, she had no voice the next day. Greg made a friend from Manchester who was very interested with anything to do with America. Greg got to show his America trivia skills. The Manchester men were rooting for FL but very nice to us, we even converted Greg's friend by the end of the night. They hung out with us all night. Tami even made a friend, named Harvey, who writes for the Sun Sentinel in Florida. In case you didn't know.....GA WON!!!!!!!!! We made it back to the flat around 2 am, luckily for us, the time changed here that night and we were able to get in 1 extra hour of sleep.

Us at Bodean's to watch the game with Greg's friend and the other GA alumni, Stacy:



Written by guest Blogger: Jenny Ware

The Wares have arrived

Just a quck post to let you know that the entire Ware family made it to London safely. Except for some jet lag, everyone is doing good.

More to follow......

Better late than never

It's that time again.... time for links to tons of pictures.

First, here are our pictures from the Scotland trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Greg.Ware/Scotland

and here are the pictures from the rest of September which includes Bath and Stonehenge:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Greg.Ware/StonehengeBathAndMiscSept2007

Enjoy!

Tower of Terror

Sorry we didn't get a post up for the weekend before last. We didn't really have anything too interesting since Saturday was mainly spent on a wild goose chase to find Asda, the equivalent of Walmart over here (Walmart in fact owns them.) We were on the hunt for cheap stuff for the flat in preparation for Mom, Dad, and Jenny coming in a couple of weeks. After two tries (one was closed and the other was only a grocery store), we ended up just going to IKEA. However, on Saturday we did make it over to a place that showed some college football. Unfortunately, about 15 minutes after we had been seated, they changed all of the TV's to Rugby since a Rugby World Cup game was about to start.... oh well. On Sunday, we took all three dogs to the park which was fun as well.

This past weekend, we had decided that we had done stuffy castles and palaces a lot... we figured it was time for some low brow fun. With that in mind, we rented a car and drove out to Alton Towers. Alton Towers is a theme park that was built up around a ruined manor house. Driving out there was interesting because as we are getting there, it didn't look like there was a theme park anywhere. Plus, you go through this really small town with really narrow streets. But, we finally made it ok without getting lost.

Alton Towers is essentially like Six Flags. They have all of these sections with different themes and different rides. Plus, this was the first day that they had their Halloween celebration going on which was kind of cool. We rode most of the Roller coasters that they had, although we like the ones at Six Flags better for the most part. A lot of them were really similar, but seemed to go slower. One of the more interesting ones was the Spinball Whizzer, a rollercoaster that went out one car at a time. The car spun around randomly as you went along the track, which was pretty cool. Another good one was Oblivion, a coaster that had a vertical drop that went underground.

Because of the rollercoasters, we decided not to take our camera in, which means no pictures on this post. Sunday, all we did was run errands around town, so nothing much to report there. This is going to be another slow weekend since we are going to stay around the flat most of the time getting everything ready for Mom, Dad, and Jenny to come the weekend after!