Friday, April 23, 2010

London

I’m a bit behind in my blogging. My latest adventure was a four day trip with my friend, Jen, to London. This was a few weeks ago. Our husbands surprised us with the trip. Mine because he felt guilty that he was unable to take vacation time and go on a trip with me on my Easter holiday from school. Jen’s husband, Dan, wanted her to have one last girls’ trip before they make the big move back to Milwaukee this summer. Jen and I travel well together and we were going to a country where they speak English, so we were thrilled.

We lucked out with the weather while there. With the exception of the day we arrived, it was warm and sunny as we toured around London. We did not get so lucky with our hotel selection. Despite the good reviews on tripadvisor, it was not the greatest of places. Luckily, Jen has a good sense of humor and we made the best of the situation. The hotel’s location was ideal though. It was just a few minutes’ walk to the tube. We mastered their underground system, the ‘tube,’ fairly quick. I have my sister, Andrea, to thank for that. She made me take a ‘tube test’ when I went to visit her several years ago when she was studying abroad there for a semester. She wouldn’t let me go off on my own until I had passed her little test. This time the only difficulty I had with it was when I managed to get stuck in the door as it was closing. It was actually just my purse that got stuck but it freaked me out a little. Jen made a good point afterwards: at least it wasn’t my head that got stuck. Always an optimist, that Jen. We were so careful to mind the gap (the space between the train and the platform) that we didn’t give enough thought to the closing doors.

We accomplished a lot of sightseeing in a few days including the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels, St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is by far the most beautiful church I’ve seen in Europe yet and I’ve seen a lot of churches over the past 1 ½ years, Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard (we actually didn’t see much because of the crowds), Big Ben, Harrods and Westminster Abbey. At the end of our tour of Westminster Abbey, we had a famous person sighting. Actually, it was Jen that spotted him, Zach Braff from the TV show ‘Scrubs.’ I didn’t believe her at first so I was gawking at him with a stupid look on my face and scared him away. After looking in our direction he quickly put on his sunglasses and hat and exited the building! In addition to seeing the sights, we spent a lot of time wandering through the different neighborhoods and parks: Notting Hill, Covent Garden, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. We also spent some quality time eating fish and chips and drinking cider and ale. A very successful trip to London!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Ice!

Matt and I made a huge discovery this weekend. We found a store that sells bags of ice! This discovery comes just in time for grilling out at the park. Now Matt is talking about needing a cooler. Hmm, I think we have about three of them sitting in our garage in Minnesota. Why didn’t we bring one with us?!

Joyeux Pâques

That means, ‘Happy Easter.’ I think. Still struggling with our French…

We spent the holiday weekend getting together with friends. On Friday night we had our friends, the Ultes, over for salmon that Matt grilled on cedar planks. It was a great way to start off the long weekend.

On Monday night we walked across town to the Elko’s house for some homemade pasta. The Elkos have perfected the art of pasta-making. It was a delicious dinner. The Elko boys, Sam (age 5) and Ben (age 2) adore Matt, so that’s always fun to see them together.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend with friends. It’s hard to be so far from family on holidays, but the friends we’ve made here have become our family-away-from-home. We’re very thankful for our friends in Swiejflkdjfidt (that’s how I type Switzerland really fast).