Castles, Castles, and More Castles (Sept 6-7)

OK so maybe there were only two Castles but you get the idea. We visited 2 fun castles over the weekend. Chris's parents were in town for a week so we made the most of the weekend.

Saturday, we started out they day achieving my biggest mission in London, finding London Bridge. Most people who visit London believe that Tower Bridge is London Bridge but actually London Bridge is a very ordinary bridge. Below Tower Bridge is on the top and London Bridge is on the bottom. Pretty ordinary don't ya think?



Next it was on to those castles I was speaking of. First stop was the Tower of London where the crown jewels are kept. Tower of London is right out our front door. Yes, it took five weeks living here to finally go. The best part about the Tower of London is the crown jewels but unfortunately no cameras allowed in the Crown Jewel room.



Sunday we took a day trip to the east side of England. First stop was Canterbury. Canterbury is a nice little English town. We stopped and saw a beautiful church and took lots of fabulous pictures.

The real fun started on our second stop of the trip, Leeds Castle. Leeds Castle is definitely the most amazing Castle I have seen this far. The Castle is still a working castle with rooms that people actually stay in. The grounds around the castle are beautiful and the castle itself is beautiful. After a fun tour of the castle it was on to jousting. Yes, I said jousting. So entertaining!!

The last stop on the way out of the castle was me riding a Segway Personal Transporter. I love those things!! and I finally got my chance at the wheel. So fun!!

Guernsey and Jersey Labor Day Weekend (Aug 30 - Sept1)

Sorry that it took a while to post this. The last couple weeks have been a little crazy.

So Guernsey and Jersey are two small islands off the southern coast of England. We left Saturday morning on the train to Poole. From Poole we caught a ferry to Jersey.

Poole was a fun little town with lots of little shops. There was a store called "Pound World" which I had to take a picture of for my mom (She loves dollar stores).

We rented a car in Jersey ... Chris couldn't wait to try driving on the left side of the rode again. We did a couple different hikes as we drove around the island. One at devils hole where I had to put my foot down and stop Chris from climbing down in the hole. For some reason Chris likes to think that he is a mountain climber. ;-) It was absolutely beautiful. We stopped a few other places along the way. I got a pearl out a a clam and had it made into a necklace. We stopped a a harbor where the tide was out so the boats were sitting on the sand (kind of weird).

Our last big adventure on the island of Jersey was our hike at Bouley Bay. Chris and I decided it would be a good idea to go swimming on a beach that we could see off a cliff in 70 degree weather. So we took the long hike down to the beach with a backpack full of swimming gear (bathing suits and t-shirts to dry off with). Once we finally reached our destination we changed into suits headed to the water. We were only in the very cold water for a few minutes when we noticed that the beach we were on was quickly disappearing...yep you guessed it ... the tide was coming in ... and faster than we expected. Chris and I had to wade through waist deep water with our bags to get out. CRAZY!!

After that crazy fun we headed back to the harbor to catch our ferry to Guernsey. After a nice ..The next morning we got up early because we only really had a half day to explore in Guernsey. We did what any tourist would do with only a few hours to see a whole island, we took the public city bus on a tour around the island. Our pictures leave a little to be desired... we were taking them through a bus window while the bus was moving.

We had a great time on our little trip and took a lot of fabulous pictures. I hope you enjoy looking through them.

Packing for another trip (Aug 30 - Sept 1)

So in case you were wondering why there was no new posts this week. Well its like this... we didn't do much last weekend. Saturday we went to a really popular market in UK called Borough Market. ( http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/) Basically they have tons of cheese samples and tons of local food. We ate our way through the Market. It was fabulous.

Sunday we hung out with a friend of mine who has lived in London for the last 5 years (Kristin) and a couple of her friends. We started the day with some homemade crepes covered with Nutella and fresh fruit compliments of Kristin. If you have never had Nutella you really need to try it... its like crack ... so yummy. Nutella is a hazelnut-based sweet spread. It is so good. Everybody is totally getting a jar of this stuff for Christmas. Next we went on a little shopping trip in Oxford Circus. Its sort of like the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. The girls (Kristin, Neve, and I) shopped while the boys (Gordan and Chris) had coffee. Next we kept the fun going by checking out Piccadilly Circus which is sort of like time square but don't worry New Yorkers London has nothing on you.

We rounded off a long day by saying bye to Kristin, Gordan, and Neve and going to meet one of Chris's friends and his girlfriend out for a couple of drinks. Shew ... what a long day.

Chris and I both had Monday off as well because it was a UK holiday and we very lamely stayed at home and watched a Marathon of Grey's Anatomy.. I know lame!! but we are totally making up for it this weekend. We are leaving tomorrow morning to go visit Jersey and Guernsey. (can't really determine if they are countries or what they are but oh well ...its going to be soo fun..)

Stay tuned to hear about our fun trip. ;-)

Surprise Adventure (8/16 - 8/17)

Chris woke me up Saturday morning to a huge surprise .... we were taking the train to Brighton and our train left in 1 hour... what? how will I ever pack that fast... well some how I managed.


View Larger Map


After a one hour train ride we arrived in Brighton. The brochures said everything in Brighton was in walking distance so as you can imagine that meant (to Chris) that everything was in walking distance. ;-) So lots of walking!! no buses for us. We walked a couple miles to get to our Bed and Breakfast. Half of that walk was on the coast so it wasn't too bad. One thing that we quickly noticed on our walk to the B&B was that people like to dress crazy here. The first crazy person we passed was a full grown man wearing a diaper only with an over sized pacifier around his neck and a bonnet on his head.

After our walk we finally arrived at our B&B and let's just say it was much nicer on the inside than it was on the outside. The carnival flags and the Christmas ice lights kind of gave a bad impression.


Our room was very nice. We had a little balcony over looking the ocean. After checking it out we left to explore Brighton.

First stop some food. We stopped at a little cafe overlooking the ocean were I tried my first Pimms and Lemonade (a big summertime drink in the UK). Any one coming to visit will defiantly have to try one of these. A drink with an orange slice, lemon slice, a cucumber, and some mint.

We spent the rest of the day doing many fun things. I tested the water out, we spent some time in an old fashion penny arcade ....yes I said penny, we stopped and ate a couple crepes mmmm.. yummy, we played on Brighton pier (sort of like navy pier but more like a carnival), and last but certainly not least we saw a firework display. And for all of you who know how much I love fireworks this was a real treat for me. ;-)

The next day after a lovely nights sleep in our cozy B&B we were off the Marina (which is east of Brighton if you zoom in on the map above you will see it). Before leaving the B&B we had my first full English breakfast which is an over easy egg, backed beans, a tomato, sausage, and bacon. First stop on the journey was ASDA which the Walmart chain over here. (My mom would have been disappointed if I had not stopped there). We spent the rest of the day exploring the Marina and then doing a little shopping in Brighton's shopping district. Chris really needed a football (soccer ball) so he could practice so we stopped and got one of those too. Then off to the train station to catch our train home.
shew .. what a adventure. ;-)


To see all the pictures from our journey click on the picture below to navigate to our full web album.

Brighton Adventure

The adventure begins

We have been here a little over a week and we are getting use to living with out the modern conveniences we have in the states. There are no screens on windows, there is no air conditioning which is OK because it doesn't get very warm here, and there in no grocery store open past 7:00 pm. I am now comfortable with riding the tubes without Chris holding my hand and Chris is comfortable enough with me being here to give me a list of things to retrieve while he is working such as dry cleaning and groceries ;-). Last weekend on Sunday we went for our first big outing ...well it wasn't really big it was kind of small but non the less an outing. A co-worker of mine who lived here for a bit gave me a box with walks in London. There are approximately 50 of them and I plan to do all of them. Our first two were of Hyde Park and St. James Park. Very nice parks!! I am pretty sure Kodi would have loved them.

Here are some pictures of a few things we saw on the walk.

How we got here

So a little backgound on how we got here: Chris got shipped to London for work back in April and poor Angie was living alone in Chicago with her puppy. Chris would come back for visits every couple of weeks but it wasn't the same. Angie decided to ask her company if she could work from London as well and to her surprise they said 'YES'. Chris was here and his lovely other half arrived with 150 pounds of lugage August 2nd. Chris and Angie miss Kodi (the puppy) but they are having a good time so far living on this lovely island on the other side of the Ocean.