Adventures Abroad

Sorry!

2012-01-02T14:26:00.000Z

I admit it, I’m a bad blogger and I owe you all anapology. I’m Sorry! It has been since September 2010, and Ilast posted and that was for a trip we took in May. Needless to say I’m a little behind.

This last year has been a whirlwind for us. Work was a nightmare! My squadron was actively involved with theconflict in Libya. I had the rareopportunity to be part of the team to build-up and establish a new deployedlocation where we did a majority of our flying in support of Libya. I deployed there two separate times. I changed position within our group andbecame an evaluator pilot. On top ofthat, I pushed hard and completed my Masters in Business Administration.

If you can believe it, Andrea has been just as, if notmore busy than me. This last year shewas asked to be the President of a philanthropic association on our base wherethey do different fundraisers throughout the year to provide scholarships andfill other charitable needs in the local community. The group also holds monthly socials as wellas multiple smaller groups like book clubs. This is pretty much a full time job for her, but that isn’t all shedoes. She is also what is called a “KeySpouse” for my flying squadron. She istrained to be an advocate for other spouses and to be a conduit of information forthe families. With a majority of thesquadron deployed, she was extremely busy helping to keep the flow ofinformation moving.

Even with all our commitments and duties, we still triedto take advantage of any bit of free time we had. Since my last blog post, we have traveled allover Europe and the UK. We took a skitrip to Zermatt Switzerland, went hiking in Wales, did wine tasting in France,strolled the canals of Amsterdam, ate chocolate in Belgium, stood in awe of theBeaches of Normandy, sun bathed in Spain, walked the walls of countlessmedieval cities, and explored more castles than I even knew existed. Hopefully I will be a better blogger in theNew Year and go back and upload pictures and recap you all on some of theamazing trips and experiences we’ve had in the past 18 months.

Please enjoy my most recent post about our epic journeythrough Bavaria and our ambitious attempt to visit a ridiculous amount ofdifferent Christmas Markets on an eight day road trip. Enjoy and have an amazing New Year!

I'm Schnitzeled Out!

2012-01-02T13:21:00.002Z

Christmasis an amazing time to be in Europe. Everywhere you go is decorated, every town has a festival or themedmarket, and you get a real genuine Christmas feeling as you stroll the towns orshop the markets. Germany is especiallyfestive this time of year. They areknown for their Christmas Markets and this year Andrea and I decided to take aroad trip the week before Christmas and try to hit as many as we could.

A German Christmas Market is aunique experience; they fill a town square or along a side street with woodenstalls. You find a variety of gifts,goods, ornaments, crafts, decorations, clothing and other knickknacks for sale,as well as food, dessert and drink stalls. Sometimes you will find large beer tents or gardens. Since neither of us are big shoppers anddon’t care for many knickknacks, so we tend to gravitate towards the food anddrink stalls. The standard ChristmasMarket fare is a lot of sausages, chip (fries), meat on a stick and other foodthat is easy to eat by hand. In thedrink stalls you will find coffee, hot chocolate, beer, specialty drinks andGluhwein or as the Brits call it mulled wine. Gluhwein seems to fuel the markets because about every 3^rdstall sells or specializes in it, and everybody is drinking it. It is a spiced wine, usually red, but notalways, that is served warm sometimes with an extra shot of brandy or rum. It is really delicious and believe me, we hadour fare share! One interesting thing isthat usually each market has their own mug that they use to serve thewine. They charge a deposit on yourfirst cup and when you leave you turn it back in. If you like the mug, you can keep it for anice souvenir.

Our Collection of Gluhwein Mugs

Our initial trip planning was very optimistic, we had a list of about eight cities we wanted to hit andmultiple stops in between. After we putit down on paper, we realized we were overshooting a bit and nailed down fivecities. Our itinerary was Rothenburg obder Tauber, Munich, Salzburg (Austria), Nuremburg and Aachen. We planned short stops in Brussels to spendthe night only and Ramstein to visit our friends Kyle and Kristina as well. It was a pretty ambitious trip with a lot ofdriving but we were ready for it.

The Route

Our trip started on Thursday the 15th. Our original plan was to leave the area after I finished work, and try to catch a late ferry to Dunkirk where we would spend the night. Luckily I was able to leave a bit early, had phenomenal traffic and road conditions, and as a result we were able to catch a very early ferry. This allowed us to press on and make it all the way to Brussels, Belgium. We literally only spent the night at a hotel just off the freeway and hit the road running in the morning. We wanted to get to Rothenburg early because we had heard that it was a very cute, quintessential German market town with some good shopping. We were on the road early for the 5 ½ hr drive and we pulled into town around 2pm. Rothenburg is a medieval town that has a wall surrounding the outer perimeter of the city. The inner part is mostly a pedestrian zone with no cars and is filled with shops, cafes, old building, houses, and of course the Christmas Market. We spent the afternoon looking through some of the shops, pursuing the market and having some Gluhwein. For those of you from the North West, it felt like the city Leavenworth was modeled after. Most shops were filled with Christmas decorations, nutcrackers, Christmas pyramids, and glockenspiels. As we were making our way to dinner, it started to snow and it really began to feel like Christmas. We had a fantastic dinner of schnitzel and fun conversation with the owner of the restaurant. As we left the restaurant, the weather had turned worse and most of the market stalls had closed up for the night, so we enjoyed another mug of Gluhwein and decided to make our way back to the hotel.

Wine Tasting in Rothenburg

On the way back we ran into awine bar recommended by Rick Steves. Wedecided to go in, get out of the snow awhile, and do a tasting of Germanwine. Neither of us really prefersGerman wine, but our selections were pretty good. The next day we were up early to try to get alittle more local shopping in before we had to leave for our next destination. We were told that if we wanted to do someshopping this was the town to do it in. Buy ourthings here and then spend the rest of the time just browsing and enjoying themarkets. In Europe there is a famous Christmasstore called Kath Wohlfahrt that specializes in decorations, especially nutcrackers and other traditional German Christmas decorations, that is based out of Rothenburg. We wanted to find a Christmas pyramid and nutcracker and couldn’t think of a better place to find them. Well we found that there were about seven different Kath Wohlfahrt stores and we weren’t without a lot of choices. After we made our purchases we had a lunch of sausages, German thin crust pizza, and a potato dish that is like a hashbrown and made our way towards Munich.

One of Munich's Many Christmas Markets

Munich is about a 3 ½ hr drive from Rothenburg, and it was actively snowing the whole way. One of my favorite things about driving in Germany is that most sections of their freeways (better known as the autobahn) are unregulated for speed. You will routinely find people cruising in excess of 100 mph and it isn’t a big deal. It is very nerve-racking when visibility is down, snowing, and people are passing you or coming up on your bumper at those speeds. Regardless, we made it to Munich safe and in pretty good time. We decided to stay in a hotel on the outskirts of the city because they have an emission control zone in the inner-city, and we didn’t want to take the extra time to get our vehicle inspected. Luckily we found a nice hotel about 20 yards from a subway stop. We were less than a 10 minutes ride from the Marienplatz, Munich’s central square. The subway was very convenient since we were spending 3 nights in Munich and had Markets mapped out all over the city.

Selection of German Pasta at the International Festival

We started our first day byhitting the Marienplatz. As we walkedout of the subway, we were surrounded by hundreds of stalls and a ton ofpeople. Our first stop was for Gluhwein ofcourse! We found something interestingabout the Munich markets; each stall had their own unique mug, if not multiplemugs. I chose the boot looking mug andcontinued on to browse the Market. Thiswas by far the biggest market we had been in, and it was a littleoverwhelming. We shared a sausage forlunch and set out to explore more of the town. Online, it said that Munich has more than 20 different Christmas Marketsand I believe them. As we walked throughthe town, it seemed like on almost every other block there was another Market,each with their own theme, food and Gluhwein stands. We found a Pink themed market in the gaydistrict, a medieval market, a market that specialized in nativity scenefigures and our favorite an international winter festival. The international festival had all sorts offood, drinks and interesting stalls.

Beers at Hofbrauhause

The two days in Munich went by in a blur. We hit about seven different market places, ate all different kinds of food, and looked at more stalls then I care to remember. We spent a few hours at the Hofbrauhause listening to oompah music and enjoying a liter of beer, walked through their version of central garden, which had a Christmas Market in the center, and did some shopping. We tried a new dessert, where they take strips of dough, roll it over a rolling pin looking thing and bake it. After it comes out, they cover it in melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar all over it. It you wait a minute, the sugar melts, hardens and becomes crunchy…delicious! Overall Munich was amazing! The snow was falling in big flakes, people were in a festive mood and we had a blast.

Salzburg Market

On our third day in Munich we took the train into Salzburg, Austria. It was about a 2 hr train ride and a few minute walk into the town. Salzburg is only a few miles into Austria, so it feels a lot like Germany. They had a very nice market. Their stalls had the nicest quality Christmas decorations, but their food was lacking. We shared a pretzel, toured the fortress on the top of the hill, and had a pretty good lunch of goulash and schnitzel. We spent a little time in an Austrian beer hall to warm up and get out of the snow, and toured around the city. The city is very picturesque. The Sound of Music was based in the area around Salzburg. We ended the day with a meal of fantastic Austrian food and took the train back to Munich. We pulled into the Munich train station around 9pm and made the decision to go back to the international winter festival. The day earlier we had seen people drinking drinks that were on fire, needless to say we were intrigued and wanted one. How could we leave Munich and not say we had the “flaming drink” as we called it. The drink is basically Gluhwein with a strong liquor pour on top, lit on fire. They also put a sugar cube type thing on the rim of the glass and soak it in the booze and light it on fire as well. It was really cool to stand there in the snow, with a flaming mug of Gluhwein in the middle of Munich. A perfect evening.

Salzburg Fortess

The next day we checked out of our hotel and made proceeded towards Nuremburg. On the way we stopped off at the Dachau concentration camp. Dachau was a very interesting and humbling experience. It is just amazing to imagine the thousands of people held there, and their dire living situations. It is an amazing experience I would recommend anybody to see.

Merry Christmas!

Our next stop on our whirlwind tour was Nuremburg. Nuremburg is another medieval town that had market stalls in their main square and all through the main part of the city. We quickly checked into our hotel and went out to explore the city. Our first stop was to try the famous Nuremburg sausages. These things are everywhere. They are like your traditional bratwurst, except small (about the size of a Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage) and usually come three to a bun. They were really good, but after so much German and market food, this was going to be our last sausage for a while. We walked around for a while and decided we were about “marketed” out for a while so we decided to proceed back to the hotel to rest our feet and relax before we had dinner. On the way to the hotel we founds a local brewery and decided to pop in for a pint. Boy am I glad we stop here, the beer was phenomenal! I start with just a glass of their seasonal Christmas brew but then saw that they offered sampler trays so I had to order one. The sampler consisted of a lager, dunkel, amber, weisbeer and to top it off a small glass of their apple brandy. All the beers were good, but the brandy I could do without.

Beer Tasting

After leaving the brewery, we decided it was time for dinner. We were on a mission to find something other than German or market food. We had seen a Mexican restaurant earlier in the day and decided to give it a go. Dinner tasted great and was exactly what we needed. We finished out the night, exploring a little more of the town enjoying the lightly falling snow. Little did we know that you shouldn’t eat Mexican food in Germany! We were woken up by a surprise late evening, both Andrea and I were sicker than dogs! I couldn’t believe it, we both had food poisoning. Nothing is worse than being in a hotel and sick. We asked for a late checkout and decided to forego the decision to walk the town in the morning and stayed in bed until we had to leave.

Luckily our next destination was Ramstein to visit with our friends Kyle and Kristina. We rolled into Ramstein around 4pm and pretty much plopped ourselves down on their couch and didn’t really move much. We felt horrible that we were being such party poopers and not fun house guests but it gave us a lot of time to chat and catch up. After an amazing night’s sleep, we started to feel human again and went onto base with Kristina to do some shopping on base. Ramstein is huge, and has amazing facilities, restaurants, and shopping compared to Mildenhall so we wanted to take advantage. After a tasty soup lunch from Macaroni Grill we were on our way to our final stop on the trip.

Aachen At Night

Aachen is another German town known for their market; mostly because it is the closest to England and gets a lot of international travelers. The Market is spread throughout their entire downtown area, concentrated around the base of their cathedral. We debated if we should even go in to the market or just curl up in bed. As the day progressed, we were starting to feel the effects of our German Mexican food and had no desire to walk the streets and smell sausages and gluhwein. We decided to suck it up and proceeded into the market square. What a cool Market! The layout was very cool, the market stalls were unique and beside the International festival, had the best looking food. Unfortunately all we could eat were french fries and a small thing of vegetarian noodles. We stayed out as long as we could and made our way back to the hotel. Another early night, but a great night a sleep and we woke up feeling a lot better. We had breakfast in the hotel and ventured out to find the Chocolate Company we had seen the night before to have coffee and load up on the hot chocolate spoons that Andrea loves for making hot chocolate at home.

As we sat enjoying our coffee, we decided it was time to pack it in and head home. Germany had done us in and we were ready to get home. I was a little sad as we left Germany and said goodbye to the autobahn. Traffic was light and the roads were clear. As we neared the ferry terminal we started to get excited because it looked that we might have the chance to catch an earlier ferry than we planned. As we pulled up to the ticket window we saw the ferry pulling out so we had to wait. Either way it gave us time to read a little and to talk about our trip. Overall we both agreed it was a great trip. The food poisoning tried its best to take us out, but we still were able to see everything we wanted to and got to enjoy all the markets on our list. Germany really help get us in the Christmas spirit which is good because we were only going to have Christmas eve to get ready for our Christmas. We had to wrap all our presents which arrived in the mail while we were gone, shop for our Christmas day dinner party, finish decorating, and recover from that dang Mexican food. We made it though and had an amazing Christmas and enjoyed a fantastic meal and evening with friends. We are really lucky to be stationed here in England and be able to take advantage of all the opportunities that so near. We hope you all had a great Christmas and have an amazing New Year.

Our Purchases from Rothenburg

And Then We Got Gelato

2010-09-26T21:47:00.001+01:00

The Norwegian Gem

Andrea and I celebrated our first year anniversary and we wanted to do it in style. We decided instead of getting each other gifts we would book a cruise to Greece. With the challenges of my job we weren’t able to go on the actual date, but we were able to go a couple of weeks later. We are glad we did! Since we went in June, the weather was perfect. The temps really didn’t reach much higher than mid 80’s and since we walked all over the place we didn’t get too hot or exhausted from being out in the sun all day. The cruise started in Venice then traveled to five ports of call; Split Croatia, Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos, and Iraklion. The benefit of the itinerary we chose was that there was only one full day at sea. We liked this because we figured it gave us the most bang for our buck and visited the most cities for our week long vacation.

Andrea at Rialto Bridge

We followed Andrea’s tradition of booking extremely early travel, and got up at an ungodly hour of 3am to drive to the airport. Luckily Stansted airport is less than an hour away, but anything at 3am is brutal. But by 7am we were off on another adventure! First stop Venice. We had planned to arrive a day early to enjoy the city and get rested for the cruise. We booked a hotel close to the ferry terminal, but still close enough to city center to walk. Since we arrived early we dropped our bags with the front desk and went out to explore the city. This was my first trip to Venice, and I loved it. The Canals, historic buildings, and architecture, everything was amazing. Our first stop for the day was St. Mark’s Square followed by Rialto Bridge. Those were the only must sees and we spent the rest of the day touring around. Andrea was very excited to find the same place that she had found on her last visit that served drinking chocolate, basically a very thick, delicious hot chocolate drink. Since it was pretty hot out we enjoyed the air-conditioning while we drank our drinking chocolate. I was really excited to find a good pizza by the slice place for lunch. For dinner we ate at a restaurant that had a patio right on the canal, and enjoyed our wine and pasta. We were having such a great time we decided to go for a walk and find gelato (Italian ice cream) before turning in. Our short walk turned into something else. We missed the bridge crossing the canal that we needed to take to get back to our hotel and ended up having to loop all the way around the city to get back! I’m not saying we were lost, but we definitely took the long way home. We got to see so much of the city and had some ideas of places we wanted to return to if we had time before we headed back home. There are not any motor vehicles within the city of Venice, so everybody moves by foot or boat. That means all the taxis and busses are boats kind of weird to us, but added to the charm of the city.

Waiting to Board

The next day we got up refreshed after our long day before and got a breakfast of delicious baked goods and some very tasty coffee. We grabbed our things and proceeded to the cruise ship. Luckily our hotel staff told us about a new tram that runs from the bus station to the docks. Most people were arriving by, water taxi, or bus. I think the average price was 50 Euro while our tram cost us about two Euros a person. We dropped off our bags and went to the check-in area. We had to wait to board the ship, and even once on the ship we had to wait a couple of hours to gain access to our room and our luggage. After our number was called and we were allowed to get on the boat and we climbed on board ready for fun. Since we had to wait for our room we bellied up to the bar in the main lounge. We couldn’t resist the temptation of our traditional “celebratory” drink, mimosas made with cranberry juice. We enjoyed our drinks and took in the main lounge of the boat. The decoration was amazing! There were vibrant colors and interesting pieces of art everywhere.

The Traditional Canberry Mimosa

After finishing off our drinks we decided to take advantage of the downtime and explore the ship. The ship was huge! There were about nine different bars and lounges, seven restaurants, and a lot of other rooms for activities. To name a few activities: there was bowling, movies, a theater, gym, pool, outdoor running track, climbing wall, tennis courts, spa, shopping and a casino. I started to get a little disappointed that we only had one day at sea, because there was so much to enjoy on the boat and we weren’t going to have too much time to do it all.

Waterfall at Krka Nation Forest

Our first port of call was Split, Croatia. Andrea and I had no clue about this city. Luckily Andrea’s friend Ava had been there before and gave us some good tips on what to see. Based off her recommendation we decided to book an excursion to the Krka National Park. The park is known for their waterfalls and beauty. We were ready for a long day of hiking. When we arrived we took off to hike the whole trail around the falls. We were told to plan for at least an hour and a half and that it is kind of hard. What a joke! We finished in about 30 minutes and ended up going around it twice. The hike was very easy, but the scenery was extremely beautiful. We took a lot of pictures and enjoyed getting out and being in the sun. After the bus ride back to the city, we had a little time to explore. The city was really cool. The marina area had a lot of neat little cafes and bars. We explored around a little, found some gelato, and returned to the boat for the evening.

Fortress in Corfu

The next day the boat pulled into the city of Corfu, Greece. Corfu is a town of two fortresses. We left the ship thinking that we would walk into the city and if we got too tired we would taxi it back. As we walked in, we passed the first fortress. We followed some signs thinking we would be able to tour the site. Unfortunately, a building complex that is hundreds of years old is still being used as an active naval base. As we explored further into the city we were engulfed by the town market. The city was pretty large and had stores everywhere. We poked around a lot of them but didn’t buy anything until I found gelato! Eventually the market area ended and we came upon the other fortress. This one we could tour. We went in, explored the buildings of the citadel and castle and finally decided that it was time for our late lunch. We passed a lot of places that had our mouths watering from the smell of garlic, onions, and roasted meats. We decided on a place with seating next to the park. I ordered a veal dish with a garlic sauce and Andrea had a pork gyro. The food was outstanding as well was the bottle of local wine. We ended the day by wandering back through the shops and getting more gelato. We eventually made it back to the boat, hot, tired, and ready for a dip in the pool before attending our much anticipated martini tasting.

Santorini

The next evening we pulled in to Santorini. Since we didn’t arrive until the evening we got the day to enjoy the pool and the facilities of the boat. Santorini is an amazing city. It is what you think of when you hear Greece. White washed buildings on the cliff side with colorful roofs and doors. When you arrive by boat, you have a couple of ways to get up on the cliff; climbing a steep path, ride a donkey, or cable car. We contemplated the donkey ride but decided that the cable car was the best decision. We had met a couple at our martini tasting the day prior and had talked about splitting a cab to a local winery. After getting to the top of the cliff we grabbed a cab and went to a winery for wine tasting. The wine was very good as well was the olives, cheeses, and breads we snacked on. The cab returned to take us to dinner. We had no idea where we wanted to go so I asked the driver to take us someplace good for seafood and to take some pictures. As he drove on, we got farther and farther away from the city and onto some very curvy, steep, and narrow streets. Finally we pulled into the most beautiful setting I’ve ever seen. He took us to a place with about five restaurants at the base of the cliff; looking west out over the water. We were all speechless! We grabbed a table for dinner and settled in to enjoy the sunset out over the ocean. The fish was extremely fresh and everything was delicious. It was a perfect evening. The taxi picked us back up and we had a little time to enjoy the town of Santorini. I searched unsuccessfully for gelato but had a lot of fun looking through the shops and enjoying the view as it got dark. That evening, after we were back on the boat, we talked with some people about what we did and the lady was extremely jealous. Apparently Sunset Taverna, the place we ate dinner, was on Samantha Brown’s show Passport to Europe on the Travel Channel. It was the only thing she wanted to see when in Greece and didn’t make it down there.

Paradise Beach

After a short sailing while we were asleep we moored in Mykonos. What a cool looking city. All the buildings are white washed with very narrow winding alleyways and streets. It was a very confusing city to walk around because the roads seemed to loop around every which way without any visible landmarks. Apparently it was designed this way to confuse pirates and make it hard for them to plunder the city. We arrived very early and most of the shops were closed. So we decided to grab a quick breakfast and then continue on our one and only objective for the day, the beach. We had heard great things about the Paradise Beach, and we wanted to spend a day relaxing on the sand and drinking tasty beverages. Unfortunately the weather did not want to cooperate. We battled the wind and the rain as we search for a local bus that would drive us across the island to the beach. We were not to be deterred by the weather and boarded our bus for the beach! We finally arrived at the beach and the weather was the exact opposite of what it was on the other side of the island. The sun was out and it was beautiful. We walked into the walled off beach and we laughed at some of the paintings on the wall. The paintings were of nude people walking along the beach. Apparently on this beach you can go full nude if you choose. As we stepped on the beach we were greeted by a 50ish year old, overweight man frolicking around the beach in nothing other than what he was born in. Awesome! We were in for a spectacle. We walked farther down the beach to an area of bars and restaurants that had beach chairs for rent. We grabbed some chairs and took a sigh of relief because apparently the “free spirits” tended to hangout (and I mean hangout) at the far end of the beach. We had a great day enjoying the sun, some tasty beverages, and just relaxing. We finally packed up our gear and headed back into town to find a late lunch. We walked the streets a little looking for some gyros. The smell of garlic and onions filled our nostrils and we knew we found our spot. We both had amazing chicken gyros with chips and salad. We browsed the shops a little, I had gelato, and Andrea had a crepe, met the local pelican Petros, and finally made our way back to the ship.

Iraklion Marina

By this point we were pretty exhausted and ready for a little break. We had one more city to visit and then we had our day at sea. The final city was Iraklion. The boat pulled into port very early. We only had a half day, and we wanted to take advantage of it. We left the ship as early as we could, ready to venture out and find some local culture. As we started walking through the town we noticed most things were closed, since it was so early. We figured if we walked along the ocean front, we would eventually find something. Well, we kind of found something, but it was basically a local mall. We got Starbucks, pulled out the map and tried to decide on a plan of attack. We saw a monument that looked promising and was kind of close to us so we decided to head that way. We were kind of in the bad part of town so we had to dodge traffic, animals, and a lot of rough looking people as we made our way to the monument. Not the scenic tour of the city we were looking for. Finally, we made it to the monument! It consisted of two grave stones, not well kept, for a famous writer that died in 1957 and his wife that died in 2004. What a waste of time! We were basically done at that point and were ready to write off Iraklion. Fortunately, we decided to take a different route back and what a difference. We ended up walking to the local market area and had a great time going through the shops. We found some gelato, fresh baklava, and really enjoyed ourselves doing some people watching, seeing what the local merchants had to offer, and exploring a fortress out on the seawall. We had to make it an early day since the boat was leave just after noon. We ventured back preparing for our day at sea.

Achellies (yes I named him), He Followed Us Around Iraklion

Overall we loved our experience on the boat. We had an estate room with a balcony that looked out over the ocean. We loved to sit out there, read, and enjoy the fresh morning air after waking up. The room we pretty small but it had everything we needed. A very comfortable bed, a small seating area, and a full bathroom that was bigger than we expected. We didn’t spend much time in our room because there was always so much to do on board.

Our Estate Room

As I mentioned earlier, probably our favorite thing on board was the martini tastings. Finding interesting martinis and cocktails is pretty hard in the UK and we really wanted to take advantage of our time on board to enjoy some tasty drinks while we had the opportunity. Luckily the cruise offered a couple different martini tastings where one of their master bartenders mixed four different types of martinis for us to try. We got smaller portion of the drinks than you would have if you had ordered it from the bar, but it was still enough to make it worth our money. It was pretty interesting because each day it was a different theme and we got to try a large variety of drinks while learning the history of each drink. Besides the excellent martinis we created a martini club with some of the other couples we met during the first event. It was a lot of fun! There was only supposed to be three tasting during the cruise, but we were able to convenience our favorite bartender, Lindsey, to do a fourth. After tasting 16 different martinis and learning how to make them, Andrea and I are ready to mix up some tasty concoctions when you all come and visit.

The Pool Deck

Another favorite of ours was the pool. The boat had a huge pool deck with two different pools, a few water slides, four Jacuzzis, multiple bars, a buffet and tapas station, and poolside blackjack! We tried to spend as much of our free time out by the pool as we could. It was a lot of fun! They offered different activities all day as well as special lunches and dinners grilled on the pool deck. I realized that you had to be careful when ordering a drink from the bar. The night prior I had sangria with my meal. It was a large glass and it cost around $6 so I figured I would order it again. This time they brought out a Super Big Gulp sized pitcher full of Sangria. To my surprise, it was $30. I’m glad it was very tasty or I would have been upset about my expensive drink! Unfortunately we didn’t have as much time as we liked out by the pool, but there was so much more to do on the boat.

Yummmmmm!

An interesting thing about the Norwegian Cruise Line was that they offered a lot of different options for food. There were the standard dining rooms and buffets that you find on other cruise ships, but they also had other places to eat for a small fee. We dined at the Mexican, Asian Fusion with Sushi, and the Japanese Steakhouse restaurants. These places offered a good alternative to the standard cruise fare and were a nice treat.

Enjoying an On Deck Party by the Pool

While on the boat we also took in a show in the theater. They had two performers from Cirque du Soleil that did a 45 minute performance that was really good. I spent a little time (and money) in the casino. Andrea took advantage of our day at sea and enjoyed a morning in the spa. She got a body wrap with a massage. She looked relaxed and radiant when she met me by the pool after her treatment. The boat also had an art gallery, bowling alley, Wii sports, and a ton of other things to do. We didn’t take it all in, but we tried.

Venice From the Boat

After our long day at sea, we woke up to us pulling into port in Venice. It was sad, to open the drapes and see the dock off our balcony. We knew our cruise was over! We packed up and headed off the ship and back into Venice. We booked a late flight so we could get one more day in Venice.

Glass Blowing

We dropped our bags off at a checked luggage place at the bus station and proceeded on our way. Our goal for the day was to go to Murano Island. Murano is famous for their glass blowing and we wanted to watch some glass objects being made. We walked through Venice, stopping for some gelato along the way and caught the water taxi to the island. We went into a couple of studios where they were actively blowing glass. How fascinating! To sit there and watch somebody take a glob of molten glass on the end of a long rod and turn it into an object like a horse or a vase is very impressive. Murano glass is known for the colors and a specific style, but it was interesting to browse through the different shops and see how each studio differs for the other. We bought a few souvenirs, enjoyed some lunch with some local wine and preceded back into Venice. I had one more thing I had to do before we left.

The Result

I needed to hit my favorite gelato place one more time. I couldn’t get enough of the cookies gelato and I wanted to enjoy it one last time before we headed home. With our stomachs full of tasty gelato, we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus back to the airport and for our two hour flight home.

Enjoying Gelato

We cannot wait to take another cruise! What a great way to explore a lot of different cities and areas. We aren’t sure where we will go next, but we are looking at a cruise that goes through the Baltic Sea and hits St Petersburg Russia, or a western Mediterranean cruise through Italy, the French Riviera, and Spain. Whatever we chose, we can’t wait to go.

Venetian Canal

From Rialto Bridge

Enjoying My Slice of Pizza

Krka National Forest

Andrea Really Liked the Frogs

Fortress in Corfu

Pork Gyro in Corfu

The Donkey Ride to Santorini

Wine Tasting

Our Beautiful View from Sunset Taverna

Look How Excited She is For Her Fish

Now This is What I Call Fresh

Sunset Taverna at Night

Petros The Pelican

Our Ship

Chicken Gyros in Mykonos

Mykonos

The Amazing Monument in Iraklion

Beautiful Disaster...

2010-08-16T11:15:00.000+01:00

I have determined that anywhere in Europe I am going to travel is going to require a very early morning to start the trip! Holland was no different, starting with a drive to base in the dark. Luckily the road construction was complete and I didn’t have to call Tyler for other directions this time! Since this was an organized trip done by the base we did not take the quickest means of travel, but the most economical. Our journey included an hour and a half van ride, a two hour wait at the ferry terminal, a six hour ferry ride and another hour and a half drive to the hotel, once we arrived in Holland. If there is any type of transportation to take for a six hour trip, a ferry isn’t a bad option. I was able to walk around, lie on a bench for a nap and go outside for some fresh air. It was also a good opportunity to get to know the other people we were traveling with. There were twelve people total on the trip and eight of the people are good friends that travel together quite frequently. Once we arrived at Hook of Holland we made the hour and a half drive to our hotel in the city of Leiden. Our hotel was perfectly located across the street from the train station and just minutes walk into town for restaurants. We weren’t really sure what to look for in ‘traditional’ food for this area, but it became quite obvious that if we wanted a traditional meal we would be eating at a pannekoekenhuis (pancake house)! Imagine a crepe pizza and that was the plethora of options on the menu. Anywhere from an apple pancake to a seafood pancake they had it all. It was a good experience, but not one I was so crazy about that we needed to go back on this trip. After dinner we all met back at the hotel for wine and chocolate cake to celebrate one of the travelers birthday. The best part about the wine and cake was that the gentleman that brought them is quite knowledgeable in wine and pairing it with foods. With the cake we had a very nice bottle of port and I quickly realized port was not your typical wine! I haven’t tried a port before and didn’t enjoy it as much until I started eating the cake in between sips. It wasn’t until we were finishing up that Dave (the wine guy) gave everyone the history of the wine that he mentioned that each bottled was $90! I don’t think I have ever had a glass of such expensive wine and this was the least expensive bottle he brought.

My Crepe Like Pizza Dinner

Our first full day started with one of the best European hotel breakfasts I have ever eaten. The hotel makes all of their own breads and has a good selection of hot and cold food. My favorite part was the small packets of chocolate sauce that I put on my croissant. The sauce was similar in texture to Nutella, but was much tastier. We had a short drive to Holland’s famous Keukenhof gardens where we would spend the next few hours exploring the gardens and admiring all the different types of flowers. One thing I really enjoyed was looking at the names of some of the varieties. Never knew there was a Washington flower! At the end of our time at Keukenhof I found out the Amaryllis bulbs were for sale. Walking through the gardens I could not believe how large those flowers were and was really drawn to their beauty. Now I have two of my own that are slowly growing. They seem to be growing a little differently and I am not sure which one is correct. Hope to find out soon! The bike riding on this trip was much less than I anticipated. I was really looking forward to doing something active and it was much more of a leisurely stop and go ride. There was no biking through tulip fields either. We were across the street from the fields, but never got very close to a large blooming field. Since the biking didn’t last very long most of the group decided to take the train in to Amsterdam for the evening. Nicole (friend that I went to Germany with) and I were planning to spend the next day in Amsterdam and decided to stay behind and enjoy another evening in Leiden. Very glad we did! We had a great dinner at an Argentian steak house, another popular style of restaurant in the area. It was nice to have a relaxing evening away from the big group and finally caught up on sleep!

After another good morning breakfast we started to see more of how unorganized this organized trip was. Nicole and I had already decided we were going to spend the day in Amsterdam while the rest of the group was going to go biking again along the same trails we were on the day before. The woman that was leading the trip brought up the option, just as everyone was finishing breakfast, that we could also do a bike tour in Amsterdam. Once she provided that option she had no other information on time, location or price. Luckily the money we paid up front included all of the biking activities and we did not need to pay any more for her mistake. Biking through Amsterdam was the complete opposite experience than the day before. As you can see from the photos there are a lot of bikes in Amsterdam! Luckily we had a guide that helped us navigate to some of the biggest tourist parts of the city and taught us some of the biking etiquette! The tour was a little over an hour and we saw quite a few things; Anne Frank House, Van Gough Museum, Red Light District, High end Fashion shopping district and the smallest house in Amsterdam. There are quite a few canals in Amsterdam, similar to Venice, which made the biking trip a little difficult for some with the constant stopping and starting on an incline. At least we got baskets with our bikes today, I felt more like a local besides the bright yellow color of the rental bike. Once we were on our own the important thing Nicole and I wanted to see was the Anne Frank house. The house did not have any furniture inside to replicate how it would have been set up when it was occupied. Otto Frank asked that the house remain as it was left and instead helped oversee the making of diagrams to show how the home was furnished. We were so glad to see the site of such a famous part of history. Right outside of the Anne Frank house was a canal and a little shop that rented paddle boats. There were two other girls with us and we thought that between the four of us that we could manage an hour ride down the canals. Little did we know that the steering was incredibly difficult and we would be dodging the motorized boats. This experience definitely made up for the lack of biking the trip offered and left us ready to find something for dinner. One of the girls brought her travel books with her and we decided on a restaurant that Rick Steve’s recommended based on the promise of a good salad bar. A good hearty salad has been hard to find and this salad bar was phenomenal. There wasn’t just lettuce and various chopped veggies, we had grilled peppers and carrots, variety of pasta salads and the best crotons I have ever eaten!

A Monday evening in Amsterdam is not as lively as one of the weekend days, but I didn’t think a trip to Amsterdam would be complete without seeing what the Red Light District was all about. The little parts of the area we saw were quite interesting to say the least. When Tyler and I go back to Amsterdam together I don’t think that is a stop that we will need to make! Once was good for me. At 10 o’clock the group was meeting back at the hotel for one last night of wine and snacks. Tonight’s pairings were Pinot Noir and chocolate and an Australian Shiraz and cheese. Yum! These wines were more expensive than the port ranging from $90-$100 per bottle and much more the type that I enjoy to drink. Not sure that I will be spending that kind of money on a bottle of wine any time soon!

On our last day we had just enough time for some quick sightseeing before we had to be at the ferry. We stopped at Kinderdijk to view one of the most famous spots of working windmills. Not much to do other than get a few photos and then we were off to Delft pottery. That was a great stop! We were able to see the artists mold the pottery, draw the outline of the design on a couple pieces and see other pieces painted in the traditional Delft Blue. There were quite a few impressive pieces that I wanted to take home and decided on this tulip vase. This is a small version of this vase that was used as a status symbol years ago. I was excited to bring this vase home for a couple a reasons; one – it is really cute J and two – it is the first piece of our collection of items we have collected from our travels around Europe.

Sorry it has taken so long to get this posted. I was quite lazy on getting it finished! Now that this is up there should be quite a few more coming pretty soon as Tyler is much better at writing these quickly. We have our first long term visitor here this week. She and I went to Scotland last weekend and are off to Paris in the morning. Looking forward to the crepes!

Nicole and I at the Keukenhof Gardens

A Bike Parking Lot Downtown Amsterdam

More Ireland Please!

2010-04-12T17:12:00.002+01:00

The Town of Portrush

From the crowded seas of green to an ocean front view we headed to Portrush, Northern Ireland on Thursday the 18th. What a change of pace! We arrived and checked in to our B&B perfectly located across from the ocean and headed out for a late lunch. After coming from Dublin we didn’t realize how difficult it would be to find lunch just after 2:00. Most restaurants stop serving from 2:00 – 5:00. We finally found a little café that serves food all day and got a quick bite to eat before heading out to explore. Since it was late in the afternoon we decided to walk around a see what the town had to offer and leave the tourist activities for tomorrow.

On the Cliffs Overlooking Portrush

We stumbled upon this row of houses that I was fascinated with. It was hard to get a picture to do these houses justice. If you imagine the cookie cutter housing developments that are popping up all over in the states except these houses are all connected. The only difference is the color of the house or the color of the door. Something about this just really struck me as a typical style of the area.

On the Beach Front

The owner of our B&B recommended a group of restaurants by the marina for dinner. We tried to eat at one of them for lunch and since the food came so highly recommended we decided would give it another try. So glad we did! The food was fantastic and the prices were very reasonable. We shared a bottle of wine for 9 GBP (about $14)! Craziest thing was that I ordered a hamburger. The crispy onion straws made my decision! This restaurant had one of the most amazing desert selections I have ever seen. I think there were 18 different options. We decided on this delicious cake. Even more surprising than me ordering a hamburger, Tyler loved the desert! Think he even liked it more than I did. After a quick walk along the coast we decided to make it an early night to catch up on sleep and be rested for a full day of sightseeing tomorrow.

Our Fantastic Desert

When we first started looking into Portrush, all the websites said it was close to many attractions, the Castle Dunluce, the Bushmills Distillery, and an area called Giants Causeway. Apparently their idea of close was within 20 miles! We didn’t have a car and really didn’t feel like walking that far so we were looking for transportation options. Luckily the owner of the B&B was kind enough offer us his and his wife’s bikes for the afternoon. It was a beautiful day so we decided to take him up on it. Our first destination was the Castle Dunluce, about four miles away. What a great way to experience the coast line! We a great view of the beach, golf courses, and the scenery. We pulled into Castle and realized that it wasn’t like any of the other castles we have visited up to this point. It was basically a few walls and other remnants of what was once a castle. The setting was amazing. It stood on the edge of a cliff looking out over the North Atlantic. We found out that a large portion of the kitchen area had actually fallen into the ocean, taking a bunch of people with it when the castle was inhabited. It was a really interesting castle to visit. Nothing was off limits so you could really explore around the property and really feel what the spaces were like when it had completed walls, ceilings, and floors.

Castle Dunluce

Our original plan was to bike down to the Bushmills distillery and have lunch in the local town. We haven’t ridden bikes for a long time and we were a little out of biking shape. We both decided that it would be better to head back into Portrush, get lunch and then catch a bus. Tyler especially liked this idea because by the time we arrived back at the hotel, he could not sit on his bike seat! We had lunch at a local café and made our way to the bus stop. After a short 30 minute ride we were standing in front of the distillery. What a different setting than the Jameson distillery. This was an actual, working distillery and you could see the actually working going on. We signed up for the grand tour. Unfortunately we weren’t able to take pictures on the tour. They claimed that it was because of the alcohol vapors in the air and that the cameras could be a hazard. The tour was really cool and informative. We saw the whole process involved with making whiskey. One of Tyler’s favorite parts of the tour was the cask room. They had a warehouse full of oak casks where they were aging the whiskey. The smell in that was amazing, rich and sweet. After a few more rooms we were invited to taste their whiskey. I am not much of a whiskey fan so lucky Tyler got two tasters. They had a hot drink with cloves and spices that we wanted to try and they gave us an extra taster, I didn’t care for that much either, but Tyler did!

The Distillery

After poking around the gift shop for a while we decided that it was time to catch our bus back to the hotel. We originally wanted to make it to the Giants Causeway after the distillery, but we just ran out of time. The Giants Causeway is a natural rock formation that is supposed to be beautiful. I would guess it is a lot like Deception Pass in northwest Washington State. There is a rope bridge that we wanted to cross, but I guess it will have to wait until next time we are in Ireland. On the bus ride home we couldn’t stop talking about our dinner the night before. We decided that the food was too good to not go back to the same place. The desserts were enough to draw us in, but the promise of decently priced, good food and wine tipped the scales. It was still a little early for dinner when we got back to the hotel so we decided to take the long way to dinner. We found a cool rock formation that went out into the water. We were a little disappointed that we were able to find any sea life among the rocks so we continued on. The town was really quiet. I guess it isn’t tourist season, and it isn’t warm enough to get people to the beach, so everything felt a little sleepy. That is except our restaurant. The place was hopping! I guess we weren’t the only people that thought it was a fabulous choice for drinks and dinner.

On Our Sunset Walk

After another fantastic dinner, and an equally good dessert we decided to have one final walk along the beach before we turned in. This time was walked along the peninsula that gave an amazing sunset view of the town, beach, and ocean. We were pretty tired after our full day and decided to make it an early night; we had another day of travel ahead of us.

View From our Room

We woke up early to have breakfast, pack, checkout, and catch the train back to Dublin. It was another beautiful day and we were a little sad to be leaving the quiet little town of Portrush. We caught our train and started settling in for a couple hour journey back to Dublin. Imagine our surprise when our train stopped and we were told we had to get on a bus. Apparently there was construction planned on the rail line and we had to take a bus. The bus added an extra two hours to our trip. We weren’t too happy because we were planning on being able to enjoy Dublin for one more day. We finally arrive in Dublin and the city was still packed. This time it was for the Ireland versus Scotland rugby match. The streets were flowing with people dressed in green or blue and in a festive mood. We checked into our hotel, grabbed a quick bite to eat and decided to try to see some of the sights we missed. The first stop was the Dublin castle. What a disappointment. There was only a few parts that even looked old enough to classified as a castle and many parts had been repaired so many times that it almost looked new. At this point we were ready for to get off our feet. We found a great bar that had a pre Easter special, all cocktails 5 Euros. I fell in love with this place because they had martinis on the menu. They also had a lot of the flavored vodkas I love. I had a black cherry cosmo and couldn’t have been happier.

Story of the Kitchen Falling in the Sea

It seems that any new town we go to we find Mexican food. Edinburgh had by far the best Mexican food in the UK and we were hoping the place we found in Dublin we match it. The food was pretty good, but the portion size and prices were ridiculous. Tyler ordered chips and salsa, and it consisted of a small bowl filled with chips and a spoonful of salsa on top. It was almost 5 Euros and very disappointing. I guess our quest for good Mexican food continues. We ended back at the Morgan hotel for another chocolate martini to finish out the night. The atmosphere was very festive and people were having a lot of fun but we were pretty tired from our week worth of celebrating and having fun. We wondered back to our hotel hoping for a good night sleep. We entered through the hotel bar and Tyler couldn’t resist one final Dublin Guinness. The hotel we were staying had a really neat bar and restaurant. A band was setting up in a separate room for a concert as Tyler finished his beer. We kind of wish we could have watched the band, but it was time for bed.

Scenic Stop on the Bike Ride

We woke up early again for another full day of traveling. This time over 13 hours of travel! The only rail line from the ferry terminal to Ely had construction on a segment of it and we had to take another bus. When we went to get on the bus, there were two busses waiting. We jumped on the second bus and were we glad we did. The first bus was going to have to stop at all the train stations along the route to Chester, where we would get back on the train. Our bus went direct to Chester, saving us at least an hour. We were able to jump on an earlier and more direct train to Ely. All together it saved us almost three hours of travel! We had an amazing time in Ireland and really want to visit it again. So if any of you want to visit during St Patrick’s day please let us know because we would love to go again.

Castle Dunluce

Sea of Green

2010-03-21T22:36:00.004Z

It is amazing how easy it is to travel from Ely. Andrea found a great deal to leave from our local train station and 8 hrs of train and ferry travel we arrive in Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. This is something that we both really wanted to do, and figured that we needed to take advantage of the opportunity. Our travels were going very smoothly until about halfway through, our train did not arrive at its scheduled time. Apparently there was an obstruction on the tracks and it was going to be 40 minutes late. This got us a little worried since we only had about 50 minutes of layover at the ferry terminal and after talking with the ferry company, they made it sound like we had to make it on that ferry or we would be out of luck. We arrived 4 minutes too late! Needless to say we were stressed. Fortunately there was another ferry leaving four hours later on another carrier. The train company switched our tickets for us and we had to wait. The ferry terminal is in a small town called Holyhead. It is situated on the seaside and really doesn’t have much to offer. Regardless, we decided to load up our bags, and venture out looking for something to fill our time. All they offered was a small market, some pubs and cafes. We sat on a bench outside of a cool church for a while and enjoyed the views. Our butts quickly got cold from the stone bench, so we decided to go back to the terminal and wait out the rest of our time.

Outside the Terminal in Holyhead

We had a very entertaining time in the ferry terminal. There were these two college aged girls, who were travel around Europe separately that decided to sit together and have a conversation. They must have become close friends quick because their conversation involved things casual acquaintances usually do not talk about. It was conversation usually reserved for the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine. I will spare you the details, but we had a pretty good idea about what they did and didn’t like about their past boyfriends, especially in the anatomy department. We weren’t eavesdropping; they were in the middle of the lobby, talking loud enough for everybody to hear. How American! On that note, they weren’t the only American’s traveling with us. The train and ferry were packed with them. I guess I got a little annoyed because we wanted to go to Dublin to enjoy an Irish St. Patrick’s day, and all we were seeing were Americans. Oh well, I guess we were being a little selfish.

Downtown Dublin

The only nice thing about being delayed for our ferry trip was that we were rebooked on the catamaran ferry. Our three and a half hour trip was only two hours! We quickly went through customs and boarded a bus into downtown Dublin. After a short walk, I expertly navigated us to our hotel. Upon walking into the lobby we were impressed. It was a very whimsical theme. I felt like I was walking into the pages of Alice in Wonderland. The first thing we saw were three, huge, tall back over sized chairs. All the furniture was oversized and ornate. After a quick check-in, we hurriedly made it to our room to drop off our bags and head out for dinner. Since we arrived two hours later than planned, we were very hungry and ready for some Irish cheer.

The "Alice in Wonderland" Chairs

The hotel was located across the street from Trinity College and about 2 blocks from the major restaurant and pub district called Temple Bar. We had heard from some friends that there was a restaurant in Temple Bar called Boxty’s that had amazing food. They weren’t lying. They serve an interesting Irish dish called a boxty. It is essentially a large potato pancake used to make an Irish burrito. Andrea had one filled with lamb, potato, carrots, and onion, and I had corned beef and cabbage. Very interesting dish but delicious. After we finished our dinner and a few pints, it was after 10 pm and we were exhausted. We decided to take a short walking tour around the area then to retire for the evening. We had a few long days ahead of us.

Beer Tasting at Guinness

The next day we woke up, rested and ready for a full day. The big plans were to take the Guinness tour, meet up with a friend that was in town, and then go to a show of Irish folk music and dancing. We walked about two miles to get to the Guinness Storehouse for the factory tour. Andrea had been there before and said the tour was a lot of fun. We arrived at the Storehouse and joined the crowd for the tour. The building is incredible. The central part of the building is designed as a seven story pint glass and is an impressive sight. We did the tour, taking photos along the way. The unfortunate thing is that, you don’t get to see any of the real brewing process. It is all audio visual representations of what actually goes on in the factory. Half way through the tour, I was able to partake in a lesson on how to pour a perfect pint of Guinness. The tour ended on the seventh floor, in a room that is all glass with a 360 degree view of Dublin. It was a beautiful day and we had an amazing unobstructed view of the city. We also got another pint to enjoy with the view. We left the brewery after having two full pints, small tasters along the tour, finding Guinness St. Patrick’s day shirts, and other various souvenirs. Overall, we had a lot of fun and would recommend it to anyone. Even though Andrea had done the tour before, there had been a few changes and she enjoyed herself.

Guinness Stache

It was just past noon when we finished the tour. We were a little buzzed from the Guinness and ready for lunch. We walked the streets and stumbled upon a cool little Italian place for lunch. I had pizza and Andrea had a chicken dish. We were starting to get impressed with the food in Dublin. We were seeing variety everywhere we went, and everything looked and smelled amazing. We had a couple of hours before we met our friend Lincoln at the train station so we decided to head back to Temple Bar area to check out what was going there. The area was packed. Everybody was already in the St. Patrick’s Day mood. People were dressed in green and wearing funny hats. We stumbled upon a boutique hotel called the Morgan, that served martinis in their bar. Andrea had to check it out. She started with a lemon drop, that for some reason they made creamy, and followed it by a chocolate raspberry martini. This one was her favorite. We enjoyed our drinks; I had Guinness and another local beer, and had fun doing some people watching.

Enjoying a Cosmo

We met Lincoln at the train station and ventured off for some more Irish cheer! Our reservations for dinner were at 7:30 pm and it was only 5 pm so we had to find something to fill our time. Since Lincoln was leaving on Wednesday and wouldn’t be able to enjoy St. Paddy’s day in Dublin, we decided to do a little pub crawl through Temple Bar prior to dinner. We had a lot of fun! Every pub had Irish music playing, most with live bands. The atmosphere, even though crowded, was fun and everybody was in a good mood. After visiting three different pubs, we ventured over to the Knightsbridge bar for our dinner and show. The dinner was pretty good but the entertainment was fantastic. A band of three guys played traditional Irish music while we ate. After they played, five dancers took the stage for traditional Irish dancing. If you’ve seen Riverdance, imagine that, but smaller. We had a decent dinner, great entertainment, and a ton of fun. We finally called it a night around midnight and made it back to our hotel.

Irish Dancing

Prior to going to bed, we stopped by the front desk to find out about the parade. It started at noon, and they recommended that we get there two hours early. We ventured out around nine am the next morning to find a good breakfast and then stake out spots. To our surprise people were already starting to line up and take the prime spots along the route. After breakfast we walked along the parade route and finally found a place where we could be right along the rail and have a good view of the parade. We were excited about having a good spot, just not excited about having to stand in place for two hours waiting for it to start. The two hours were well spent doing people watching. It was really humorous to see all the interesting outfits/costumes. Andrea especially liked the huge group of women wearing pink shirts and stiletto heels there for a charity run.

Waiting for the Parade to Start

The parade was like nothing else we have ever seen. There were a few marching bands, but the rest was made mostly of dance troupes, in really weird, colorful costumes. The floats were all self propelled, and most of them were blasting weird music. We really felt like we were watching something from Alice in Wonderland. It was just weird! Make sure to check out the pictures on our web album because words cannot do it justice.

Some of the Weird Costumes at the Parade

After wading our way through the crowds, we found our way to the Jamison whiskey factory. We thought about doing the tour, but we found out that they didn’t distill any of their whiskey onsite so we just hit the gift shop and poked around a little. To our surprise, the factory was packed with people. Apparently, there is a yearly promotion help by Jamison to bring in radio stations from around the word to broadcast in Dublin on St. Patrick’s day. We saw 102.5 from Seattle, stations from almost every major city in US, as well as some from Brazil, Argentina, and some other countries. It was pretty cool to see.

Post Parade Crowd

After a short break to drop stuff off at our hotel room, we were ready to hit Temple Bar for some St. Paddy’s day celebration. It was absolutely packed! It was hard to walk along the street let alone get into a pub. It was a sea of green everywhere we went. Andrea and I both felt a little out of place because we weren’t decked out in green. All I had was an Irish scarf I bought to fit in better. One of the essential items we had to find while in Dublin was Bailey’s ice cream. We found it in Temple bar, which made Andrea very happy! We made it into a few pubs and had a Guinness or two, but it was time for dinner. We decided to find a Tapas restaurant we saw the day prior. The meal was fantastic! Full and ready for some more fun, we worked our way back towards Temple Bar. The rest of the evening was moving from pub to pub, just enjoying the crowds and having fun. We must be getting old, because we were back at the hotel by midnight, exhausted. I’m glad we did because we had another full day of traveling ahead of us. Stay tuned for the rest of our trip and our visit to Northern Ireland.

Perfect Pour Graduate

Pub Crawling with our Friend Lincoln

Hotel Lobby

This Guy Was My Favorite

Temple Bar Craziness

More Madness

The Sea of Green

Pub Crawling on St. Paddy's Day

The End of the Pub Crawl

***NOTE***

If you would like to view our web album click on the slideshow on the top right of the page and it will take you to our Picasa web album.

You can also find it here http://picasaweb.google.com/TylerAndreaBerge

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

2010-03-18T15:51:00.002Z

Who gets up at 3:15AM? Not me! A free flight to Germany was definitely a little motivation to get up much earlier than normal. After picking up my friend that was traveling with me it was 4:15 and we were on schedule to be on base, parked and in the passenger terminal just before 5:00. Slight problem – the main road to base, and the only way I know how to get there, is closed until 6:00AM for construction. TYLER, I need help! Good thing he is fantastic with directions and gave us turn by turn directions, including landmarks, directly to base. Not sure what we would have done without his photographic memory! Nicole was amazed he gave the directions while lying in bed. For as detailed as he was she thought he had to be looking at Google maps. The funny thing about this situation is that Tyler and I had just talked about me not knowing any other way to get to base. Little did we know that we would run into that situation so quickly!

Nicole and I Waiting to Takeoff

The flight we took arrived at Ramstein AFB, Germany about 10:00AM and we immediately got a taxi to the nearest train station to go to Frankfurt. Traveling by train can be easy as long as you know the system you are working with. So far each time I have traveled by train has been a different system. Some tickets have very detailed information about the platform you will be arriving at, along with the time and the platform for your transfer and departure time. Our tickets were printed with a starting location and an ending location, made no notes of the two stops we needed to make on the way or any of the times. Luckily there was another woman purchasing tickets that spoke English and helped us print off the full itinerary. Without that I am not sure we would have ended up anywhere close to Frankfurt. Traveling in a country where I do not know much of the language makes everything a little more interesting! Unfortunately I did not take the two hour train ride to view the beautiful country side, I napped! Being up at 3:15 took its toll once the train started moving!

Downtown Frankfurt

All rested and ready to go – we arrived in Frankfurt around 1:00, checked in to our hotel and set out to find some lunch. We asked the woman working at the reception desk for a recommendation on a good local lunch spot and she highly recommended a great Greek/Mediterranean restaurant called Panino. With a map in hand I led us to the street she highlighted on the map and found we were in the middle of the sex district, full of strip clubs, flashing neon signs, and no restaurant called Panino in sight! There were plenty of kabob spots, but there was no way I was eating anything in that area! We ended up finding an Irish pub that was close and decided that would have to do. As with most restaurants we have found here, the food was bland and overpriced. We spent the afternoon walking in the direction of old town Frankfurt. Overall, I was surprised that Frankfurt is a pretty modern town. There was a small area that was “traditional German” looking, but most of the area we saw was new shopping centers and large high rise buildings. Most of our walk was done along the waterfront. There was a great walking path that seemed like a great idea until the wind picked up. The picture of Nicole by the water really shows how windy it was along with the true color of the water. It was so brown and most of the photos are pretty deceiving on how brown it really was. Definitely not the beautiful blue water I was used to in Seattle.

Windy Day by the Nasty Water

Since we did not have any type of German food for lunch, we were in search of a great German restaurant for dinner. We took a chance and asked the woman at the coffee shop for a recommendation and she did not disappoint! We walked in and the small restaurant was packed with locals. It was a 30-60 minute wait, but we decided it would be worth it. Wow, was the food ever good! I had a schnitzel covered in cheese and ham with chips. Best part of the meal was paying 5 Euros (about $7) for a bottle of water. We didn’t know how much it was until the bill showed up. From my experience traveling around Europe you will pay a good amount for a bottle of water, but I obviously forgot how expensive bottled water really is.

Townhouses that Reminded Me of Coeur d'Alene

After dinner we were pretty tired from our long travel day and decided just to head back to the hotel for the evening. Good thing it was good walking weather, somehow we went about a half mile in the wrong direction before we realized we were going the wrong way. Oops! Guess that is what happens when two women travel together whose husbands usually deal with the map and directions. The good part of our detour was that we found Panino, the restaurant we searched for lunch. I quickly pulled out my map to make sure I wasn’t just completely horrible at reading a map and sure enough, the restaurant was nowhere near where the lady told us. That made me feel slightly better about my map reading skills.

Frankfurt at Daybreak

Luckily our hotel was directly across the street from the train station. Once we were ready in the morning we just walked right over and took the first train back to Ramstein. We have heard great things from other spouses about the big “mall” at Ramstein and wanted to have some time to look around before our flight home. The train ride home was one of the most interesting travel experiences. We had a few scares of being on the wrong train. The first problem was when we got on a train and the town name listed was not what we were expecting to see. We asked a gentleman if the train we were on was going to stop at the destination we needed and he pointed out and around the train. Apparently we were on the correct train, just needed to be in one of the front cars instead of the back car that we were on. At the next stop we had to quickly get off the train and run two cars ahead to be in the correct place. We were lucky enough to be on a train that split at some point during the route and if we would not have gotten on the front car we would have taken a completely different route. The other problem was getting on the very last train to take us to our final destination. We had a very short amount of time to get off our train and find the correct platform for the next train. Once we made it to the correct platform we hopped on the train and we started moving. In a moment of panic that I had just lead us to take an incorrect train I took out our tickets to match up the train number and they didn’t match! When our tickets were checked a few minutes later we found out that all was okay and we would shortly arrive at our stop. Phew! One of the exciting finds through our train travel was Duff Beer. One of the convenience shops carried it in 6 packs and singles. I picked one up for Tyler hoping that he would appreciate my find. Well, I learned a bit of a lesson instead – next time, don’t come home with just one!

Mmmmmm Duff Beer

We didn’t see a lot of the base at Ramstein, but from the small area we did see it is a pretty nice base. It is the largest AFB in Europe. The passenger terminal is directly across the street from the hotel, which connects to the mall. After walking around the entire mall we were left wondering “Is this it?” The BX was huge and sold a lot more products we are used to finding in the States; Philosophy, Victoria’s Secret, and Origin were a few of the things that stood out that I haven’t seen at any other base. The building is newer and looks very nice; it just didn’t live up to the hype we were expecting. There is a spa that I plan on checking out if I go again. The mall also offered a Macaroni Grill. Highlight of my trip! I was able to order a pomegranate martini. Mixed drinks are hard to come by in England, so this was a real treat! It was great to get out of England for the day and explore around Frankfurt. The strangest thing was that I left Tyler home by himself. I don’t think that has ever happened before. Normally it is the other way around! The flights to Ramstein happen pretty regularly and I hope to take one again. Maybe next time I will go to Luxembourg! The best part about the flight home was watching another refueling. I took plenty of photos that you should be able to see in the web album. There were four F-15’s from one of the other bases in England that we refueled. Nicole and I were able to be in the boom pod and watch each plane approach. It was amazing watching the planes line up just right and be so close to our jet. Not sure if I will be lucky enough to see this every flight!

F-15 Upclose and Personal

We are posting this from our trip to Ireland. Stay tuned for more updates from our current trip!

Small World

2010-02-27T10:24:00.000Z

We have been kind of boring the last couple of days. Work has really picked up for me and Andrea is having fun going to all the various Spouse social events, and making new friends at her CrossFit workout class. She did go to an interesting social where they had a local hat maker come and display their hats. I couldn’t believe it; they had hats that were over 400 pounds (more than $600)! I’ve been busy with work and doing a lot of homework. I’m only half way through my masters and I’m ready to be done!

I had a very cool experience the other day. Micah Vander Veen, and I went to Seattle Pacific University together. He was roommates with Chris Combs, a great friend of mine from Wenatchee, and we were in the same ROTC class. Friday we found ourselves on the schedule to fly together. Really weird, seven years after commissioning and going different ways, we find ourselves in a cockpit together, flying over England. Small world I guess.

Micah and I flying over England

Andrea and I are hoping to get out of the house on Sunday and go and explore another city so check back for photos and stories from our adventures.

Can We Rock Out Yet?

2010-02-09T13:53:00.007Z

When Andrea asked me what I wanted to do for my Birthday, all I wanted to do was head over to the coast and have a relaxing weekend. I assumed that it would be like going to Ocean Shores or the Oregon Coast and that it wouldn't be weird for us to want to do this. Well I was wrong! As we started to do some searching, all our questions were answered with intrigue and in some cases disgust. People here couldn't believe that we wanted to do this in the cold, wet, and windy weather. I'm pretty sure they all thought we were a little crazy or stupid. This didn't deter us, we finally decided on a town about 100 miles north of us called Cleethorpes.

Enjoying the Beautiful (cold) Weather

After about a 2 ½ hour drive, we pulled in to Cleethorpes around 7pm. Our bed and breakfast was really small, but nice. It was right on the seafront, and we had a spectacular view of the water. There are only 6 rooms in the place, and we were 1 of the 2 guest rooms filled. We could tell that this was going to be exactly the quiet, relaxing weekend we wanted. Since it was late, we immediately headed out to find dinner.

View From Our Room (Tide Out)

After walking about ½ a mile, we realized that it was a lot like your typical ocean side town. Small, unique restaurants, bars, and shops lined the streets and we were having a hard time deciding on where to eat. We looked inside a nearby hotel, called the Dovedale, and saw a really nice looking bar and restaurant. They had a very tasty looking menu, and an extensive drink menu. Andrea has been pretty disappointed in the drink selection at the local pubs. They usually just serve beer, and if you want a mixed drink it is usually your standard fare. We asked for a cosmo once and all we got was a blank stare. We had an extremely good dinner. My garlic bread was by far the best we have ever tasted. We quickly realized that the local people are very friendly and talkative. There was a gentleman having dinner by himself, and we ended up spending like an extra hour at the restaurant talking with him. We made it back to the hotel by 11pm and decided it was time for bed.

Andrea Playing in the Snow

After a goodnights sleep in our double bed (that is the standard size of beds at most hotels) we woke up just in time to get breakfast. The owners of the B&B made us a really great breakfast and then we headed out for a day of exploring the town. We wanted to walk around the beach and take in the sights. The tide was out, so it was fun to gather shells, walk out into the tide flats, and play in the snow. That's right, we woke up to snow! It was a little weird to see snow on the beach. We had coffee at a little café on one of the manmade lakes and talked about what to do for the rest of the day. We slowly made our way back to the B&B, this time choosing to walk along the road to browse the shops and see our options for lunch. We ended up having lunch at a local pub, I had another Pie! After lunch, we made our way down to the pier to see what was going on down there. We stopped at the local library to get tourist information. We ended up getting pamphlets for almost every area in the UK. So when you come and visit, we have a great selection for you to look through to help you decide where you would like to visit.

Downtown Cleethorpes (Notice Big Bag of Pamphlets)

The pier was what you would expect in an ocean side town. They had an arcade, fish and chips, restaurants, a weird amusement ride, miniature golf, and some shops. Andrea really wanted to try out her Wellies and decided to go way out on the tide flats. I tried to keep up, but my hiking books didn't match her big old rubber boots. We spent the rest of the afternoon in our room taking advantage of the free wireless internet. I know, how dorky, but since we haven't had a consistent internet connection for almost 2 months, we really wanted to take advantage of it.

Climbing Despite the Anti-Climb Paint

For dinner we decided on a great little Italian place on the same block as our B&B. Once again we had fabulous food, and met some really friendly locals. The family sitting next to us stroke up some conversation and we ended up talking with them the whole 2 hours we were in the restaurant. I really wanted to check out a local pub called Willy's. They brewed their own beer, and looked like a pretty cool bar. We walked in and made our way to the bar, and when we got there, my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe what I saw, Celebration Ale! This is a beer that I get excited for every winter. It is brewed by Sierra Nevada, and is limited in its distribution. I look forward to it every year, and since I was in Alabama I didn't get a chance to have one. Little did I know that I was going to find some in a small pub, on the eastern coast of England! I drank 2 at the pub, and bought all the remaining bottles they had (4).

By The Pier

After another great breakfast, we checked out and headed off on another adventure. We headed west to Lincoln. We wanted to see the castle and cathedral, and browse around the local shops. We are really glad we went, Lincoln is a very cool town. The castle is small, but has a lot of cool history. It was a prison for most of its existence and houses an original copy of the Magna Carta. We spent most of the afternoon popping into the small shops along a really steep street that led to the castle. We bought fresh chocolates and some wine from a place called Wigs and Wine. We left in the late afternoon because I really wanted to get home so I could enjoy my new toy. Andrea, against her better judgment, got me Rock Band for my Birthday. I couldn't wait to get home and to do some rocking out! I had a really great birthday, got to see some really cool sights and got a new toy for my Wii. Even though I claim to not care about birthdays anymore, I really enjoyed this one and hope all my birthdays to come are as fun and exciting.

Andrea Trying Her Wellies Out in the Tide Flats

Andrea Running In to Avoid the Tide

The Castle at Lincoln

Exploring the Castle

Cathedral View

My Birthday Gift

8 Mile Pie

2010-02-09T12:05:00.003Z

As Andrea and I were getting ready for bed on Saturday night (Jan 23) we were discussing what to do the following day. We both mentioned that we would really like do a little exploring, the weather was supposed to be decent, and we really wanted to get a good pie. When I say pie, I mean a traditional pub dish, like a chicken pot pie, but usually filled with steak with ale sauce or some other stew like concoction. Every pub makes their pies different and it is kind of fun to try them at all the various pubs. This got us talking about the pies we had in London at the Jack Horner pub and how good they were. It wasn't long till our decision was made…we were going back to London to get one of those pies!

Fresh Vegetables from our Local Market

We couldn't just go to London for a pie; we needed to find something else to do. Since we have been eating out a lot we decided that we wanted to do a nice walk. We decided to get off the tube at a stop near a lot of the major attractions and then walk and visit a lot of the tourist sites we haven't visited yet. Our final destination would be the pub with the amazing pies and then back on the tube for a ride home.

The Infamous Pie (Chicken and Ham with Leek)

Little did we know that when we plotted out our trek that it was 8.18 miles! We walked all over the city. We went by Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abby, the London Eye, walked along the shores of the River Thames, Buckingham Palace, through Green Park and Hyde Park to see the ponds and Peter Pan statue, Andrea especially liked a huge Swan in the pond who kept scratching his butt, and finally some shopping along Oxford street. The pies were as good as expected, and they still had Honeydew beer on cask, we were very happy! We were especially surprised when we decided to try their bread pudding, it was fantastic! A return trip for this dessert is in order. We were exhausted after our journey, and did not want to get out of our seats at the pub. Finally we made it to the tube and instantly fell asleep for the 45 minute ride back to the car. Luckily we get off at the last stop or we might have slept right through our stop! Enjoy the pictures, and check back soon because I'll be posting a report from my birthday trip to the coast of England.

The Royal Cavalry Museum

Andrea and Big Ben

London Eye

Big Ben from the Shores of the River Thames

Parliament

Buckingham Palace

Green Park

Under Attack from Pigeons in Hyde Park

Andrea's Swan Friend

A delicious Pie and Beer

It Didn't Fit!

2010-01-20T15:30:00.002Z

We are finally in the house and starting to get settled. On Jan 13th, and after a frantic expedition to find a box spring (more on that later), we spent our first night in the house. The moving experience has been a lot of fun with plenty of frustration mixed in.

We signed the lease late on the 12th and set up an appointment for our house hold goods to be delivered the next day. We could barely contain our excitement to finally get our bed and our awesome mattress that we purchase right before we moved. The other stuff would be nice to have but we couldn’t stop talking about finally being able to sleep in our bed. The movers arrived around 9:30 am and immediately started to bring stuff into the house. It was amazing how quickly each room filled with boxes. Andrea started unpacking boxes and putting stuff away in the kitchen while I directed the movers where to put furniture and boxes. After the first crate of boxes they finally got to our mattress. I anxiously waited for them to get it out of the box and start trying to maneuver it up the stairs. The box springs were really the only pieces of furniture I wasn’t sure if they would be able to make it around the corner on the stairs. Unfortunately I was right! Neither box spring made it up the stairs; not even the one for the full size bed in the guestroom. Reluctantly I had them put them back in the box and put them in the garage. I guess that is where they will stay until we move in three years.

The Aftermath of our Kitchen After the Movers Left

We couldn’t mourn the loss of our box springs yet; we still had four more crates of boxes left to get unpacked. The next crate had another big surprise for us; Andrea’s big, white dresser was basically split in half! The wood on one corner was cracked from top to bottom, another corner pulled apart, the stop was crooked, and none of the drawers fit. We are pretty sure it happened back in Spokane when the packers decided that it would be better to put the dresser, full of clothes and weighting a couple hundred pounds, on a dolly and proceed to take it down the stairs, dropping it on each step. They didn’t want any recommendations from us when we told them it would be a lot easier to take it out the back door and around the side. As a result we have a pile of timber in our garage and hopefully a new dresser on the way. Luckily IKEA still has this dresser in stock, so it will be hard for them to haggle on replacement value. We made it through the rest of the move with relatively little damage. The table and chairs have some new scratches, the couch is a little dirty, and we have a few pieces of glassware chipped. Pretty manageable damage compared to the horror stories we have heard.

Our Major Casuality

The movers finished up and we were left with plenty of boxes left to unpack, but we had another task at hand. We had to find a way to sleep in our bed! We quickly looked at the boxes scattered around the house and said, the boxes can wait…we have to go to the furniture store. We put the address in the GPS and we were off. In less than 30 minutes we were the proud owners of a new split box spring, basically two single box springs that fit under a queen, and a few other pieces we figured that we wanted to buy while we were there. Since we don’t have a truck anymore and the box spring weren’t going to fit in the BMW, we had to find a way to get them home. Luckily the company we bought our car from also rents vehicles. We called and asked to see if they would give us a deal on a rental van. Since we had a large vehicle, we decided that we might as well pick up some other large box items, our new TV and surround sound, while we were at it.

The Dresser Split Down the Side

We pulled into Lakenheath, another Air Force base nearby, to make our purchases. We figured we would be in and out in maybe 30 minutes. Two hours later, we walked out of the store with our new 50 inch Panasonic plasma, Blu-ray home theater, and a hotly contested TV stand. The TV stand caused us a lot of problems. We had seen it a couple times during the week and it had been advertised as being on sale. We talked to a sales person and he told us that it would be on sale until Thursday. So imagine our surprise when we told them we wanted it and it rang up for $100 more. Being Wednesday we asked, what happened, why wasn’t it on sale? We were told that we must have been mistaken it has never been on sale. We went back and forth with the sales guy asking multiple times for a manager, who apparently was in a meeting. Finally, we got them to get the manager and she cleared it all up. We got the sale price and they took another 10% off for taking the floor model. Needless to say we were a little worked up and flustered because our short shopping trip turned into a two hour ordeal. We had the van all loaded and we noticed that we only had 75 minutes until the van had to be returned. It was a 30 minute drive to Ely and then another 30 minute drive into Mildenhall to drop off the van. Even with the snow, windshield wipers that didn’t work, and traffic, we made it. I pulled into the dealership with two minutes to spare. By the time I got home, all I wanted to do was plop down on the couch, drink a beer and relax. It had been a busy day, but it didn’t end there. The legs for the couch were still in a box somewhere, we did not have any beer, and we had a house full of boxes to work on. So we got to work only taking a break to walk downtown to eat at a really good Thai Food restaurant.

The Living Room full of Boxes & the Legless Couch

Thursday was another eventful day. We woke up early and wanted to walk downtown for breakfast and to browse the market. We had breakfast at a very small place called Tea for Two. By far the biggest breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had, it was also very good. After breakfast we browsed around the market and looking at all the booths. We purchased some fresh baked bread for sandwiches that afternoon, and some veggies. Their prices and selection is far better than we can get from the grocery store on base. We had to hurry through the rest of the market because we had to be home for another delivery! This time it was from an office on base called FMO. They provide us with some furniture and appliances so we don’t have to buy them. We got a washing machine, dryer, refrigerator, electrical converter boxes, and two wardrobes. In England it is common to find washer/dryer combo machines. They are not vented outside and have a condensing element. These things suck! It takes over four hours to do a medium to large load of laundry. We opted to get a normal European washer in our laundry area, and then put a normal dryer in the garage. We also had them put a full sized fridge in the garage. The garage is way too narrow to fit either of our cars so it has become a storage/utility area. The wardrobes aren’t that pretty, but they work and our extra jackets fit in them nicely. After another full day of unpacking we loaded ourselves into the car and ventured into the small town of Soham for dinner. Soham is about 15 minutes away and we were going to meet some new friends for dinner at a small Italian place called Sergio’s. We had an amazing meal! Everything was outstanding. Sergio himself served us and made dinner recommendations. Andrea had a dish called chicken surprise and she was surprised. Imagine a chicken kiev, filled with a butter, garlic, and herb sauce. It was delicious!

My Huge Breakfast Sandwich at Tea For Two

After another blissful night’s sleep in our amazing mattress, we woke up with the promise of another delivery. This time we were waiting for our unaccompanied luggage. This was supposed to be our first shipment. It had all our essential items that they send via air so it is here waiting for us when we arrive. It allows us to move into a place right away and not be too put out while we waited for our large shipment of household goods that were shipped on a boat. We were lucky that I was sent to Alabama prior to coming here so all our shipments were already waiting on us when we got here. Our mattress was in our household goods, that is why we elected to have that one delivered first. Since this was a small shipment, the movers were in and out, in 30 minutes. Once again we had more piles to put away.

Our Fullsized Fridge and Dryer in the Garage

We realized that we needed more storage very quickly. Our house is an anomaly in England because it has a few built in storage closets, but not nearly as much as we had in Spokane. The kitchen has very limited cupboard space and we didn’t know where to put all our stuff. We have a small closet by the laundry area that we could store stuff in but we had to find a rack to put in there. Also, with the broken dresser we were short on space for clothes. We decided we would tackle these problems another day because we had to get ready to head into downtown for a night out with a bunch of people from work. We started the night by walking down to the river to have dinner at the Boathouse. This is a more upscale restaurant that has a great view of the river. Dinner was pretty good and we headed off for more fun at the local beer fest! There is a club that is throughout the UK that promotes local beer fests as well as other events. Tonights happened to be in Ely! We purchased our souvenir glasses and went inside to sample some tasty beer. We ended the night by going to a nearby pub to hangout before some people had to get on the train to Cambridge.

The Living Room Unpacked

Saturday was a pretty uneventful day. I mostly did homework while Andrea worked on organizing. We decided that we wanted to spend Sunday looking for furniture to help with our storage woes. Sunday we got up, walked down into town for coffee and to use the internet. Once back home, we loaded up for a 60 mile drive to IKEA. We were convinced that we would find stuff to help our problems. Well we thought we did. Our biggest objective was the rack for the kitchen. We found one that would fit by ½ an inch, or so we thought. When we got home, I instantly started to assemble it and realized that it wasn’t going to fit by ½ and inch. The paper measuring tape they gave us to use at IKEA must have been wrong somehow. I double checked, and our measurements were right, and using my tape measure the rack was one inch bigger than it was in the store. So the closet sat empty, while we moved the rack into an empty space in the kitchen. We were pretty worn out by that time, so we joined some friends for Thai Food in Mildenhall and couple of pints, and headed home to enjoy our new TV.

The Rack that didn't Fit

Monday we finally got all the clothes put away, with the help of a couple plastic bins, we were able to fit most of it without the dresser! We decided that we really wanted to find a rack because we were tired of having stuff stacked on the kitchen counter. So we headed back out looking for a rack. Once again, unsuccessful! We did find a cool new bookcase, soon to be delivered, and some other things we needed around the house. Finally, Andrea and I were on base today, Tuesday, and we found a rack that would work. It is a little smaller, but it fits. The kitchen is now not so cluttered.

An Organized Kitchen

I finally had to start a normal work schedule. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I rode in with a friend this morning, and anticipate doing this for a while until the Saab arrives. We did have a small surprise this morning. Andrea got in the car to meet me at the gym and the rearview mirror had fallen off! We took it back into the dealership and they sent us to a local windshield repair place. It will be put back on tomorrow, at the dealer’s expense. Andrea and I have really enjoyed living in Ely so far. We really like the walking lifestyle and how close we are to restaurants, pubs, and shops. Sorry for the long post, but it has been a really busy few days.

Andrea's Closet (Notice she still has space to go shopping!)

Andrea's Quest has Ended!

2010-01-10T20:29:00.002Z

We are counting the days down to when we move into our house. We get the keys on evening of the 12th, and have our first delivery of house hold good scheduled for the 13th. We hope to have everything in by the 15th. I can tell you, we are ready to be done with living out of suitcases and wearing the same clothes. We are also looking forward to outfitting our house with new furniture and decorations.

We have started doing some serious shopping for kitchen appliances. Since the power in the US is 110 volts and it is 220 volts here we decided to store or sell all of our electrical appliances before we came over here. I couldn’t believe it, but Andrea even gave up her Kitchen Aid for three years. We are finding that we moved at the right time because there are a ton of sales right now and we are finding some great deals.

Andrea’s grand quest is finally over! After visiting practically every shoe store between Edinburgh, Scotland and here, she finally found her Wellies! Wellies are what the English call rain boots. This has made her treks through the snow and puddles much more enjoyable. The funny thing is that we didn’t buy them from a shoe or sports store. They were all sold out. We finally found some in a fishing and gun store. So there we were, surrounded by all these manly things. Fishing rods, shotguns, waders, bait, tackle, and ammo and here we are trying on purple, pink, blue, and bright red rubber boots and talking how they would match her wardrobe. Yeah! I really felt manly. I have to admit, they maybe a little silly, but they look pretty good.

Andrea Modeling Her New Boots

We have started to venture out into Ely more. I walked down from where our house will be to a pub to meet up with some of the guys from my squadron. We also went out and had dinner at a really cool restaurant on the river called Cutters. It is definitely a place we will take you all when you come and visit. We are finding some really great places to eat and hangout. We are really excited to be in a community where we can walk to pretty much anything.

Andrea Modeling Her New Boots

Thanks to the lovely snow we still have not received the BMW. We were supposed to get it on either Thursday or Friday. I called Thursday afternoon to see when we could plan to pick it up. We were told due to the snow; the mechanic who was supposed to service it and make a few minor repairs couldn’t get out of his drive and would not be able to make it to work. The area around Mildenhall is flat, I think the highest elevation is at most five feet, so I have no idea how he was stuck in his drive with our overwhelming 1-2 inches of snow. Oh well, we should get it Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Andrea Modeling Her New Boots

Palm Trees and the Snow

2010-01-06T14:49:00.000Z

Guest Room View

Imagine waking up and looking over at the window and you see that beautiful cathedral. I don’t think it is fair; the best view in our house, and quite possibly Ely, is from our guestroom. This is the view that will welcome you when you go to bed and wakeup when come visit us. We have a good view of it from the other rooms, but just not as nice. We reserve the best view for our guests!

Front View of our House

This last week has been a really busy one for us. It has been full of appointments, doctor and dentist visits for annual checkups, and getting ourselves settled in the area. We finally purchased a car! It’s a 1998 BMW 528i. It is a little older than we initially were looking for but it is amazing shape and got it for a really good price. We do not pick it up until Friday. The dealer is going to service and detail it for us.

Backyard, Shed, and Garage

The weather around here has been pretty crazy. We were expecting to have to deal with a lot of cold rain, but we really haven’t seen any. It has snowed off and on since we got here and rained one day, but really hasn’t been too bad. Andrea had her first experience driving at night. Your first time is really a unique experience. Since you drive on the left side of the road here your brain keeps telling you every car approaching is in your lane. It kind of freaks you out. Andrea did great and got us to Ely and back in one piece. Once Andrea’s Saab gets here, it is going to be weird switching between a right side drive UK spec car and a left side drive US spec car.

Andrea trying to stay warm in the backyard. Notice the palm tree.

I’m posting more pictures of our house. We met the rental agency on Tuesday so we could take some measurements so we can start looking for some furniture. Notice that our refrigerator and freeze are small and side by side. It isn’t much bigger than my beer fridge in Spokane. We have two palm trees in our yard! A little weird considering the weather is cold and temperate most of the year. You can see one of them in our backyard, notice the frost. Well that is about it. Enjoy the pictures and start planning your trips so you can take advantage of the view.

Fridge and Freezer

Kitchen

Living Room

Living Romm Other View

Andrea Really Excited for her Walk-in Closet

Guest Bedroom

999 Left To Go!

2010-01-03T21:18:00.001Z

Happy New Year's from Edinburgh

After days of trying to decide what to do for our first New Years in the UK, we finally decided to catch a train and travel to Edinburgh Scotland. The city hosts a famous five day event called Hogmanany that is one of the best New Year’s Eve parties in the world. It is actually listed in the book 1000 Things You Must Do Before You Die. Only 999 to go! We had briefly talked about going up there, but since we didn’t plan it early, we figured it was a lost cause. We didn’t think there was any way we would find a hotel room or get tickets. We were figuring we would go to London and find something to do or join a pub crawl in the town of Bury St. Edmunds. But to my surprise, when I returned from my dentist appointment on the 30th Andrea was online looking at the price of train tickets and hotel rooms. Apparently we could get to Edinburgh for a reasonable price and there were still a few hotel rooms available. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity so we booked it, packed our bags, and went to bed, excited for our trip in Europe.

On the Train to Edinburgh

We woke up early the next morning, got ready, and were out the door by 6:00 am. We had to drive to the train station in Ely for our 7:00 am departure. We had discussed parking our car by our new house and walking down to the train station, but decided that extra sleep was worth the 11 pounds it costs to park for three days. To our surprise the parking was cash only and I did not have 11 pounds in coins to pay so we had to scramble. After I spent some time on the phone trying to pay by credit card, Andrea had a brilliant idea to go inside and ask for change. We learned a lesson; you can pay for parking at the ticket window and not have to worry that you will miss your train because you don’t have enough coins. I think we will park for free in our driveway and walk down in the future! Apparently the departure time on the internet was wrong, because I went to ask a question at the ticket window and the lady said you better go, your train is leaving. I thought we still had 10 minutes, but our real departure time was 6:51 am. We hustled and as soon as we sat in our seats, the train stated moving. It was dark when we left Ely but the sun soon started to come up. What a beautiful trip. The route basically hugged the eastern shore of England and Scotland. It snowed and rained for most of the trip, but it made for some really beautiful scenery. I enjoyed traveling by train. I could get up and move around as much as I wanted, as well as stand for long periods of time. The trip took about 4 ½ hours, better than the 8 ½ it took our friends by bus.

Cool City we Passed on the Train

We were on a mission as soon as we arrived in Edinburgh. We had to get tickets for the street party before they sold out. We had talked to friends that had been the year before and they told us they had to wait over three hours to get their tickets. We also talked to a ticket agent before we left and they said they anticipated selling out, they just didn’t know when. Luckily there was a tourist information booth right off the train ramp. They told us of a location that they talked to and they knew they had plenty of tickets left, so we hustled over there and bought ours. Next we had to find our hotel. We didn’t bring our GPS with us and all we had was a small map. We walked right to it. Edinburgh is a very easy town for walking. We stayed at a very small hotel that only had 45 rooms. The reviews online said the rooms were very nice and comfortable but don’t expect much else. They were right! Besides a small desk for checking in there really wasn’t much else for common areas. I guess this is what we can probably expect from most European hotels. At least we didn’t have to share a bathroom and it was very close to all the festivities! We roamed around the city for a while, ate lunch at an amazing Mexican restaurant, and did a little shopping. The Mexican place surprised us. We had only heard bad things about Mexican restaurants in the UK and this one did not live up to that reputation. I had by far the best chicken quesadilla I’ve ever had. Everything was delicious. We finally ventured back to our hotel to get ready for our night out. We sat down on the bed, no other furniture to sit on except one small chair, and instantly fell asleep. I guess we were tired out from all our travels. We woke up about two hours later and decided it was time to go outside and brave the cold. The forecast was for -5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit).

Andrea and I Out in the Cold

We wandered around the city a little more, taking in all the sights of the Christmas festival going on as well as taking a lot of pictures. Dinner was still something we hadn’t decided on, so we were looking for a good place to eat. We eventually decided to eat at a Pub called the Amber Rose. The dinner was excellent, the atmosphere was really fun, and I found two more beers that I really enjoyed. My favorite was a local IPA off cask. I can’t remember what brewery it was from, but it was good. We had a few more drinks and then ventured down into the masses for Hogmanany! We were very excited and happy to see that there were thousands of people in the street. We joked that we might be able to find some of our friends in the craziness down there, fully knowing that we would probably never see them. Not more than 100 yards into the area Andrea spotted our friend Micah. We were happy to find them and we hung out with Micah and his wife as well as two other couples from my squadron.

Night Time View of the Castle

Hogmanany was absolutely crazy! There was an estimated 80,000 people in the streets, drinking beer, and having a great time. There were three main stages that had music playing, as well as a couple more in more secluded areas you had to buy tickets to see. We found a place on the main street, with views of two stages as well has an unobstructed view of the castle. Apparently nobody else noticed it was very cold because there were people in costumes, dresses, and a lot of kilts. And if you know anything about kilts, they do not wear underwear……….cold! We had a really good time hanging around, people watching, enjoying the music, and waiting for the countdown to begin. Finally it happened, the clocks clicked down to zero and the fireworks started. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a fireworks display like this. Imagine the best finale you have seen. Take that and make it last about five minutes and this was the display. The cool thing was that it was launched from the castle and grounds around it. It probably spread across an area ¼ mile long. It was massive. It didn’t last very long, but it was very cool to see and we didn’t leave disappointed. Everybody started to disperse and go to their various pubs and clubs for the rest of the night. Andrea and I decided we were ready to be warm and go to bed. We walked the three blocks to our hotel and were in for the night.

View of the 80,000 People

It was spooky going out the next morning. We were possibly the only people in the streets. The streets were still closed from the night before and trash was everywhere. Apparently flower pots make great trash cans. We decided that we were going to spend the day doing the tourist thing, seeing the castle, and taking in the rest of the sights. The castle was really cool. Andrea had already done the tour back in 2001 so we decided to walk around it ourselves. It was really cool to read about the history of the castle, Scotland, and their struggle to gain independence and identity from Britain. There was also a really neat museum about the Scottish armed forces, including an exhibit from a photographer that just returned from Afghanistan.

Andrea and I at the Castle

The rest of our trip was spent browsing around all the shops and stores, and tasting more of the food and beers from the area. The last night there we met up with some more people from my squadron and had a few pints. I’m really glad we did this. It gave us an opportunity to meet a lot of new people and have fun. We found two more couples that live really close to us in Ely. The last day we were on a mission to find Andrea a pair of wellies (rain boots). Unfortunately we were looking at a bad time of year because most stores were sold out of her size. I did find a cool tea pot that I needed to brew the loose tea Andrea got me for Christmas. I had some this morning, it was delicious! The last thing we did was to have lunch at the Hard Rock Café. One of the best burgers I’ve ever had. It was made with buffalo sauce, blue cheese, and an onion ring. I got my customary shot glass to add to my collection and we headed off for the train station.

View of Downtown Edinburgh

We lucked out for our trip home. We did not have reserved seats because we booked our tickets late so we had to wait and find a seat. The train was packed! Apparently all 80,000 people wanted to get on our train. Every seat was full as well as every space somebody could stand, there was a person or luggage in it. Luckily we were one of the few people that were able to find a seat. It was a packed ride home but we made it. We haven’t decided on what our next trip will be but we really want to visit Prague soon or we might save up to go on a Mediterranean cruise. First we have to get moved into our house and get settled a little bit. After all, we have to get our guestroom ready for you all to come and visit!

No Flip Flops Allowed!

2009-12-29T20:11:00.001Z

We have finally had our first day of traditional English weather. 42 degrees and raining, and we thought, what a beautiful day why don’t we go down to London for the day? So we got up early and headed down to the tube stop in Epping. Epping is what we would call in the states a suburb of London. It is 47 miles to the south of the base and it is the closest tube (subway) stop. We could ride the train down from one of the local train stations but we figured we were going to have to drive and park either way we might as well as save ourselves the cost of train tickets. We figure we will ride the train more often once we are in Ely since we can walk to the train station. On the trip down we had a great time watching a guy that was enjoying a bottle of vodka (mind you it is just after 9:30am) and rapping to the music in his head. He was dancing and provided us with a lot of entertainment that made 60 minute tube ride go by fast.

Andrea Outside of Harrods

After arriving in downtown London our first stop was the famous Harrods. I’ve only heard stories and read on the internet about this place, but they all fell short. It is a Nordstroms on crack! If you are not familiar with the store it is one of the largest department stores in the world. I believe only one is bigger. They have over 330 departments and everything is high end and very expensive. We were fortunate to be going during their only sale of the year, but we still didn’t buy anything besides a snack. There was a scarf in their 50% bin that was still 120 pounds (191 US dollars) after the discount! They sell everything from sporting good and clothes to furniture, fine art, electronics, and my favorite section...food. Harrods is very exclusive and high end. They have a strict dress code that they enforce. The second you step through the door there are at least two security guards checking everybody out. They looked everybody up and down. You can’t be wearing anything that is dirty, torn, or cutoff. Your shoes have to be clean and neat in appearance. They recently started letting people wear trainers (tennis shoes) into the store. Forget about wearing something like shorts and flip flops, they are not allowed. If you wore any of these things they would kindly ask you to leave.

Tyler Drinking Tea in the "English" Fashion

The first thing we did was to go and get a snack and a cup of coffee/tea. Andrea had and I quote, “one of the best coffees I’ve ever had.” I had what is called cream tea. It is traditional afternoon tea, served with scones, cream, and preserves. It was delicious. After that we spent hours browsing around the store, gasping at prices and laughing at some of the ridiculous high fashion items they were selling. We were there a couple of hours and we didn’t even scratch the surface of what Harrods has to offer.

Some of the Tasty Looking Treats at Harrods

After we were tired of the crowds and wanted to do something else, we hopped on the tube again, our destination: Dominion Theater. They are showing the musical We Will Rock You. It is a show based on the music of Queen. We have heard good reviews and thought it would be a lot of fun. We were hoping to get some last minute tickets that are usually sold at a good discount. Unfortunately when we got there the show was almost sold out and we decided to wait for another day. We had a great lunch at a pub close to the theater called Jack Horner pub. I finally got my steak and ale pie. If you’ve never had one, imagine a chicken pot pie filled with steak, veggies, and delicious gravy. All kinds of goodness! I’ve been waiting to have one, and I’m glad I did, theirs was excellent. Andrea had a chicken and apple version. I also had a new beer called Honeydew by Fullers. It was very good. I’m hoping I can find a pub around here that serves it. I have to thank Kristin for the beer magazine she gave me because I wouldn’t have tried it if it wasn’t for the magazine’s review of it. Thanks Kristin!

Andrea Trying to Pick Out Her Favorite Baked Goodie

Since we didn’t go to the show we decided to hit up the Natural History Museum. It was raining and we wanted something inside. Neither of us had been there before and best of all it is free. Apparently the rest of London was thinking the same thing! The museum was huge and in an awesome building. We had a pretty good time browsing around and looking at the displays. We didn’t get to go into the area we really wanted to, the dinosaur room, because there was a queue (line) to enter the exhibit that was over 45 minutes long. Needless to say the place was packed. We decided not to wait and come back on a day when school is in session and it is not raining.

Natural History Museum

We had a great time bumming around downtown London. It is a huge city with so much to offer. I can’t wait until I feel more comfortable walking around and knowing where to go. Good thing I have my tour guide (Andrea) to show me around and make sure I don’t miss anything interesting or get lost in a tube stop.

The Line for the Dinosaur Room

www.peopleofbluewater.com

2009-12-28T19:26:00.004Z

I’m finding that as I get older, I’m starting to get my Father’s attitude towards shopping. On the 27^th of December, the day after Boxing Day, Andrea and I took an excursion down to Bluewater Mall in Kent. This mall was huge and very nice. We both thought that it was bigger than Bell Square Mall in Bellevue. We were hoping that we would be able to find some good deals and have an enjoyable day strolling around the mall, checking out everything English shopping has to offer. Little did we know that would not be the case.

Andrea outside of the Christmas Fair at Bluewater Mall

We arrived at the mall 15 minutes prior to its opening and we were surprised to find people lining up at some of the stores. I instantly saw why, in most stores there were signs claiming “Up to 50% off.” I guess traditionally the weekend after Christmas is the time to get a good deal. The flood gates opened at 11:00am and the mall was packed. It was by far more packed than any day after Thanksgiving Day sale I have ever seen. It was almost impossible to move around the hallway let alone the stores. Don’t even think about trying something on. I’m pretty sure that if we had driven, I would have turned around and walked out the door and made the 90 minute trip back home without doing any shopping.

Outside Bluewater Mall (Avoiding the Crowds)

The really odd thing about this whole experience was the way the people treated all the stores and their merchandise. Nobody could be bothered to fold or put something back from where they grabbed it. Every store was a mess. Stuff was piled on the floors, heaped on tables and falling off the racks. Even if you found something you liked, you couldn’t find other sizes or more of the same thing because who knows if it came off the rack or table you found it on or from across the store. We did buy a few things though. Andrea found a very nice sweater and hat from H&M. We enjoyed a very good lunch at a very English place………..TGI Fridays, I know we come to England to eat at TGI Fridays, but they didn’t have a line and we were by it when we realized we were hungry and didn’t want to wade through the humanity to get to something else. We also had a pint and an appetizer from a place called Pizza Express while we were waiting for our bus to leave.

We both want to go back to the Bluewater Mall, just not on a busy day. They had a lot of really cool stores that we wish we had the time to leisurely browse through. There was one good thing about the trip though, the people watching. If you know Andrea or me, we love to people watch and there was no shortage of interesting people and outfits to keep us amused. I just wish I was quick enough with the camera to take a picture without getting caught. I probably could have started our own website, www.peopleofbluewater.com. It might have been good enough to give my favorite website, the www.peopleofwalmart.com, a run for its money.

***PS***
People have been asking us about posting comments. I finally figured out how to change the settings so anybody can post a comment. So if you want to post a comment just click the Comments section at the end of the blog post you want to comment on. After you finish writing your remarks chose Anonymous, click Post Comment and you are done. All we ask is that you put your name at the end of your remarks so we know who wrote it. Thanks!

Christmas Pudding Anyone?

2009-12-26T19:54:00.006Z

It has been 5 days since our last post and what a 5 days it has been. We have been very busy exploring the nearby villages, eating the local cuisine, looking at potential houses, as well as taking another trip to London. We are starting to get a better feel for the local area and have found some areas that we really like. I’m starting to think that I’m a natural at driving on the left side of the road in a right side drive car. Andrea has only had to correct me a “couple” of times, usually when driving in a car park (that’s parking lot in UK speak). We haven’t started looking for a car yet, but we should be buying one soon. We are spending most of our time looking for a place to live.

A Major in my new Squadron called last week telling us that he had a house for rent in an area called Ely, a village about 25 minutes from base. We hadn’t looked in Ely up to this point. We didn’t think we wanted to live there, but we were surprised. Ely pretty much provided everything we wanted in a village. We wanted to live in a place that offered a walking lifestyle. We wanted to be close to markets, pubs, shopping, and other attractions. His house was about a 15 minute walk from downtown, multiple restaurants and pubs, a train station, a 900 year old cathedral, and the home of Oliver Cromwell a historical Military and Political leader. We really liked the house and they were going to throw in a lot of things to make it a great deal. Unfortunately we thought it was going to be a little small. I was pretty sold on it until I woke up the next morning and realized that in the living room we wouldn’t be able to have even a coffee table. It was still on the top of our list but we wanted to do more looking in Ely. We found a village that we like now we had to find a house.

We checked all the local rental agencies but were not finding much that we liked. We are moving at an unfortunate time. Not many people are moving right now and the market is pretty scarce. I found a couple places for rent that were listed with our local housing office and called on them but was not having much luck. On Christmas Eve I got a call from the last house I was waiting on. We went and looked at it on the 26^th and loved it! It is a 4 bedroom 3 ½ bath house in Ely. It is right across the street from a park in a very nice neighborhood. Andrea's favorite thing about the house is that it has a huge walk-in closet! A rarity in England. I think this house has more storage than our house in Spokane. The really cool thing is that it is only 4 doors down from a good friend of mine, Micah Vanderveen. Micah and I went to SPU together and have run into each other multiple times since we joined the Air Force. We are really excited about this place and we think we will be able to move in on the 13th of January.

On Christmas Eve, Andrea and I went down to London to see the Nutcracker. We were really excited to see it and hoped for a good show. It was a good show but interesting; very modern and an interesting take on a classic. I thought it looked like the Nutcracker done by Dr. Seuss. I personally enjoyed it a little more than the original, it kept me interested because it was different. I don’t think Andrea enjoyed it as much as the one at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. We both agreed that the dancers were very talented and that it was a good show, just different. After the show, we met up with Micah and his wife Jennie to walk around downtown London. We browsed around Covent Garden as well as a couple of other areas in London. For Christmas Day, Andrea and I joined our friends Kurt and Jessica Wampole for dinner and games. We had a great time and some good food. Jessica's step mom was there and she has a history of English Christmases. She brought a lot of local delicacies for us to try and enjoy. The most interesting thing was called Christmas Pudding. It looked like a round chocolate cake that was covered in rum, lit on fire, and served with custard when cooled. I'm not sure what was in it but raisins and a gooey chocolate cake type stuff. It was different and I'm sure if we grew up on it we would have loved it, but I'm not sure if it will go into the dessert rotation for next Christmas. It definitely was different not being home for Christmas, especially living out of a hotel room with our gifts stacked under the lamp. We really missed being home and being with our families but we had a great Christmas together with our friends.

We are really excited to get moved into our new house and get started with our life here in England. Don’t worry, the house has plenty of room, including a very large guest room. I personally can’t wait to start visiting the local pubs and trying some of the local beers. This area has some good local beers but I haven’t found anything that can compare to my favorite northwest beers, but I have 3 years to look.

House hunting . . .

2009-12-20T21:12:00.001Z

These are some pictures of house 'two.'

House hunting . . .

2009-12-20T21:02:00.000Z

Here are a few photos from house 'one' that we are considering.

First few days . . . .

2009-12-20T19:55:00.000Z

On Friday, December 18th we arrived in London to a rare winter snow storm. Our sponsor was kind enough to pick us up from the airport so we wouldn't have to worry about maneuvering all of our luggage on the train or pay for an expensive taxi ride. Too bad the little bit of snow caused such a problem. A normal 2 hour drive took him 4 and a half hours! With all of our luggage we pilled in to his car and made the drive back to Mildenhall. The base looks much different than Fairchild. The buildings are all older and smaller. The flight line is much more visible and we were able to see a few KC-10's and a C-5 that were here on top of the C-130's and KC-135's that are stationed at this base.

The weather has not warmed up since we have been here. If anything it has gotten colder. It snowed again on Saturday, which reduced the speed limit on base to 5mph. Saturday we had the opportunity to look at 3 different homes in the town of Red Lodge. Everyone says the homes here are small, but you don't realize how small they are until you actually see them. There is no storage at all. We pretty much need an extra room that we could store things in! Out of the three we saw there were two that we liked okay. We are hoping to find some more homes to look at this week before we make a decision.

Saturday we rented a car. That has been an interesting experience! Tyler has been doing all the driving so far :) It is a strange feeling getting used to sitting in the opposite side of the car and driving on the opposite side of the street. There are very few stop lights, instead there are roundabouts used in more of the major intersections.

Sunday we spent the day in London. We found out that it is much cheaper (15GBP vs. 80GBP) to drive to our nearest tube stop and take the tube in, than it was to take the train in to the city. It took about an hour to drive to the tube stop and then an hour by tube to get to our destination in the city. For the cost savings it was worth it! We walked through Hyde park admiring the Bavarian themed Christmas market. There was a variety of traditional German foods served, an ice skating rink and amusement park rides. We also got to see the last bit of Speakers Corner. There is a designated section of the park that people gather on Sunday mornings to share their thoughts/concerns about whatever topic they choose. It can be entertaining to listen to depending on what people are talking about. From Hyde Park we walked to Oxford Street and checked out some of the shops and Christmas decorations. It is sure nice to see all of the decorations on the street and the store fronts. Really makes it feel like Christmas! We also visited, Picadilly Circus, Leichster Square and Trafalgar Square. The last thing we did was visit the school Andrea attended and the flat she lived in when she was here in 2001.

Overall things are going well so far. We are adapting to the differences and accepting the changes our everyday lives will have these next few years. Hope you enjoy hearing about our journey as much as we enjoy sharing it with you.

Tyler and Andrea