The Big Trip to Italy (+Cannes)

Introduction:

Since this will probably be our longest post yet, I figured I would started it out properly with an introduction, leading into the body, and finishing with a conclusion. So began our big trip to Italy of about 10 days at the end of May. Although it didn't actually start in Italy...

Cannes (Day 1):

(Cannes, pronounced like a can of coke.) It worked out pretty well that the Cannes Film Festival was going on at this time. And Cannes is on the French Riviera only a couple hours from the Italian border. So we flew into Nice and took a 30 minute bus ride over to Cannes, checked into our hotel, and started looking for celebs. It's pretty tough to actually see any of the big movies at Cannes because it's all based on invitations for people in the movie business. So we took pictures of the red carpet and walked around the marina to look at enormous yachts.

Brad and Angelina had already left town, but the big movie that was premiering the night we were there was The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which is a Terry Gilliam film and the movie that Heath Ledger was filming when he died. Taking his role though was somehow a combination of Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell. So of course the rumors we were hearing were that Johnny Depp and Jude Law would both be there for the premier (and walk in on the red carpet). So we got there a little early, tried to get a good spot to see everybody walking in, but people had been there all day camping out so our spots were mediocre. But neither of them showed anyway. The biggest names that did show up were a model/actress named Lily Cole and Verne Troyer (Mini-Me). Unfortunately, since Verne is literally 2'8", we couldn't get much of a view of him other than on the screens. Still pretty cool to be there for all the hustle and bustle of th

e festival. Then we ate a crepe (obviously), went to sleep, and got up the next morning to take a train to...

Cinque Terre (Days 2-3):
We crossed the border into Italy, changed trains in Genova, and continued on to Cinque Terre, which means "five lands". Essentially, it's 5 little villages grouped together along the coast of the Italian Riviera...so fairly cool. The best thing about these towns is that you can hike between all of them, and of course each hike has its own amazing views. We had a "hotel" in Riomaggiore, which is the one furthest to the East. It is probably the 3rd biggest town, which was perfect for us. Still restaurants, shops, etc., but not probably quite as busy and touristy as a couple of the others.

When we got in, we dropped off our stuff and started hiking to the next town over, Manarola, although this first hike is a little more of a stroll. We got there and did a mini-walking tour of the town, which is probably the 4th-most populated of the 5. Then we kept going to the middle town, Corniglia, which is probably the smallest town and the only one without a harbor really (it's up on the cliffs more). Took the train back to Riomaggiore for dinner: octopus appetizer and pesto pasta (the region is known for it's pesto because of all the basil that grows there I guess).

The next day we took a train back to Corniglia, ate bread and juice overlooking coast and stuff, hiked one of the two longest hikes (about an hour and a half) to Vernazza, ate focaccia pizza (I accidentally got hot dog on mine because I thought it was sausage), then took the train to Monterosso, laid on the beach, took a ferry back to Riomaggiore so we could see all the towns from the water, took showers, got some Birra Moretti (beer) at the grocery store, took it down to the water, watched the sunset, went to dinner at a restaurant on a cliff overlooking the water (ate bruschetta and pesto lasagna), witnessed a bunch of Italian guys singing something about Margherita at a bachelor party (we're assuming that's what it was, obviously), and went to bed. Got up the next morning and took a train to....

Pisa (1 hour on Day 4):

I think Pisa is probably a pretty nice town to stay in, but because it is so famous for some tower, and there are so many other cool places to see in the same region, I think most people don't spend much time there...so we didn't either. We literally got to the train station, put our bags in lockers, got on a bus that goes to the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles--where the tower is), saw the tower, laughed at everyone acting like they were holding up the tower in photos, acted like we were holding up the tower for our photos, bought a leaning tower of shot glass, and took the bus back to the train station. Leaning tower of Pisa, check. Actually pretty cool and interesting though. Anyway, ate fast food pizza at the train station (delicious) and took a train to....

Florence (rest of Day 4 and Day 5):
Florence is pretty cool. A ton of stuff to see there, a lot of culture, and not just another big city. Checked into our hostel (yes, hostel, but private room with limited amounts of backpackers smoking outside our window all night), went and saw the famous duomo (big church) and baptistry, walked along the Ponte Vecchio (Italian for "Old Bridge"), walked up a sizable hill to Piazzale Michelangelo, saw an amazing sunset over the city and river from there, Anne discovered some sort of heat rash on her legs, took the bus down the hill, went to a Farmacia for drugs, got delicious pizza to-go from a restaurant, ate the pizza on the rooftop terrace at our hostel.

The next morning we got up and went to the Uffizi Gallery to see art by all of the ninja turtles, walked over to the Basilaca of Santa Croce, got some delicious pasta (accidentally with fish in mine) and bruschetta to-go for lunch, walked around looking at names next to doorbells for really Italian names (no Bianculli though), ate some gelato (if I haven't mentioned gelato much yet, you can assume we had it at least once a day, usually twice), bought some really Italian sunglasses for me (5 Euros), went to the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo's David (huge and pretty cool), got some pasta for dinner (obviously), and called it a night.

We got up early to start the journey towards Siena, stopped in the McDonalds at the Florence train station for breakfast (I know, we're so American), ran a little bit with our backpacks to catch the train, got to the train, and of course it didn't leave for like 5 more minutes. But when it did leave, we were heading towards...

Siena (Day 6):

Siena is in the Tuscany region so the train journey had some pretty good scenery. We got to Siena at about 10:45 and caught a bus into town (very rare for the train station to not be in the middle of the city). There isn't quite as much 'must see' type stuff in Siena so our day went a little more leisurely, which was probably good for day 6. We found our hotel (Albergo La Perla), went to a market that is held every Wednesday, ordered a ham sandwich for lunch and watched the guy slice it directly off the pig (dead pig, at least) onto our sandwich, went to the Church of San Domenico (saw Saint Catherine's skull and thumb...creepy), went to Saint Catherine's house, went to the Duomo (similar to Florence's, huge), walked around the city some, bought a local cookie called a ricciarelli, went to Il Campo (giant half circle area in the middle of the city--where they have these famous bareback horse races every year called Il Palio), I went up in the bell tower (Anne usually not thrilled about heights), went back to the hotel for a power nap (rare occasion on our trips), went to dinner at La Taverna di San Giuseppei (was Anne's favorite meal in Italy), found a bar to watch the Europe Champions League Final (soccer--was actually being played in Rome, featured Manchester United and Barcelona), ended up sitting with some Americans from DC, and went back to the hotel to sleep. Yeah, that's right, I said that was a low key day. The next morning, we again left early (7am this time) to catch a bus to the train station, to catch a train to Grosetto, to then catch a train to...

Rome! (Days 7, 8,9, 10):

We didn't end up getting there until about noon, but it was fine since we decided to make our big finale in Roma slightly longer than all the previous cities. When in Rome...right? (Yes, we did say that at least daily.) We walked from the train station to our hotel (Sunset Roma--could see the Colosseum at the end of our street), actually unpacked completely for the first time in 6 days, and headed out to start the sightseeing. We started out with the Pantheon, saw Eric Holder (US Attorney General) there with some secret service (not sure why he was there though), got some gelato, walked to the Trevi Fountain (threw coins in to ensure a return to Rome), walked by the Victor Emmanuel Monument, went to the Borghese Gallery (another famous art museum), walked to Pincio Point for a great view of the city nearing dusk, walked down to Piazza del Popolo, did the Dolce Vita Stroll (as Rick Steves calls it at least) towards the Spanish Steps, ate outside at a restaurant in a side street near there, and went back to the Trevi Fountain to see it at night (got gelato again obviously).

The next day was the intense one. We started off with the Vatican Museums, which again have really famous art, but the journey through the museums culminates at the end when you get to see the Sistine Chapel...really amazing. Then we went to St. Peter's Basilica (largest interior of any Christian church in the world--can hold 60,000 people apparently), went up in the dome (another good view of the city), went down into the crypts where all (maybe not all) of the popes are buried, got some pizzaish things for lunch, headed to the Colosseum (very cool--battled some wild animals, gladiator style--not really, but it would have been awesome), checked out the Roman Forum ruins, bought a sweet book that with these transparent pages so you could see what it used to look like versus what it looks like now (Anne wasn't nearly as excited as I was), went back to the hotel to make ourselves look respectable again, went to dinner at La Carbonara in Campo de' Fiori, went to Piazza Navona (has the fountain from the end of Angels & Demons), got this famous chocolate truffle thing from Tre Scalini (amazing), walked to the hotel, watched a little Jay Leno on CNBC, and called it a night.

Saturday, we slept in (8:15), went to an espresso bar on our street for breakfast (delicious), went back to St. Peter's to try and pick up tickets for Sunday mass with the Pope, the Swiss guards let me into the building the Pope lives in (I felt pretty big time), I walked up the stairs towards his apartment (hoped I didn't run into him since I was chilling in some shorts and flip flops), accidentally went too far, a Swiss guard told me to go back down a level, I talked to the priest who hooks people up with tickets, he gave us tickets (!), on my way out I started taking pictures of the top-secret building I was in, a Swiss guard saw me and sternly told me not to, and I scurried out. We left Vatican City, walked by Castelo San Angelo, took a bus to an area called Trastevere, saw Santa Maria de Trastevere (not her, but a church named after her), ate delicious pizza for lunch at Dar Popedo, went to a grocery store to try and get some good Italian stuff to take back to London, walked over to a couple other Piazzas we hadn't been to yet--Barberini and Republica, went into the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli (saw a guy playing a giant organ), walked around some more, stumbled upon a protest (see paint on bank window above--maybe nearing a riot based on the helicopters and amount of police with shields), walked over to a bridge to see the sunset behind St. Peter's, went over by the Colosseum for dinner, got some free Limoncello shots from our Latin American waiter who was thrilled I knew a little Spanish, and walked by the Colosseum on our way back to the hotel to see it lit up at night.

The final day: it started with Pentecost mass at St. Peter's with the Pope. We had tickets, but so did lots and lots of other people. We got there somewhat early, but not quite early enough to get seats. So we had to stand on the side, but we were at least on the front row of the standing people so we could still see pretty well. It was pretty cool to be there for the mass, but cheapened slightly by people being somewhat disrespectful. I admit that I wanted to take a few pictures, but there were people standing on their chairs, talking loudly during the mass, etc. After the mass, the Pope also addressed the crowd in St. Peter's Square from the window in his apartment. Then we went back down by the Colosseum because the Giro d' Italia (Italian equivalent of the Tour de France) was actually finishing in Rome that day. We didn't see any of the big names race because it was individual time trials and all the big ones were going later in the day, but we did see the Garmin team doing some warm up. Then we ate one last Italian pizza, got gelato one more time, took a picture in front of a Vespa, headed back to the hotel, and went to the airport. But then we got pizza one more time at the airport! And back to London.

Conclusion (links to more pictures):
Cannes
Cinque Terre
Pisa
Florence
Siena
Rome

Ashley and Chris visit

Hi, so it's mid July and once again we have gotten behind on the blog, as I am about to post an entry from our friends Ashley Roos and Chris Tallent who visited in mid-May! With work, traveling, having friends in town, and hanging out with our friends here, things have been really busy and any down time that we have had, has literally been that, sleeping and watching tv (which has been minimal). Anyway, our friends Ashley and Chris visited in May and it was great to see them, it was a short trip as we only had 3 days together before they headed to to Ireland, but it was so good to see them and hangout. Below is what they had to say about their visit:

"After flying for what seemed like an eternity, we were excited to finally be in London! When we arrived at Victoria Station on the train from Gatwick, we were doubtful that we'd ever find Anne among the masses of people commuting to work, but somehow we found each other in about 5 minutes. After a short Tube ride to Chiswick, which we quickly learned is pronounced chisick), we lugged our bags up 4 flights of stairs! We immediately regretted bringing so much stuff! When we finally made it to the flat, Anne gave us a tour, which only took about 30 seconds. The flat is tiny, but it's perfect. Anne went to work that afternoon, so she mapped out our tour route and wished us luck.

By the time we set out, it was lunch time, so we stopped at the cafe down the street and picked up a sandwich to go on our way to the Tube station. The sandwiches were delicious (nothing in the US compares); however, we quickly realized why the guy snickered as he spread mustard on our sandwiches. Their mustard was 99% horseradish & 1% mustard - our sinuses were definitely clear by the 2nd bite! That afternoon we saw several famous sites (London Tower, London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey) and walked around downtown London. In about 3 hours, the weather changed from sunny to cloudy to rainy about 10 times. We thought Kansas weather was crazy, but London takes the cake. That evening, we all met back at the flat and relaxed a bit before dinner. We had a great Italian meal in Chiswick and headed to a pub to sample some English beer - YUM!

We started off the next day (Saturday) with a full English breakfast at Cafe Luna. We were skeptical about the interesting combination of beans (basically pork & beans without the pork), eggs, mushrooms, bacon and a hashbrown, but we were pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was! The white coffee at Cafe Luna was arguably the best I've had in Europe. After our huge breakfast, we were off to Windsor. We toured Windsor Castle, walked through the town and had lunch at a cafe. The castle was enormous and very impressive. We highly recommend a day trip to Windsor for anyone visiting London!

When we arrived back at the flat, our jet lag had started to kick in, so we relaxed for a bit and ordered takeout from the fish & chips place across the street. After we were revived, we headed out to meet up with a group of people who are also participating in the E&Y exchange program. We had fun chatting with Anne & Eric's friends and hearing about their European adventures. On our way home, Eric & Chris were hungry, so Eric suggested that we get kebabs. Wow, they were delicious...and the perfect post-pub food!

Sunday was a sports-themed day. We visited the Chelsea football stadium and Wimbledon. There were events at both stadiums, so we only got to see the outside. For lunch, we stopped at a local pub for traditional English food. All 4 of us ordered pies (similar to a chicken pot pie, but waaaaay better). This meal ranked in the top 5 of the entire trip! As we made our way back to Chiswick, we took a detour through Notting Hill and enjoyed strolling through the quaint town and looking at the colorful houses. Before going home, we stopped for a drink at another pub for a little more beer sampling. That night we cooked dinner at the flat and repacked our bags. On Monday morning we bid Anne & Eric farewell and headed out for our day trip to York. We couldn't have asked for better London tour guides and hosts. Anne & Eric - thank you for making our trip so memorable!
- Ashley & Chris"

Windsor pictures
London with Ashley & Chris pictures

Amsterdam - 1st May Bank Holiday

Hi, so for the first May bank holiday we headed to the Netherlands, aka Holland.

Once again, we left bright and early, up at 4am, to leave at 5am, to be at the airport at 6am, for a 7:20am flight! Everytime we leave this early it doesn't send us into marital bliss....more like the opposite, as we usually aren't packed until midnight and then we only get 4 hours of sleep.

Anyway, we got to Amsterdam, left our stuff at the airport and headed straight to Keukenhof Gardens. Keukenhof attracts 750,000 people over 8 weeks every year, and we were lucky enough to go. The gardens were beautiful...we were probably some of the youngest people there, but it was a great experience, so check out our pictures. Outside of the gardens you can rent bikes (cycling), so we rented bikes for about 3 hours and rode around and saw the tulip fields, two windmills, and took TONS of pictures. I think this might have been our craziest picture day ever....Eric took about 400 in about 6 hours!!!

That night we headed back into Amsterdam, went out to eat and headed to the Red Light district to walk around. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, definitely interesting, and I'm glad that I was able to see it.

Sunday it was raining, and it was our crazy Amsterdam tourist day, so we stuck to all indoor activites. We went to the Anne Frank Huis (very cool), the Van Gogh museum (which was doing a special exhibit, which was REALLY COOL), and the Heineken Experience (we each drank 4 pints in an hour) all in one day. I would recommend all three to anyone.

Monday we got up early and took our stuff to the train station and headed out of the city. We really wanted to explore more of Holland, so we took the train out of the city, about an hour, and went to the town of Delft. Delft is famous for handpainted blue and white pottery/china. But it was expensive so we bought a Christmas tree ornament. We had lunch outside, and then left for the Hague. The Hague is the political centre of Holland, and it wasn't very nice. We were there for about an hour and I wanted to leave. Lastly, we stopped in Leiden, which is a University town, host to the largest University in Holland. We did a quick self guided walking tour, and then headed back to Amsterdam to catch our flight home.

It was a great weekend, with the bike riding around the tulip fields being the highlight. It might be a little bit dorky, or something old people do...but it was really cool, and definitely a once in a lifetime kind of thing!

Copenhagen in 36 hours

In order to ensure we made it to the Scandinavian countries at some point in our time here, we decided to book a quick weekend trip to Copenhagen with our friends Aaron & Jenna (see unintentional matching outfits in pictures from Saturday). As we had done a couple times before, this consisted of leaving early Saturday morning and coming back late Sunday night. These types of trips are great because it allows you to see a city without taking any vaca and only paying for one night in a hotel. But these trips suck because you are knackered by the end of them (really tired in British).

So we got up around 4, caught the first flight there around 7, and were on the ground sightseeing by about 10am. We had amazing weather while we were there and spent Saturday exploring the city by foot, bike, and boat. Our favourite spot may have been Nyhavn, which is where we grabbed some lunch. Other notable sights included the famous Little Mermaid statue (Hans Christian Andersen is Danish), some palaces and churches, and a crazy hippie "free city" called Christianshavn where our free city bikes got stolen (long story, no big deal). Then we had dinner inside the famous Tivoli Gardens amusement park.

On Sunday we started the day with a tour of the Carlsberg brewery...what better way to start a Sunday? It was pretty interesting to learn about the history of Carlsberg (and brewing in general), and then of course we got free booze. Then we went to a nearby town called Helsingor, which has the castle that served as the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The city is also on the coast, and you can actually see Sweden across the water. We went back to Copenhagen, saw another palace, ate some chinese take away, and caught our flight back to London for work Monday morning. Despite being knackered, it was a great trip.

Austria & Our Anniversary

Everyone in the UK gets the Friday and Monday off around Easter weekend so we went on a trip to Austria with some of our friends. The initial plan was to just try and go skiing somewhere, but we decided to make it more of a quick tour of the whole country.

Started in Vienna and pretty much did a walking tour of the city: saw some palaces, ate some schnitzel, drank some good beer, took lots of silly pictures, etc., etc. Had an all around good time.

The next day, we took a train to a town called Kitzbuhel, which is in the Tyrol region of Austria and right in the middle of the Alps. My experience skiing has consisted of two trips to Snow Creek in KC, MO, and Anne's is one trip to Colorado about 15 years ago. So, some may say we were in over our heads with giving it a shot in the Alps. But, we did prepare a little bit by taking a ski lesson a couple weeks before in Bracknell, England. When we signed up for the lesson, we anticipated it being a small hill with artificial snow. When we arrived, we realised it was actually a small hill with white astroturf (at least it was white). Regardless, we still learned/refreshed quite a bit in the lesson and felt better prepared for the trip. Then came the first slope in Kitzbuhel--much steeper than either of us had anticipated, and it was an "easy" one. But we skied without fear and still had a great time despite a couple falls here and there. Since it was mid-April, it was actually pretty warm, and the last weekend the slopes were open. This was good because at least it wasn't really cold out, but the slopes also got pretty slushy by the afternoon. So we all met at a restaurant about half way up to eat and drink beer in the sun for the afternoon, went back to the hotel/guesthouse for naps and showers, and hit the Kitzbuhel nightlife. Great to check skiing in the Alps off the life checklist, and the scenery from the tops of the mountains was pretty amazing.

The next day we took a train to Salzburg, which was the favourite city of several people we were with. It's much smaller than Vienna, which allowed us to pretty much walk everywhere...until it was time for the Sound of Music bus tour. Yes, you read that correctly. The ladies on the trip wanted to do this so the men felt comfortable enough in our manhood to go along. It actually turned out to be not so bad. The tour took us outside the city into the surrounding hills (the ones that are alive with the sound of music), which was some great. The soundtrack was played on the bus, and the tour guide was amazingly cheesy (picture Fred Willard's character in Best in Show), but the actual singing was fairly minimal.

The rest of the group all left early the next morning to go to work for a half day. But, as it was our anniversary (the big 2 yearer), we took the day off and stayed in Salzburg until the afternoon and had a relaxing day wandering more around the city. Then we headed back to London, and went out for a really delicious dinner at a fancy restaurant in Chiswick called La Trompette. A great finish to a great weekend.

Heather and Mark Visit

Our second set of visitors arrived the weekend before Easter...Heather Roos and her bf, Mark Zschoche. Heather and I have been friends since 7th grade, went to high school together, college together, and joined the same sorority, but since we graduated almost 4 years ago, we haven't lived in the same state or seen each other for more then a weekend :( Needless to say, I was really excited for them to visit and for the 4 of us to hangout. Eric and I were excited to get to know Mark better, and to spend QT with Heather!!

So again, here is their visitor blog entry. As you can see, we did some of the same things we did with Eric's mom so we've combined some of the pictures in the new links at the right.

Mark and Heather's England Adventure:
"We arrived in London around midday on a Friday after a long, sleepless flight. As we walked out of the terminal, Anne was right there to greet us, along with a Starbucks. We needed some coffee and tea if we were going to make it very long that first day in London. After we got our caffeine fix, we hopped on the tube and headed to Chiswick, where Anne and Eric's flat is. We grabbed a quick shower and tried to tell our bodies that it really was early afternoon. Once we were so fresh and so clean clean, Anne took us out into the wilds of London. We saw the parliament house, Big Ben, the London eye, Westminster Abbey, Downing Street, and much more. This was the first time in awhile that Mark and I had been in a big city, so the crowds of people were a little overwhelming for us at first. I guess we've just gotten used to the Montana lifestyle. After walking around and seeing a little more of London, we headed back to the flat to meet Eric and cook dinner. We then headed to a bar to have a few drinks. After Eric and Mark were a couple beers deep, they decided to try to have an Irish car bomb. This proved to be more trouble than it was really worth, but it was still good, and funny just trying to figure out exactly how to do it since the bartenders in London could not mix different liquors in the same shotglass. On top of that, the shotglasses were too big to be able to drop them into the pint glasses. Well, they ended up getting a shot of whiskey, a shot of Irish cream, and an extra shot glass and mixed the shots themselves and poured them into their pint glasses. It was a good night cap.

The next day, we drug ourselves out of bed fairly early, got freshened up, and hit the highway towards Bath, England, where the ancient Roman baths are. We arrived in Bath mid morning after having to stop for some petrol because Anne was freaking out about running out of gas. We went to the Roman baths museum first and learned about how the baths were built on a hot spring and some of the ingenious engineering that the Romans implemented in the bath house. By the time we left the Bath House it was lunchtime, so we decided to go eat at Sally Lunn's Buns cafe. As the name says, they specialize in buns, and big buns at that. We had a good lunch, with a delicious chocolate butter covered bun for dessert. We strolled around Bath for a little bit longer, and then jumped back in the car and headed to Stonehenge. We made a quick stop at Stonehenge since we didn't want to pay the ridiculous admission fee. Instead, we just took in the views from the other side of the fence. We then hit the road back to London. That night we went to a great little Thai restaurant right across the street from Anne and Eric's flat. It was nice being able to enjoy some good ethnic food since pickings are scarce in Great Falls, MT. From the restaurant, we walked down the High Street (Main Street) to a bar called Henry VIII, where Mark got to enjoy some traditional cask ales. Though the cask ales were warmer than what Americans are used to, Mark didn't seem to mind too much, as long as it was beer. I was also able to see an old high school classmate of mine who is also living in London at the time. After closing down the bar, we walked back to the flat and fell into bed, which was a great air mattress for us, courtesy of Anne and Eric.

We woke up the second morning a little slower than the previous and went to a quaint little cafe where we enjoyed a hearty full English breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, tomatoes, and toast. Then we jumped in the car and headed to Oxford, England where we toured the Oxford University campuses and learned of its history. We also walked around the town of Oxford and took in the scenery from atop an old church tower. On the drive back to London, we detoured through Windsor and drove by Windsor Castle and waved to the Queen. Once we got back to the flat, we went across the street and picked up some fish and chips for dinner. That night we went to the Jason Mraz concert in London that Anne and Eric were nice enough to invite us to. It was an awesome concert.

The following day was Monday, and unfortunately, Anne and Eric had to work so they were unable to spend the day with us, but we still managed to enjoy London without them. We got to the Churchill Cabinet War Rooms Museum right as they opened and spend some time reading and learning about how Winston Churchill conducted WWII operations from the underground bunker. It was really interesting, and since the majority of it had been left just the way it was during the war, it was very realistic. From there, we walked to Buckingham Palace to try to get a glimpse of the changing of the guards, but with the hundreds of other people who had the same idea, we were only able to witness the guards marching in and out of the palace grounds. We then caught the tube to Tower of London and spent the rest of the afternoon there viewing the numerous exhibits and buildings. It was amazing seeing towers that were built 800 - 900 years ago. We also saw the precious crown jewels, as well as Henry VIII's armor collection. Mark and I headed back to Buckingham Palace to take some better pictures sans the hoards of people. We took the crowded tube back to Anne and Eric's flat where we ate some delicious turkey enchiladas prepared by Anne and Eric. After dinner we just packed up and relaxed and prepared for our departure the next morning for Ireland.

It was great being able to see Anne and Eric, especially in London. We enjoyed everything we were able to do over there and appreciate Anne and Eric's hospitality and for being our tour guides."