just one more

I know, I already went on about our view of St. Paul’s Cathedral.  But dudes, we turned off the lights to go to sleep and opened the curtains and this is what we get to look at:

This picture doesn’t even do it justice. 

Goodnight!

Day One: The british museum

It’s about 9:15pm and we’re finally back at the hotel ready to settle in for the night.  I’m going to try to get the day’s recap posted before I have a narcoleptic episode…I am so tired.

The trip to London was uneventful but very very long.  We took off from Jax at 2:20pm and arrived in Dallas 2 and a half hours later.  Our plane to London left Dallas at 7:40pm and arrived here at 10:30am, but there’s a 5 hour time change in there too.  The flight from Dallas was 9 and a half hours long and I didn’t get a wink of sleep, though Chris got a few hours in. (lucky dog)  Once we finally made it to Heathrow it was about an hour getting through customs and getting our checked bags, then another solid hour on the Tube to get to our hotel.  Yeah..it was a long trip. 

Anyway, we arrived to our hotel, Club Quarters, and were SO excited when we got to our room and discovered that 2 of the walls are made of huge windows that overlook St. Pauls Cathedral.  Our room is on the 6th floor and is on the corner of the building so this is our view outside!

Once we were able to drop our bags off and freshen up, we headed right back out into the city and went straight to the British Museum. We thought a slow stroll through a museum would be the lightest activity on more than 24 hours without sleep.

First let me tell you, London is absolutely beautiful, clean, and full of so many people of all nationalities.  There are a million restaurants and shops and we haven’t even been to the real tourist areas yet.  We’ve become quite adept at taking the underground subway now and haven’t gotten lost yet.  Another great thing about London is that a lot of their museums are free, including the British Museum.  It’s run completely off of donations (which we did give) and I can’t believe how the exhibits are just sitting there, many not even behind glass.   I think we both enjoyed the Egyptian exhibit with all the mummies the most, though that might have been rivaled by the Samarai soldiers had that exhibit been open.

Here are some highlights:

This is the Rosetta Stone and if you don’t know, this is what they used to figure out how to decode heiroglyphics.  Chris was really excited about getting to see it.

 

 

 

 

 

Me and my sarcophagus friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris and his buddy, Ramesses II.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had to post at least one mummy picture.  These are the real deal and what was really cool was that they had the CAT scan images of each mummy so you could see exactly how the skeleton is positioned inside.  The egyptians would paint the mummy’s shroud and then hand paint the coffin cover.  You see the mummy here and on the floor below it was the painted cover of the coffin she was in.

One more just because I liked the picture. It’s me standing next to a very tall Buddha statue.    Of course there are lots more pictures to share but I’ll save those for when we get home. 

Once we left the museum it was about 7:30 and we were both ready to get back and rest up for tomorrow.  For dinner we stopped at a Japanese takeout restaurant called Itzu Bang!  It advertises how super healthy the food is, so we each took some soup with udon noodles and some edamame back to the room for dinner and it was delicious.  I think we’ll eat there again before we go. 

Well that’s it for this installment.   I’ll have more to post tomorrow.  I think we have a list of 9 places to visit on our itinerary for tomorrow so I’d better get some rest. 

We made it

We just arrived to our hotel room about 20 minutes ago and MAN are we tired.  BUT not too tired to get freshened up and out to explore the British Museum.  I’ll post more this evening when we get back to the room. Daylight’s a wastin….

The dedicated mower

Can you believe we are 2 hours from leaving for the airport and Chris is outside mowing the lawn? I guess that’s better than trying to mow foot high grass in a week.  We are all packed and just need to decide what we are taking on the plane with us.  We actually fit all of our clothes into 2 carry-on bags (I can’t believe it) but it left no room for bringing anything home so we decided to check in one of the bags and carry 2.  So, 3 small carryon bags isn’t as bad as the humongous suitcase we were dreading dragging on the subway…er, “tube” with us.  

I am off to do a quick clean on the mess that we’ve made on the house and then we’re off.  Next stop…Dallas, Texas for a 4 hour layover.

officially on vacation

As of about 7:15 this evening I became officially on vacation, finally! Chris has been off since Monday and has been planning like crazy for our trip. Lucy is safely tucked away at my parents’ house, our bags are nearly packed and tomorrow at 2:20pm we’ll be taking off for London. Our hotel advertises high speed internet so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to blog throughout the trip so stay tuned….

Coming soon....London.