Giggles in Germany

Kelly had been on British soil for just about 24 hours when our flight for Germany took off.  We went to visit our cousin, Ariel, and her husband Jan.

Impressions

It is sometimes hard to figure out how to explain my time over here, away from home, away from the US, away from responsibility.  It's not exactly a vacation (Tim is working lots of hours), and it's not even a "trip." Trips are shorter than this. The best word I can come up with is sabbatical.  It is time away from what I am normally doing, and is indubitably a time of learning.  There is so much to observe, absorb, and process!  It's quite overwhelming at times. 

Since I've now traveled through 3 different European countries, I wanted to try to process thoughts, observations, and impression of the cultures I've experienced.  I don't really know how to do this in a organized way, so this may be a little scatter-brained.

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: These are mostly my impressions from the little bit I have experienced in each place.  Do not take these as hard facts about these cultures (as if there is such a thing).  It is always important to remember that impressions are easily impacted by things like weather, the types of places you went (city, country, etc.) the people you are spending time with, and you--how you feel on a particular day, your personalities, and preferences.

 

So Far...

• We have been in England for 30 days
• I have been in 43 different train and Underground stations.
• I have seen:
• Harrods
• Big Ben
• Buckingham Palace
• Houses of Parliament
• Horses Guard
• Westminster Abbey
• Tower of London
• Tower Bridge
• London Transport Museum
• National Gallery
• The Royal Observatory
• The London Eye
• The Science Museum
• St. Pancras & King's Cross
• Regent's Park (including Primrose Hill)
• St. James Park
• Green Park
• Hyde Park
• Camden Market
• Borough Market
• A LOT of Food Network.

So far, it's just been me and the boys.  I haven't left the country for 30 days.

That's all about to change.

London Phone Dump

I've been taking a fair amount of pictures with my phone, and since we've been here almost 4 weeks (!?!?), we're prolly way overdue for a phone dump. 

 

 

Julia Child has the best quotes.  Also, they REALLY love Nutella over here.

 

let's talk about food

Hey Kids!  Today we’re going to talk about food.  Warning: this may make you hungry.

When we’re home, we don’t eat out a whole lot.  Part of this is due to the fact that I like to cook, but we also don’t want to spend the money on it.  It’s not because there isn’t good food to be eaten!  There are lots of great places to eat at home.

There are also lots of great places to eat here.  But there are a lot more places to eat here.  It is London, afterall.  I haven’t done extensive, scientific research, but I would guess that proportionally the number of good restaurants to not-so-good is the same here as it is at home.  Not knowing the lay of the land, it sometimes feels like we’re taking a stab in the dark when deciding where to eat.  Sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t.  When we go into the city, we do try to do some research about what’s really good.  Unfortunately, most of the websites and articles we’ve found seem to mostly think expensive restaurants are good.  I wish there was a British version of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, so we could know the less fancy, less expensive, super-delicious places to eat.

Let’s take a look at some of the food we’ve eaten.

**I know I may have already covered some of this material in previous blogs, so I apologize for any redundancies.**

Borough Market vs. Camden Market

Our first two weekends we were here, we checked out some of the famous markets.  Our first Sunday we went to Camden Market in the afternoon.  The next Saturday we went to Borough Market, then Camden Market again on Sunday.

 

Why did we go to Camden Market twice?  I'm still asking myself that question.  Oh wait... I remember.  Because of this.

 

 

The Young Adventurers

Riding on the upper-level of a double-Decker bus.

We're nearing the 3 week mark of our Great British Adventure.  It's hard to believe!  It's also hard to put into words how I feel about this Adventure so far.  It's been exciting, and there have been so many new experiences, but at the same time, there is so much average day-to-day life and living going on as well.  After all, Tim is gone for 11.5 hours on weekdays and 6.5 hours on Saturdays, and he has been working some evenings in addition to that.  But he's way less stressed than he was at home.  Despite all the working, it has definitely been a break, and that's wonderful.

St. Pancras and King's Cross

This weekend we did more gallivanting around the city.  On Saturday we were mapping out our route from Point B to Point C, and we realized that St. Pancras and King's Cross Stations were along the way, so we decided to stop by and say hello.

 

St. Pancras is an international train station.  If you want to take the Eurostar through the Chunnel to get to Paris, you come here.  It is also a BEAUTIFUL station, so we decided to have a look-see.

 

Monday Things

We didn't know what we were going to do this weekend, but we knew we had to do at least one thing:

laundry

It didn't end up happening.  Well... it did and it didn't.  Clothes were washed in the bathtub.  I can neither confirm nor deny that we frantically attempted to dry some wet laundry with a hairdryer.  And maybe it didn't work so well.

Needless to say, we'll be hanging out at the laundromat tonight.