London in a flash

Last weekend we went on a little mini adventure for the weekend.  We were going to go to Stonehenge and relax in the cute little town of Bath, but for just a weekend adventure it seemed a bit over zealous since we would have 6+ hours of driving... and well with the impending rain that seemed not the most ideal.  In researching though I found out that there is a tour company that they actually let walk among the rocks at dawn once a month so I think that I will plan a trip later on including that adventure in it.  And then maybe spend a week or so exploring the countryside :-)

Anyway, so we didn't do that... we did a massive walking tour of the city and just soaked in the big city for the 2 days we were there.  The weather was overcast and gray but it was only sprinkling so we were pretty lucky I think considering how much worse it could have been!  I love these little baby adventures just to see the heart of all of these European towns.  Funny that I am now all used to the small town again (back to my roots I guess) and was actually happy to be back home in the much calmer/cleaner town of Aarhus.  Nice to have all the stuff to do in the city, but there really is something to be said about living somewhere which is so safe.  I think the fact that I could understand what almost everyone around me was saying was also making things much  more noisy.  So used to people's talking around us being white noise that it is strange to be able to understand everyone, and really hard to tune it out!!!

So i hid in the Telephone booth for a hot second  ;-p

 

Ok, on to London.  The Guest House we were staying in was out of the city center so we got our feet wet with the Underground, it is nice to be somewhere where everything is in English so it is really easy to navigate around.  We got downtown and just started wandering...
First we stopped at Westminster Abbey and on the way saw the London Eye.  The London Eye is like a bunch of enclosed eggs which you can get in and take a very slow 1/2 hour ride around checking out the sites of the city, we weren't sure how worth it that little "ride" would be so we just looked at it and continued on our way  ;-)

Westminster Abbey - such an intricate building... We wandered around the little church that was built next door when the monks were inhabiting the Abbey and were getting "distracted" by the worshipers.  So a not so eloquent building was built... Still nice of course, but is funny to look at right next to this much larger gorgeous building.

This picture sums up London I think, people milling about everywhere hiding under umbrellas.

Then we went wandering down the south bank of the Thames River, which was for sure my favorite place to wander.  London bridge today is so not interesting as it was destroyed long ago and just built as a normal bridge now.  Tower Bridge though was pretty cool looking.  Picture below Nate took of little bundled me wandering over for a better view. Not sure why that guy had to step in and steal my thunder. hehe. 

City Hall is this giant ice cream scoop shaped thing, in the ground on the other side is "the scoop" which is a sunken amphitheatre, which to me makes it look like they scooped this out of the ground.  Even though from what I could tell that is not what they intended.  They built city hall this way because it was more energy efficient and they could make the building more "green"... I think they meant do do it though.  I like the modern different architecture in a city which still has so much classical history.

 In wandering along the bank of the river we ran into The Globe!  So fun to see the little theatre in person!  I am going to go back in the summer and go see a play.  :-)  Not sure who I will get to come with me but I will make it happen. (even if I won't understand half of what is going on)  Will feel like I am in going back in time sitting in the balcony watching the masters at work (people still can buy standing room only tickets to stand on the floor in front of the stage, I hear they even sell out those tickets!)

Oh what a loving gesture Nate... Right back at ya.  ;-)

He seems to have a hard time just being normal for me in pictures... At least he is smiling. Ha.

This was my favorite thing the whole trip I think.  I know, not historic at all... but I LOVE this statue/fountain/work of art!  So cool.

 Ok, I loved this guy too.  He was guarding Southwark Cathedral.  I sometimes turn into a huge dork and get all giddy about funny statues.  Nate gets very embarrassed of me I think.  He starts pretending like I am some lost stranger. ha ha.

But I get him to play every once in a while... I almost was captured  ;-)  if it wasn't so wet outside (or if so many people were not around..) I am pretty sure I would have managed to crawl inside him... lucky for Nate, it didn't seem so plausible this time round.

After eating some delicious fish and chips (pretty sure I would gain 10 lbs immediately in London if I were to live there, fish and chips are delicious there!) we went on one final adventure for the evening.. and guess where we just happened to walk out of the Underground??  Right in front of the Queen musical!!!  Oh man, I am pretty sure I had kittens right then and there.... Soooooo excited.  I mean what better way to spend the evening then to listen to a bunch of Queen songs???  We managed to totally luck out and score tickets to the show!!!  Sooo much fun! I mean of course kind of cheesy, but still, I am pretty sure there was a smile plastered across my face for the rest of the weekend  :-)  I think Nate might be sick of my "reinaction" of the songs by now... oh well. hehe.  Another one bites the dust...

 We are the Champions!!! 

On Sunday we took it a bit easier after our hours of walking the day before and decided after a bit of morning walking to jump onto one of the big red double-decker buses and ride it around checking out the city from another vantage point.  Was supper fun grabbing a top front row seat and just watching the city go by.  As we traveled along we realized that we were driving up Abbey Road!!!  I mean what a weekend for coincidences!  First Queen, now the Beatles?? Fabulous.  After taking a couple bus trips we meandered back to Abbey Road recording studio and the famous site of the Beatles album cover.  I guess I should have been prepared for a bunch of people to be there (even on a rainy afternoon) but I was not prepared for people to be so desperate to get a picture that they would literally stop traffic to stand in the side walk to get that shot.  Yea people are idiots.  I can't imagine living around there and having that happen every time you drove home, pretty sure I would avoid that road as much as I possibly could.

After that we just went and sat in a coffee shop and relaxed until we headed back out to the airport for our quick 2 hour flight back home. Nice to have a direct flight home  :-D
Home sweet home.. for another week, then off to IRELAND!!!!

Danish Life

Lets see... what's been happening the past few weeks.. hmm...
It snowed again this weekend, didn't really stick, but still it snowed.  I can't wait until it is nice again.  The wind just slices right through everything and cuts right to the core.
Overall though I guess I am just now settled into this laid back life.  I feel so calm and domesticated over here.  Life just moves slower.  I spend my time now going to the gym, jogging/walking in the park by my house, playing badminton or squash, watching tv, reading books, listening to Nate play the guitar, cooking, cleaning... yea very relaxed. I am getting much more used to cooking, Joe you would be so proud.  It is just so expensive to go out it is a lot more appealing to cook at home.  Maybe when it finally starts being nice outside I will be more motivated to get out and go to dinner in town  :-D

I go out to dinner once a week or so with my friend Carol, and maybe her roommate Jo, and then out for a couple drinks.  We went salsa dancing this week which was fun.  There was an hour lesson and then the floor opened up for everyone to just dance.. which is when we went and hid, and just watched the good dancers, and the beginners trying real hard, and rebuffed all of our admirers, not ready to take that next step ourselves... Maybe one of these weeks we will get bold and try it ourselves  ;-)

I had my first American Women's Club of Aarhus book club meeting last weekend.  I was supposed to be in Hamburg with my two Auzzie girl friends so I had slacked off on reading the book and had like 250 pages left... and when our travel plans fell through at the last minute I spent the weekend buried in the book reading so I could be good for the first meeting and have the book completed.  The Lacuna was the book, and I must say, reading it all in one sitting was way better then the small increments I was reading it in before.  I am just not the best with history so the whole Frida/Trotsky/Stalin story was totally new to me so that was interesting.  It was strange reading a book that is fiction but seems so real.  Think that was the brilliance of her story.  I spent the whole time wondering if she was really just transcribing someone elses journals (which at first made it hard to understand how it could be called a Kingsolver book if she is just using someone elses words), but there was a brilliant ending and reading the author's notes at the end really made it all the more interesting to me.  I LOVE books.  I am such a dork.  This weekend I read the next book club book (for book club back home, Look Again, which I really loved too), great weekend.  :-)
Anyway, back to the book club here.  I finished the book the morning before the meeting (meeting was at 1pm and I finished the last page at 11am), so proud to be prepared for the meeting... Little did I know the older ladies here are just as bad as my lovely girls back home.  I would say 5 of the 9 of us had finished the book, 3 had started it and made it maybe half way through, and 1 hadn't even started it.  Still, we had a lot to talk about.  We did a round robin and everyone had a second to say what they liked about the book, what got their attention, what they thought about it.  Was fun to hear everyone's reactions, and the differences with what everyone was thinking as they were reading it.  Love these ladies, there is one that is early to mid thirties probably, but the others are between 45 and 70 probably.  Great diverse group, part Americans, part English, part Canadian, I feel so welcomed into the group by all them.  Nice to have a little taste of back home in this strange new world. :-)  Look forward to the next meeting with them, whatever that might be.  Maybe a spa weekend???

Side note.. My neighbors who we share the laundry with monopolized the washer/dryer all weekend.  I just don't understand how you can do laundry for 36 hours. Totally irritating.  I was so patient for the first 24 hours. Understanding of the fact that they had a lot to do and just put my dirty clothes down there in the basket waiting my turn. They kept going out and just leaving the laundry in there for hours.  And I really hate it when people touch my laundry so I didn't take any of their laundry out... but eventually I ran out of patience. 30ish hours of doing laundry was about my breaking point.  I took their laundry out of the washer and put in in their laundry basket (which they have done to me once before, but still I felt bad).... Their eventually put it in the dryer but then left it there. And didn't have any other baskets down there and I didn't have the heart to take out their dry clothes and put it anywhere... so my house is now filled with wet laundry draped all over everything.  Yea, not idea. grrrrrr.  I just don't understand how people can be so inconsiderate when they knew that I wanted to do laundry too. Ok, venting complete, random rambling complete.  Nothing real exciting happening right now I guess, next weekend we are going to explore Stonehenge and Bath so am looking forward to that adventure!  Then next month Ireland!!!  Then the month after 2 weeks in Italy, one for work and 1 for play!  Then the month after mom and dad visiting!!!  Ahhh, I can't wait for the adventures to come.  Miss you all. Off to bed... Hugs to everyone on the other side of the world, you are always in my heart.