A Quick Note

You think that you're going to remember everything about your travels forever - and that is partly true - but, I've had a very hard time remembering where all of my pictures were taken and what went on when. Now, this is even with the aid of a journal and, once we got to the ship, daily e-mails that I sent out. It's been 2 years since our trip to the British Isles and I've had to resort to using Google to get pictures of different towns and tourist attractions to match them up with our photos. I've really had a hard time sorting out the Penzance, Land's End, St. Ives and St. Just photos. Certain parts of the various towns really look alike after 2 years. Therefore, I will have to go on record as saying that I'm doing the best I can to identify the places correctly, but if you see any mistakes, please post a comment to let me know so that I can correct them.

Across The Pond #4 - Going To Southampton

This is from Wednesday, August 30, 2006:

We got up and had our last wonderful breakfast at The Rubens Hotel. As always, it was delicious! We took a taxi to Waterloo Station and caught the train to Southampton.

Got our first sight of the Golden Princess!! This was the largest Princess ship that we've ever sailed on.

What a special ship this was! We've sailed on other large ships now, but we always remember the Golden - our first really big ship.

This is Diane. She made all the arrangements for the Cruise Critics get-togethers.

Gary and Carol with Ben. Gary arranged a lot of the excursions we did on the cruise. They were really better than the ones you get through the ship.

The guy on the right is Phil. He's from England and one of the funniest people you could ever meet!!

We boarded the Golden Princess, took a little nap to rest up from our long trip, then had dinner with 2 couples from Buffalo - Karen & Rusi and Terry & Mike.

Across The Pond #3 - London

This is going to be a real test of my memory and creativity. Apparently, we did not send out cruise notes for this day and the only thing in my journal says, "Tues. 8-29-06 - Breakfast at The Rubens". That's not much of a hint as to what we did that day, so I will just have to depend on the photos with that date on them and try to reconstruct our day.

From Tuesday, August 29, 2006:

Well, we got up and had breakfast at The Rubens (duh!!!).

^^We went to the British Museum where we saw the. . .

^^Rosetta Stone. I've been hearing about that rock all my life.

^^It was good to actually get to see it in person.

^^We saw Westminster Cathedral, not to be confused with. . . .

^^Westminster Abbey, which we didn't get to see.

^^One of the neatest things I remember from London was a sushi bar. I'm not sure if you can tell from this photo, but the ledge with all the dishes of food lined up on it was a conveyor belt. It was constantly moving around the counter with sushi dishes on it. When you saw something you liked, you simply took it off the conveyor belt and ate it. At the end of the meal, the waitress just counted up the number of plates at your spot and charged you accordingly. Brilliant!!! We didn't actually eat there, I just was so amazed that I had to go inside to take a picture.

Across The Pond #2 - London

From: Monday, August 28, 2006

We had a great night at the Rubens Hotel.

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There were so many "bells and whistles" in the bathroom that we almost couldn't figure out how to make everything work.

^^Almost looks like there's a telephone in the shower.




^^We're not used to faucets that look like these.



^^The shower was great!!!

We went downstairs for their full English breakfast. We should have taken some pictures, that spread was good! It was a rainy morning as we hopped on the HoHo bus.



We went to the Cabinet War Rooms where all the planning went on during WWII. It's an amazing warren of hallways and rooms about 3 stories beneath the ground. This is where Churchill and his people directed their end of the War.



Then, back on the HoHo bus, we crossed the Tower Bridge.


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We passed 10 Downing Street and drove down Fleet Street.

We saw City Hall (it leans a bit!)



and saw the 30 St. Mary Axe Building - better known as The Gherkin. I think it should be called The Egg.



And then got off at the Tower of London. We did a tour, saw a film and climbed up into the Tower. That was pretty fascinating.


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Waiting around to start the tour.


Checking our tickets.


Off we go into one of the towers.



The "Tower of London" is not just one tower. There are actually several towers in the complex. This is the one where the Crown Jewels are kept. No photographs allowed inside.


Something was being filmed in the open space around the towers.



It is said that the English Empire will stand as long as there are ravens at the Tower of London. Here is where the ravens stay. Their wings are clipped, thus insuring that they will stay at the Tower.


But, there were actually more pigeons than ravens!
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Then we took a cruise on the Thames River up to Greenwich.


We saw the Cutty Sark



and the Royal Naval College



and the Royal Observatory




I bought a bottle of water for 65p (that's pence). I gave the lady a coin valued at 1 pound and got back 3 coins. I assume they were for 20p, 10p and 5p. It's really hard to remember which is which so I just depend on the honesty of the salespeople!! LOL


Tonight we had dinner at The Bag O'Nails across from the Hotel. I had Indian food and it was delicious. A curry dish - Chicken Tika, I believe.

Across The Pond #1 - London

Well, I actually found my journal notes for our British Isles trip, so here goes:
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From Sun. 8-27-06:
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Ben and I both made our first trans-Atlantic flight for this trip. We left ATL Hartsfield at 8pm and landed at Gatwick Airport - London at 8:35am. It was a long flight, but I was able to sleep a little while - Ben didn't. We caught a train - The Gatwick Express - to Victoria Station. The main impression I got from the train ride was that there were chimneys as far as the eye could see!!!Then a cab to our hotel, The Rubens, just across from the stables at Buckingham Palace. It's a great location and we love the hotel.

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Even though we had spent the night traveling and didn't get much sleep, we had to hit the ground running in order to get the most out of every minute that we had in England. So, Sunday found us on the HoHo bus (that stands for Hop On, Hop Off) and we traveled all over London to get a feel for the lay of the land. We passed by (and photographed):
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Trafalgar Square
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The National Gallery
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Sir Edwin Landseer's famous Lions sculpture in Trafalgar Square (this meant a lot to me because we have a Sir Edwin Landseer dog print in our living room - he was probably the most popular artist in Victorian England)
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Picadilly Circus
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Wellington Arch
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Wellington Arch from the other side
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Buckingham Palace
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Parliament
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Big Ben
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Westminster Cathedral
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and much more.
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I thought that I had heard that all the red telephone booths in London had disappeared. But, it seemed to us that there are quite a few still left.
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We had dinner at The Albert and I had Yorkshire Pudding for the first time. Yum-m-m!!!