Day 2: Buckingham Palace and a steak

Buckingham Palace is only open in August when the Queen makes her annual visit to Scotland and as luck would have it, it coincided with our visit. So rather join the throngs of people watching The Changing of the Guard, we got to see inside the Palace where many fancy parties are held. They also had a nice exhibit called The Queen's Year which highlighted her official duties. Like most historical sites in London, they offered excellent audio guides with your tour. This made everything very quiet which helped punctuate Matthew "what's that?" 's

Buckingham Palace does not have mildew

After the Palace, we had a nice lunch with Hope and Matthew at Wagamama. The waitress acted like I was the first person to ever actually eat the Kimchi which makes me wonder why they serve it. They went off to a Dr appt for Matthew and Chris and I continued to explore.

Our first stop was Harrod's, where we found out "I cannot has" and rode the escalators all the way to the top and back down.

Then we headed off the Westminster area.

After some photo's with Big Ben, we did a tour of Westminster Abbey which even at the "at your own pace" audio tour takes several hours. Chris and I watch the Tudors (I know, right!) and so he was engaged in this tour seeing where some of his favorite characters are buried. 

We then did a quick run through of Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. We were running on empty so we literally ran in, saw the Monet and Van Gogh and ran out.

We detoured through Piccadilly Circus on the way to get back to the hotel.

I am the only person in the world who like pigeons

For dinner, Hope and Ben took us to Gaucho's an Argentinian steak house. Chris had warned me that they don't eat a lot of steaks in England. Since I come from beef country, I am a little snobbish about my steaks. The best part of the evening came when the server asked Chris if he wanted a sauce on his steak and Chris said, "Sauce? I thought it was supposed to be a good steak."

It was a good steak but my dad cooks steaks just as good so I wouldn't write home about it. We did have excellent Argentinian Malbec, and my wine knowledge seemed to impress Chris. He is glad I took that class at UT. 

Bonus Post- London is not for the OCD or even just the really anal

So my first thought as we rode the train from the airport to the city was, "Gee, this place could use some Spackle" I like to Spackle and I like to fill in cracks so the amount of cracks already perplexed me, but London is an old city and old cities have cracks so I needed to get over that.
The first thing I noticed about our hotel room was the mold and mildew in bathroom. It happens, I think of not perfect hotels like camping. There is mold and mildew in the outdoors and people go camping all the time. I used to love camping (but then I became sane).
But as we went around the city I began to notice that pretty much everything was mildewy. Old and moldy castles aren't the only thing that smell like old and moldy castles. They say it is the dampness but there wasn't really much humidity. I lived in Miami, it's damp. You do have to fight the mildew a little harder but it can be fought. So the reason I can't live in London is that I would walk around armed with two bottles of Tilex like a wild west sheriff and spray everything. Maybe start a pressure washing business and when I didn't have any paid work, I would just go around and pressure wash things with Tilex.

Chapter 7: In which we go across the pond - Day 1: London Arrival

It's a fact that I write a mean travel blog. Unfortunately, all my other blogs are half-ass. So, we are 8 days back from our trip to England and Ireland and I am just now blogging about it, but at least I am so shut up.

Let me start by saying that sleeping on the plane is important. Get tranquilizers or something because cheap airline wine won't cut it. Chris and I arrived in London exhausted. Then we had to haul our luggage on the train. I am now 100% against trips where no one picks you up at the airport. Even in Mexico, Vacation Express sends a shuttle to haul you 1.5 hrs down to the Riviera. Well, not it London. You are expect to schlep (and I mean schlep) your goods and services across town. Of course, Chris and I wanted to maximize everyday in London so we landed at 7 am. Big mistake! The train we took into town (which even though it was called the Gatwick Express, we now know was not our best choice) took us to the busiest tube station in town at morning rush hour. Not long after we go there they announced that they were not going to let anyone else in the station until some people left because it was too crowded. Not only was it too crowded but there is clearly no ADA in London because there are 100 steps up or down to get to anything. This is good for your fitness unless you have four 50lb bags then it is good for heart attacks and hernias. So finally about 10 am we get to the hotel. We stayed at the Travelodge on City Road. It was insanely basic with the 2nd hardest bed I ever slept on but it was pretty cheap for the area. Since we were early the front desk gave us flack and said no rooms were available. When I got my bitch face on, she offered us a disabled room for a 10 pound early check in rate. We took it because our other choice was standing around 5 more hours with our 200 lbs of luggage.

We dumped our stuff and embarked on our first site seeing adventure. It lasted 10 minutes before Chris and I started screaming at each other, it turns out we hadn't eaten in 7 hours (and only had 2 hours sleep in about 12). We quickly realized this and ate at Wasabi in silence. Once the blood sugars were normalized, we were magically happy. We also discovered that with a CitiCard we could exchange currency at CitiBank which had better rates than the Bureau de Change.

We then headed off to St. Paul's for our first of many tours. - In case you don't know, it's a really big deal that the German's didn't get St. Paul's in WWII. In fact, WWII is a really big deal in all of London since it really was a center of action.

This is me, standing on the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.

We then had a bit of a walk before I literally ran of steam. I think I looked at Chris and said, "I think that was my last step for the day." Back to the hotel for a power nap. I slept so soundly that when my phone went off, my heart jumped out of my chest. We then headed over to The Barbican to visit Chris's sister and our nephew Matthew.

Matthew at dinner

I was pretty late night for 2 people who now had slept 4 hours of the last 34. I actually think it wasn't until the next day when I noticed how hard the beds were. 

Geography for the masses

So our office radio, which is totally in another room but I have mad hearing skills, is on a country station. I personally do not like country music so this is my exposure. Like my favorite 80s-90s-and today station it plays the same 3 songs over and over. One of these songs has a refrain in Spanish. I am pretty sure the song is about going to Mexico. I have been to Mexico and I think it is the kind of thing that a person would want to sing about. Anyway, in this song the dude loves Mexico so much that he even learned enough Spanish to sing the one line in the refrain. Also, in the refrain he says that they will drink some Jager(meister). Now again, I have been to Mexico and let me assure you that you can drink whatever the hell you want and lots of it. But if I loved Mexico so much I was going to write a song about it, I think I would at least promote one of Mexico's main exports such as tequila or Kahlua. I'm just sayin'.

Boogas needs a photo blog

Sometimes I think if I had a photo blog it would be so much easier. Well, today I found Basket Cat Blog (warning: In Japanese, but its just pictures). Boogas is 10 times cuter. She needs a photo blog.

This is my new life philosophy

It is no secret that I like to say "bitches".

Well, I just saw an item for sale by regretsy (which is where DIY meets WTF). I NEED this. If you, like me, plan 7 months ahead for all birthdays then you should go ahead and buy this for me today.

Namaste, Bitches - t-shirt on regretsy

I farted during Yoga

I tried to think of a better title but there isn't one. That's what happened and that's the best way to say it.

We were doing boat pose. Now I am only about 1/2 way there on boat pose. I can't let go of my knees. Even though I don't think holding them is doing anything, it is just psychological. So there I was in boat pose thinking about letting go of my knees and TOOT!

It was a serious toot, more like a honk actually. Very gooselike. I had been sniffling all night so for second I hoped everyone would think it was a sound I made with my sinuses. No one said anything. I didn't say anything. I usually don't say excuse me because usually there is no one around. I am a toot in private kind of lady. Or my husband is there but if it just us and someone farts we both immediately say "kitty?".

By virtue of being late Chris and I were separated by two mats, I hoped this meant he was our of earshot because I would never live this down.

So fart thoroughly dismissed we went about the rest of class. I swear to you it was like the instructor dared himself to make it happen again. Every pose we did put pressure on lower stomach. I have expected him to say this is the downward colon evacuater, good for detoxifying and passing gas.

I made it the rest of the class silently, but after class when Chris said, "It was you, wasn't it?" I said yes, and I am going to blog about it.