We’re starting to get settled in now. Other than not having a TV, the vast majority of our things, or Bailey we have set up quite nicely in our new place. We bought a car! It’s larger than we planned… plenty of room for guests and their luggage I hopeJ. It was really good to give up little red rentie. We’re not going to miss the nonfunctional parking break, ‘rent me’ stickers, and cracked side mirror.
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| Rental |
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| 'New' car |
Chris played his first football (soccer) game last Thursday. A guy he played with on the Air Force team actually grew up a few miles from here and connected him with a pretty competitive team right when we arrived. Rumor is some of the players get paid about $60 a game – maybe he’ll start making back some of my lost income? These Brits take their football really seriously! I don’t entirely understand the system but this team (St Ives FC) seems like it’s in the equivalent of a baseball farm league – scouts are always looking to pull players up through the ranks (the ultimate of which is the Premier League with teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, ManU, etc.) The Premier League and a couple of the leagues directly under it are all full-time commitments so obviously even if Chris was that good he wouldn’t be able to play at those levels. Most of the guys he was playing with and against were really young – like in the 18 to 22 yr-old range. Before the game started a guy walked through the stands collecting money. I thought he was kidding when he said to watch would cost L2.50. That’s like 4 bucks! Ah well, Chris really needs to start getting paid to play so I can afford to watch. Even at this level there were a lot of (loud, heckling, hilarious) fans. Very fun. Worth the L2.50 to see Chris so happy! He said the play was decent but the young kids have a lot to learn on how to ‘be calm on the ball’. Maybe he’ll add more to the blog from his perspective later.
Today is our two year anniversary, boy does time fly by or what?! We started with big Paris plans for this past weekend but again, needed more advance planning than we allowed this year and so ‘settled’ on an overnight in London. What a fantastic city. First off, there’s absolutely no way you could appreciate all of London in a weekend. We were given great advice by friends here to take a hop on/hop off double-decker bus tour on the first day just to get our bearings and touch on some of the sights. It was only a tiny bit cheesy but overall really helpful to demonstrate the sheer scale of the city and what it had to offer. London is only about an hour by train, so we figure we’ll hit one or two sites on each subsequent visit (whether it be with guests or by ourselves). We didn’t plan enough ahead to book any of the Michelin Star rated or really popular restaurants (again with the planning! – old Claire needs to come back ASAP). That stays on our ‘London to do’ list, I guess! This is el problemo numero uno with traveling – the more you do, the more you realize you want to do! Some London sights:
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| The London Eye |
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| The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square |
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| Big Ben (actually Big Ben specifically refers to the bell inside the Clock Tower) |
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| The Tower of London |
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| Big battleship museum |
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| Trafalgar Square (most impressive square I've ever seen) |
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| Countdown to the Olympics! |
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| Tower Bridge |
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| Cleopatra's needle - a gift from Egypt dating back to 1450BC (wow, old) |
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| Oh crap, hopefully it holds! |
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| One of many, many pubs |
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| Bachelorette parties are always fun : ) |
Culture shock: the seemingly mild mannered English drop the F-bomb more during one football game than most rappers do in a year. Yikes.
Also, those things on your legs are trousers. Pants are underwear. Don't do what I did and tell the guy at the gym that "I forgot my pants in the changing room" meaning I forgot to grab the jeans I had changed out of upon arriving. Oops.
Interesting Facts: 4/5ths of London was destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666
Christopher Wren designed a TON of buildings and monuments in the city.
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