Holiday Inn Maidstone Sevenoaks

... hit by a wave of exhaustion that mixed with a weird time travel/surreal feeling I couldn't place. 2009 had arrived and I was in England. The first moments of my year would be spent there. It made me wonder how many more of the moments, holidays, and events that until then had been spent with my family and friends at home, would be spent in strange places, in new "homes".

Our first day in England we took a train into London. My ears were ...

... is watching them try to cover up their British accents to talk like Americans ... some are definitely better than others! Sunday afternoon we headed to the new Bond film. It premiered here in London last Wednesday. It was pretty good! Just thought I'd rub it in your face that I could see it before you ;). There hasn't been time for the theatre this week. I had class Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday night, I made the poor life choice of ...

Today we moved out of our hotel in London - we really are approaching the time to return home. After breakfast we packed up & took our luggage to the underground & then by train down to Waterloo Station, to the left luggage office. Not surprisingly I guess (given the various terrorist scares on the trains in London) security is much higher here than we've seen before. Several times today we've seen police around, especially in the underground system, and once we had to walk past ...

The first thing it to get a new lighter socket working, either down to the scrappy or more likely just rip the old socket out and splice in a new one left dangling.
accessory splitter - for the fridges and stuff ...

... was 3 weeks ago and now its all booked and we are making arrangements to keep things ticking over when we are gone. Will's car is just going in the garage, mine goes to Patrick for the duration - since I offered it to him all he worries about is that I'll crash it before my departure date.... I finish work on 25th July which gives me hopefully enough time to organise us and get ...

... 50 and buy a souvenir for myself. I'm really looking forward to seeing Harry, Tom and Joanna. I am looking forward to the hotel and swimming pool. I don't think that I will stay awake on the plane ...

... wrong turn and got ourselves lost...just a little...but enough to add another hour to the return trip. Finally close to the hotel we found a restaurant where we ordered noodles for our 8PM dinner. By the time we mad it back to the hotel, it was actually I who crashed. The plane trip and ten hours of sightseeing meant that I had been up for over 30 hours and I actually fell sound asleep during one of Allison's stories. We are buying a 3 day metro pass tomorrow!

... Abbey and what a lovely building. We were guided through this and visited Poets corner, the many different Chapels and got a good history of this Icon. We also learned that there were over 2000 persons buried under the floors there and that there are to be no more placed there. Jackie really like this visit the best of the day and the many different stories made an interesting 2 hours. After that we went on the London Eye and this was the last part of our tour. Others ...

... it to look like a tornado has recently passed through (even more than it normally does!). But it's mostly clothes that are left, so I have to leave that till later in the week...not entirely sure when though...am flying out to Granada next Sunday afternoon and I have social engagements every evening this week....hmmmmmm...oh well, I'm sure it'll all get done eventually. Hopefully that's enough to get you interested enough to stay tuned...

Yllattaen se flunssa ei lahtenytkaan viinalla. Hassu juttu... Tanaan piti olla kunnon turistipaiva, mutta paiva kului aika pitkalti flunssaa(lue krapulaa) parannellessa... Illemmalla kuitenkin paasi nalka yllattamaan. Lahistolla ei oikein ollut mitaan kunnollisia ravintoloita joten suunnattii taas lontoon keskustaan. Kaveltiin aikamme keskustassa kunnes paadyttiin ...