Post 4 - Part 1

Well we are now on a train back to London from Cardiff. It is about 8:30am, so about 1:30pm at home. Anyways I have some time so I thought I would tell you about Wales.

Wales is a very beautiful place, and we were lucky to have pretty good weather. It was quite warm in the sun, and again a little chilly in the shade, perfect for exploring castles.

First we went to our hotel to check-in and drop off our bags. The Cardiff Hilton is beautiful and much bigger than the Hilton Hyde Park. It has lots of windows and a great view of the Cardiff Castle.

So once we were checked in, we walked to Queens Street Station to hop a train to Caerphilly. Caerphilly is a little town just north of Cardiff and home to one really cool moated castle called...you guessed it...Caerphilly Castle. I really liked it, although it smelled a lot of mold, and algae from the moat. On the website the warn you that people with allergies may have a hard time inside the castle. This castle is exactly how I would have imagined a castle in my mind, only with more furniture and fires in the fire place!

Post 3

This is really cool. I am now on a train, traveling to Cardiff, Wales and I am blogging. Who knew having a laptop would be so convenient? It said that there would be Wifi on the train, but we haven’t been able to find it if there is.

We got up pretty early. I woke up several times during the night, but I was always able to get back to sleep so I was okay. I’m not sure if the melatonin worked, but I think it helped. I will try it again tonight. So we got up at 5:30am cause we couldn’t sleep anymore. It was nice, John and I took our time getting ready, and then we headed down to breakfast at 6:30am. It’s weird being up that early and not really being tired. (One of the reasons we stay at the Hilton is because of the included breakfast. Usually a breakfast included with your room is a sad looking continental buffet. Well such is not the case at the Hilton. It is a beautiful full buffet with eggs, toast, meat, pancakes, juice, fruit, and lots of other things. That and collecting points towards free stays is why we choose Hilton.)

We are only going to be in Wales for one night, so John and I put a change of clothes in our carry-ons and left the rest of our luggage at the Hilton. We will be back there tomorrow. So that’s nice, now we don’t have to lug our luggage all over the place. We will do the same thing when we go to Paris, and when we go to York and Edinburgh.

We decided to take the 7:45am train from London to Cardiff, but when we got the Paddington they were having some kind of technical difficulties and trains were delayed. I guess Paddington had some kind of problem accepting trains that were arriving. So we ended up catching the 7:15am train that was delayed. So it worked out. I really enjoy traveling by train. It’s quick and way less of a hassle than flying. No huge security lineups and checking luggage. It’s great!

Anyways we are about to arrive in Cardiff so I have to go for now. Tell you more soon!

Post 2 - Part 2

After Trafalgar Square, it was off to Picadilly Circus. It was kind of cool, a lot like Time Square in New York I think, but smaller. Again it was really busy with a lot of people around. I think it must be spring break, because there seems to be a lot of families and school-aged children. The weather was good, very nice when the sun was out, and a little chilly when the clouds rolled in.

It’s really funny, because Ken took about 8 pictures of John and I, and in everyone of them my eyes are closed!! Oh well.

Once we finished looking around, we headed over to one of my favorite places in London: Harrods. I love Harrods!! It is probably the biggest department store ever. It is a very historic place in London, one of the oldest department stores in the world. You can buy anything from luggage to groceries to board games and toys to pets. It’s fabulous. They even have a museum with old antiques and fossils. John and I love it. I’m not sure how impressed Ken was, but he was starting to get pretty run down.

Harrods is owned by the Al Fayed family, so there is a memorial to Princess Di and Dodi Al Fayed at Harrods. And in case you were wondering, I bought some delicious tea and a key chain, and John bought some more of our beloved Harrods mug. Next time you are over at our house you’ll see them. They’re all he and I really drink out of.

After Harrods we were all starting to get a bit tired, so we made our way back to the hotel. Our rooms are quite small, but it is a really nice hotel. It is directly across the street from Hyde Park, which is London’s version of Central Park, not nearly as big though. John and I walked through it when we were here in September, it’s actually quite beautiful and it is home to some of the biggest squirrels I have ever seen, but that is another story altogether.

We were pretty bagged by the time we got back to the hotel, so we just lounged around. I think Ken went right to sleep, but John and I watched some tv, and he did some work, because it was only 6pm and we didn’t want to go to sleep and wake up and 2am, unable to get back to sleep. So we ordered some room service (nothing exciting just a plain chicken breast with fries). This is my life now that I am trying to avoid gluten. And then we finally went to sleep around 7:30pm. Neither of us could really keep our eyes open anymore.

We took some melatonin, which is a supplement that is supposed to help you readjust to a new time zone, or it’s good if you do shift work where your shifts are changing. Apparently is helps your body resent it’s internal clock. So I will let you know what happens.

Tomorrow we are off to Wales!

Post 2 - Part 1

Well I didn’t sleep a lot in my little pod, but I was able to rest quite well. Ken and John didn’t really sleep either. Once we landed in London, we made the journey to the baggage terminal, it’s about a good 10 minute walk or so. Then once we collected our baggage we took a taxi to the Hilton Hyde Park. In past trips to London, we have taken the Heathrow Express from the airport, but we discovered that it is about the same price and less painful to take a cab, especially with 3 of us, and with luggage for two weeks. It was actually quite nice because we didn’t have to take our luggage all through Heathrow and then onto the train and then on the tube to get to our hotel.

It really is nice to be back in London. I loved riding in the cab and looking at the familiar scenery. It’s really cool how there are little farms with cows and horses, and then right next door there are apartment and commercial buildings. I love how green London is. It’s lovely to see flowers and spring grasses. I really could see myself living here. I love how when you drive down the street you see tons of people and little shops and restaurants. It’s hard for me to describe, but the city just feels alive all the time. I love people watching and riding on the tube reading the free trashy papers. It’s so quick and easy to get around. And I love being able to walk through the park in the moderate climate. I’m sure Calgary has some things like that, but it’ll never make me feel the way London does. I mean I love Calgary, because it’s my home and it’s where my family is, but sometimes I wish I had grown up on this side of the pond. But anyways.....

Once we checked into our hotel, it was only about noon. It was about 5am our body time, but we decided to push through and do some site-seeing. So we hopped on the tube (the underground subway-that’s Ken and I on it above) and headed to Trafalgar Square, this was on the of the things on Ken’s list that he really wanted to see. John and I have been there before. It was actually pretty busy, lots of people around.

Post 1

I can hardly believe that I am here, sitting on a plane, blogging. It is so cool! iWeb is really a neat program and another benefit of having a macbook. I am blogging without an internet connection and then later on when we land in London and get to our hotel where there is Wifi I will post this entry. This was probably the main reason that I switched from blogger (which I really loved dearly) to iWeb. I was thinking about how there will be times on this trip where I won’t want to pay for Wifi, but I will still want to blog, and I didn’t want to have to bother with copying and pasting, and the one bad thing about blogger is that it always takes a long time to upload photos. So I headed down to the mac store and got some excellent tips about blogging with iWeb and off I went: The Crusty Chronicles. Anyways enough plugging Mac and iWeb.

I am sitting in the Business Class cabin of a 777 heading to London, England. I must be the luckiest girl alive! This is the first time that I have sat in Business Class where they have the little pods. The seat reclines like a Lazy Boy, and will also flatten right out into a bed. I am going to try and sleep soon, because when we get to London it will be 11:00am local time, and 4:00am my body time. We are going to push through and stay up as late as we can, but catching some zzzz’s will help. These pods really are cool. You have your own plug-ins, personal entertainment unit, remote control, it’s great!! We are so lucky to have been able to book on miles! You also get a little kit that has slippers, ear plugs, an eye mask, a toothbrush, lip balm and other inflight necessities. I really do feel extremely spoiled.

That’s Ken, wearing the slippers. The food was pretty good too, although it was a little hard for me because I am trying to avoid gluten and dairy. So I had to pass on these beautiful rolls, and this gorgeous little cheese plate. And the killer was at the end of the meal they came around with ice cream. And normally when you think about ice cream on a plane, you picture those little vanilla dixie cups with tongue depressor that you were supposed to eat it will, well this was not that. This was a chilled bowl with a perfectly rounded scoop of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream. I am salivating just thinking about it again. But alas I passed. Instead I had fruit, which was really yummy too. Fresh strawberries and blackberries.

Anyways I am off to try and sleep for awhile. I imagine I will be pretty bagged tomorrow, but I will see what I can get written down.