Home Again

Hello! We finally made it back home and it's good to be home. We were dead tired last night and went to bed at 9:30, which was a mistake because we were both wide awake at 6 am. So, I've gotten all the laundry done (4 loads washed, folded and put away) and we've unpacked and put everything away. It's been a productive day :) The flight from Iceland to Seattle was very pretty. After taking off from Keflavik in Iceland we had the moon on the right of the airplane and the sunrise of the left, it was beautiful. We also had amazing views of Mt. Baker, the Cascades and Seattle. 

Our honeymoon was amazing, we got to see a lot of history. Just for fun, we'll list our favorites. 

Top 3 cities we visited:

Libby: Bath was my favorite, then York and London

Tommy: London was his favorite, then York and Bath

Recap: We went to Bath, Moreton-in-Marsh, Oxford, Edinburgh, York and London

 

Top 3 places we visited:

Libby: The Roman Baths were my favorite, then York Minster and Edinburgh Castle. Shakespeare's Globe was pretty cool too, I can't leave that out :)

Tommy: National Gallery was his favorite, then York town center and Edinburgh Castle

Recap of major places: Roman Baths, Bath Abbey, Oxford University, Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral, Palace at Holyroodhouse, Scottish Highlands, Hadrian's Wall, York Minster, Jorvik, Castle Museum, Railway Museum, Evensong, Shakespeare's Globe, Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Museum of London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Westminster Abbey, Cabinet War Rooms, British Museum, British Library, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and Imperial War Museum.

It's hard to list our favorite places we visited because they were all so cool!

 

Top 3 minster/abbey/cathedral:

Libby: York Minster was my favorite, then Westminster Abbey and Bath Abbey

Tommy: York Minster was his favorite, then Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral

Recap of minsters/abbeys/cathedrals: Bath Abbey, St. Giles Cathedral, York Minster, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral

 

Top 3 B&B's/lodgings:

Libby: Number 34 in York was my favorite, then Cornerways in Bath and Warwick House in Moreton-in-Marsh

Tommy: Number 34 was his favorite, then Cornerways and Cherry Court Hotel in London

Recap: well, the only place that neither of us listed in our favorites was the hostel in Edinburgh

 

I can't think of anymore "Top 3's" so we'll leave it at that. Thank you all so much for following our blog! We've enjoyed reading your comments, it was good to hear from home while we were away!!

Windy Iceland

Hello from Iceland! We have a lovely 17 hour layover here. We decided to book a hotel room instead of spending it in the airport (the airport here is bad). Our flight out is during the 4:00 pm hour (I forget when exactly) and we get into Seattle at 4:55 pm I think. Funny, huh? 

We had a little time this morning and afternoon in London before we had to be at the airport so we had round two of the British Museum. It's a really cool museum. Then we had lunch at Wagamama. They have all sorts of noodle-y dishes there. I had chicken ramen which was delicious and Tommy had yaki-soba which was also very good. If we had a Wagamama at home I'd eat there a lot probably. Oh, and for dessert I had the best coconut ice cream ever! It was a delicious last lunch in London. 

Ok, it's just after 1:00 am here, so I'm going to go to sleep. I'll post again when we are home safe. Goodnight!

London Day 6!

Today was our last full day in London and it poured this morning. How fitting. We went to the Imperial War Museum which is very large and full of things from both World Wars. Here are some pictures:

This is an actual section of the Berlin Wall

British 15 inch naval guns

Some German, British and American planes

One man submarine

Portable two person air raide shelter

The museum also took us through lots and lots of displays with uniforms, guns and other stuff from both world wars. It was very interesting. After the museum we went to Hamleys, a 7 story toy store. There was a lot of cool toys in there, none of which would have fit in my backpack. We were able to find something small though :) After that we wandered down Regent Street which is a very posh shopping area. 

What?!

Our flight out of Heathrow isn't until 9:30 pm or so, we are able to leave our bags at Cherry Court Hotel (where we are staying) so we can go see some more stuff before we leave tomorrow. It's a two ish hour flight up to Iceland. We got a hotel for the night because we don't leave Iceland until 4 pm on Wednesday the 19th. The hotel website says they have wireless so hopefully I'll be able to post something. If not, I'll post something when we get home! See you all soon!

 

London Day 5!

Hello! We did one thing today that we were able to take pictures of. I dragged Tommy to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. See?

Look at all the people that show up for it:

We were standing on the steps of the Victoria Memorial, there were two marching bands that came across the road there and some guards on horseback. Most of the action was behind the fence though and a little hard to see. We left before it was completely over, plus it had started to rain and I really needed a bathroom.....here are some pictures of the rest:



Anyway, they marched back and forth for a while behind the fence, then the band set up right by the gate and started playing swing music, that's when we left. I assume that somewhere in that mess they change guards :)
After we left we grabbed lunch on the way back to the tube station and Tommy dragged me back to the National Gallery so he could get an audio guide and see the paintings again. I played game on my ipod :) Tomorrow we are going to the Imperial War Museum and Hamleys which is the biggest toy store in Britain. I forgot to mention yesterday that we went to Harrods which is just a huge, expensive department store. We just went to the food hall and looked at all their chocolates and teas. It was super busy. Anyway, talk to you all later! Goodnight!

London Day 4!

Another busy day. We went to the British Library, the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery. This is going to be a short post also, because we weren't allowed to take pictures at any of those places!

At the British Library we saw a Shakespeare Quarto, an original copy of The Canterbury Tales, the Gutenberg Bible (the first real book to be printed using Gutenberg's printing technique), original copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the Magna Carta, among many many other very old texts and original handwritten musical pieces by Handel, Mendelssohn and Bach. It was very interesting!

The Tate wasn't very good because they were working on remodeling the inside so everything was torn apart and there was mostly modern art there, and that isn't really our cup of tea. We didn't stay long.

The highlight at the National Portrait Gallery was the portraits of the Tudors. As in Henry VIII, his wives and children.

After dinner we walked around Picadilly Circus (Tommy said it was like Times Square, lots of people and flashy signs). It was a zoo. I'm not sure yet what we're going to do tomorrow but hopefully we'll get to take pictures of it! 

London Day 3!

So, we went to Westminster Abbey today, and I'm really sorry, but we couldn't take pictures inside. We did buy a souvenir guidebook though, so you can look at it when we get home. If you're in our area :) I must say, it wasn't the best church touring experience, it's very structured and there are lots of ropes. I like being able to wander around where I want. Anyway, we saw the tombs of many kings and queens and memorials for Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll and Frederick Handel. There is a lot of history at Westminster. Here are a couple pictures of the outside:

After Westminster we went to the Churchhill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms, and that was pretty cool. You actually get to walk through the underground headquarters of the British government's fight against Hitler. We got to see Churchill's room, office, map room and all the other rooms used by the typists, secretaries and BBC radio. Some of the rooms had wax people in them.

This was a meeting room:

Conference room (and me)

Map Room

After the Cabinate War Rooms we went to the British Museum. This is the INSIDE of the entrance:

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Crazy, huh? This museum is really cool. Here are some favorite things from it:

THE Rosetta Stone!

very very large statue of Ramesses II

giant fist bump (giant arm from a statue of an unknown king)

giant lion

Nereid Monument (very large tomb from Turkey)

an Easter Island statue 

a mummy! for real!

We had a busy day. We managed to avoid a big hail/rain storm while we were inside the museum. We heard it on the windows. I'm not going to tell you what we plan on doing tomorrow because we usually end up doing something else, so you'll just have to wait and see :) Goodnight!

 

London Day 2!

Hello! Today we saw St. Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures in there but we did buy a guide book so if you'd like to see it, just ask :) So we don't have a lot of pictures to show you, but here are some pictures of the outside:

Can you see the railing on the top of the dome, around the square part? When you've found the railing look at the next picture.

I took this picture from behind the railing waaaay up there. 528 steps high. The previous picture I took standing on the pathway right before it splits. Crazy, huh? 

Good view of London from 528 steps in the air! See the London Eye?

Can you see Shakespeare's Globe?

We were that close to the top!

When we were done at the Cathedral we decided that we shouldn't try to do two churches in one day because we'd have to rush through the second (Westminster Abbey) to be done by closing time. So we're doing Westminster Abbey tomorrow. The rest of today we spent at the Museum of London and Victoria and Albert Museum. More pictures tomorrow!