Heading Home

The Trip Home

We had to get up at 5:30 in the morning because all the other connecting buses to the airport were booked. Our plane didn't actually leave London until 12:00, so we had a lot of time at the airport. While waiting there, we noticed this couple reading Bill O'Reilly's books. We're a fan of Bill's, so I snapped this picture (cutting off the heads on purpose) and sent it to O'Reilly. If you see this posted on his show, you'll know where it came from. We told him that he is "ubiquitous." You know how he loves those big words.

We finally boarded the plane and began the long, grueling trip home. Unfortunately, we had seats in the center, so we were so crammed in, you felt like you just could not possibly get comfortable. After three and one half hours I was so done -- but I had seven more hours to go !!! Torture. Pure torture. You fly with the sun so it's light outside the whole way -- even though it's the middle of the night for your body clock.

Our "40th-anniversary celebration trip" was absolutely wonderful. Truly a memory we will treasure forever. We do hope to go again. I would really love to spend more time in England. That's my favorite of all the places we went. Dale said he thinks it would be his favorite as well.

It's sad to leave, but it's so wonderful to come home -- home, sweet home.

America the Beautiful --

God bless America! Land that I love.

Joel picked us up at the airport. Thank you, Joel. It was so nice not to have to catch a bus and drag our suitcases everywhere.

Of course, the favorite thing about coming home is this:

Abby and Essie, little princesses, Halloween 2008

Europe Day Sixteen

Europe Day 16
Last Full Day in Europe

We boarded another bus today and headed for Warrick Castle. Dale loves this medieval stuff, so he was really enjoying himself.

Next we visited the famous Straford on Avon where Shakespeare was born and eventually moved back to to reside there. The house in which he was born is still standing, but the house he bought when he moved back there was torn down. Apparently after he sold the house, he was so famous that people kept coming by to see the house. So instead of selling the house, the owner tore it completely down. A bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?

This is a centuries-old pub where we had lunch. Beautiful.

We boarded the bus again to go to Oxford University. We drove through miles and miles of English countryside, seeing one amazing little village after another – all so well preserved.

Oxford University

We continued to drive through the beautiful English countryside back to London. We came across many of these thatched-roof cottages. Our tour guide explained to us that thatching a roof is an extremely expensive process. It can cost 50 to $60,000 to thatch a roof, but they do it to preserve the heritage. Notice the bird on the top of the house. Apparently there are different types of grasses that they use for the thatching, and every thatched roof has a bird and each bird represent the type of grass that was used.

Tomorrow we head for home. I'll post one more short blog of that long day.

Europe Day Fifteen

Europe Day 15
London

Another very full day in London.

We had heard that there was a Monet exhibit at the British Arts Museum, so we boarded “the tube” as they call it in London, and headed there. There wasn’t a Monet exhibit after all, but there was a Byzantium exhibit, so we decided that Dale would go see it – since he loves it and had studied it forever and I’m ambivalent – and I would go shop.

A cute little shopping "mall."

Boarded “The Tube” again and went to the British War Museum. By the way, during the war, people would come down to these tunnels during the air raids. At the war museum, we saw a picture of people sleeping along these walkways and the picture looked exactly the same as this except without the people sleeping.



The British war museum is kind of located outside center of downtown London, so we got more of a feel for being amongst the "commoners." London is filled with the most beautiful parks and of course since this is the fall season -- beautiful colors.

Along the walk there, we just happened to come across Captain Bligh's house. They have so much history here, that things like this are just common. Right down the street from this house is an English Pub. We stopped here for a Coke. They were very surprised when we asked for a coke. We got it -- with no ice, of course. We asked the people how old this building was and no one seemed to know. Then we went outside and it's written right on the building. Apparently Charlie Chaplin grew up in this neighborhood and his dad was a frequent visitor to this pub, so he has his own little corner -- Chaplin's corner.

British War Museum
Dale could have spent two weeks here. It was filled with planes and tanks and guns and ammo and on and on. My eyes begin to glaze over. They did have a recreation of the tunnels that these soldiers lived in during World War I that I thought was interesting. How these soldiers suffered to protect our freedom. We will never know the half of it. The tunnels were cold and wet and smelly. Lord, help us never to forget what so many have given.

Next we visited Buckingham Palace and the Queen's Gallery. So many beautiful paintings and some of the sparkling gem-encrusted jewelry of the queen. Amazing.

Europe Day Fourteen

Today we visited Westminster Abbey. This is where Queen Elisabeth the II was crowned queen (and many of her forebears). This is also where she was married, along with Princess Di and Prince Charles. This is the most beautiful church. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside. Many of the kings and queens of England are buried here along with Handel, Chaucer, Tennyson, Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters and on and on. This view you see here is actually a side entrance. This is not the entrance that everyone goes through to be married or buried.

Took our pictures with Bobbies at Big Ben.

From there we walked across the street to the UK Parliament. I had referred to it as the English Parliament, but someone read my blog in the last few minutes and sent me a correction. They said this:

"I hope you had a great time in England. Just one thing - that wasn't the "English parliament" you visited it's the UK parliament. England is one of the only countries in the world that doesn't have its own parliament - something we are fighting to change."

I stand corrected. Thank you for reading my blog and sending me that correction.

While we waited to get inside, we met a precious couple from Israel. This is always a highlight for me, meeting people and getting to talk to them about the Lord. It was like the Lord kept putting them in our path. When we finally started waiting in line to get in, there they were, right next to us -- again. She spoke broken English, he only spoke Yiddish and Hebrew. She said she enjoyed talking to us because she could actually understand us. She was having a lot of trouble with the Brits. I told her that we were as well. She also could understand me better than Dale. Dale would say something and then she would look to me to interpret what he just said. He always has had problems putting the cookies on the lower shelf. Dale started quoting a few Hebrew verses to them that he knows by heart, and you should have seen the smile light up on their faces. Pray for this precious couple -- Rachel and Mordicai -- and PRAY for the peace of Jerusalem.
Then we had dinner at a wonderful little restaurant called the Red Lion, built some 500 years ago. We had beef wellington, which is like a roast baked in a crust of bread. By the way, do you know where the term "upper crust"comes from? When the people in the middle ages baked bread, they had very hot ovens with the heat coming from the bottom, obviously. The top part of the bread would be light and fluffy and the bottom part would be burned. They would slice the top part off and serve that to the wealthy. The poor people got the burned part. Hence, "Upper crust." :)

Another Highlight for me:
After dinner we went back to Westminster Abbey for a church service. Oh, my goodness, it was so wonderful. The choir sang in that “Gregorian chant” style. Not even what it’s called, I’m sure, but I’ve always loved that kind of singing and in this magnificent church – breathtaking. They had several prayers and stand-ups/sit-downs and then the pastor began to pray. You won’t believe this. He began, “Today is the anniversary of the gift of the statue of liberty to America from France.” I’m sure most every American doesn’t even know that anniversary date. And then he began to bless America. He prayed for everything that is on my heart. It was the most amazing thing. Of course, it brought tears to my eyes. It was like a special gift from the Lord to us.

Europe Day Thirteen

PARIS!

Notre Dame

Today we traveled by bus most of the day through the beautiful French countryside, snapping pictures through our bus window. This truly has been a whirlwind tour, giving us just a “taste” of Europe, making us want another bite – some day.

We arrived in Paris at about 3:00 in the afternoon. The bus mostly drove around the city with a tour guide from Paris on our bus. Again – snapping pictures from our bus. Then we were finally allowed to get off at Notre Dame – for one half hour. Then back on the bus to the Eiffel Tower – for fifteen minutes!! We were able to quickly snap pictures and then head back. I’m not meaning to sound critical. It’s what we signed up for, seeing a lot in a very short period of time, but it does make us a little sad when we would like to just sit and gaze for hours at these magnificent pieces of architecture. You should see Dale running around – snap, snap, snapping pictures – running back to catch up with the group.

Paris is an amazing city. We had been sternly warned about the pickpocketers that are here. “Hang on to your purse and wallet; don’t let go of your bags for even a second.” At the same time it is supposed to be the “city of love.” Hmmm. Seems a bit incongruous, if you know what I mean. But there is so much history in this city, it’s just awesome to ponder it. Just wish we had a little more time to ponder . . .

Sort of! I am getting that longing to be home. There truly is no place like home. Missing my little grandbabies so very much (and the rest of my family as well, of course).

We ended our tour with our “tour family” at a little Parisian restaurant that looked like it was converted out of an old wine cellar. Probably several hundred years old at least. We were given quite a banquet.

For the first course we were given several options, one of which was escargot or “snails” in plain English. Well, we decided to go the safe route. I ordered French onion soup (yes, it is called French onion soup in France) and Dale ordered the escargot.

We just felt we had to try it. If we didn’t like it, then we could share the soup. Well, the snails came, and they came in their shells. You had to hold onto the shell and scoop out the little creature with a special little fork. Notice the green stuff that is on top of these little bugs. Really appetizing! NOT! See Dale.

His face expresses it all. He did it! Of course, then I had to do it. He made me. But I did it. Neither one of us likes escargot very much. It really doesn’t taste very good and the little creatures are sort of rubbery in texture. Eh! Well, we can chalk it up as a new “experience” for us, and we can at least say we’ve tried it.

The soup was good.

Karen ordered frogs legs . . . Can you see them? SO appetizing! NOT!!Next came the main course. Dale picked a beef dish with a French-sounding name. Neither one of us can remember the name. I had a shrimp thing. The third course was cheese – various choices of different kinds of cheeses. Strange. Final course, dessert. Dale had a chocolate mousse, and I had a caramel cream thing that was kind of like flan. I will say that I really think American food is better than almost anything I’ve had here in Europe, with one exception and that was the German Bratenworst with sauerkraut. Of course, we're prejudiced, I'm sure and it's also what we've been used to all our lives.

At the end of the meal we had some great French entertainment and everyone sang, clapped, and even danced! It was so much fun.

When you travel with someone for 7 days, you make some wonderful friendships.

Majed and Hamad from Dubai and Gloria from New York.

(Thank you, Gloria, for the bookmark from the New York Public Library)

Yosef and Cendriani from Indonesia

Helen and Chris from Austrailia

(Our Auzzies)

Daphne and Rosie from England
(Rosie, I'm sorry the picture isn't a better quality.

It's the only one I got of you, for some reason :(

You'll just have to send me a better picture. If you do, I'll post it)

and many more.

I regret that we didn’t get pictures of everyone and didn’t even get a group shot. Well, it was our tour guide’s first tour. She probably didn’t think of it and we certainly didn’t.

Tomorrow we leave for London and this will be the end of this tour. That will be a good thing. We will be at one hotel for four days, and we will be on our own pace. Yes! We’ll actually be able to sit and gaze. Great Idea! Caun’t wait (said with a good British accent ;)