Barons Come to Visit, Barcelona and Cruise

Our May began with a visit from Tyler's parents.  It was great to see more family.  Almost as soon as they arrived in this crazy city, we were off on a new adventure.  We rented a car and drove out to the Cotswolds to see what the English countryside had to offer.  The bed & breakfast we stayed at had a gorgeous view of the green hills and blossoming trees and the birds were singing all around us.  Poor Joyce was understandably motion sick after being transported around for a straight 24 hours.  Some of the highlights of our overnight excursion included stops at Oxford, Stratford-on-Avon to see the Shakespeare sites, Lower & Upper Slaughter (where we popped our tire- but luckily had a spare! -and enjoyed a great lunch at a lovely little cafe situated at an old mill), and Bath (where we arrived 15 minutes too late to show Clark and Joyce the Roman bath house- so sat in on a meeting inside the incredible Bath Abbey church instead).  We returned to London Monday evening vowing to never rent a car again.  Poor Tyler, our fearless driver, did an amazing job navigating us all around in a stick shift car through the roads and highways- but we all were relieved to get back to the comfort of home and be rid of a vehicle.  I'd say we did alright- with only a flat tire and a traffic violation from driving in the bus lane.  

Before we knew it, Clark and Joyce were on a plane again, headed off to Madrid for a few days. We met them again on Saturday in Barcelona to set sail on a Mediterranean cruise with none other than the infamous Costa cruise line.  We tried to convince ourselves that OUR captain wouldn't crash US into the shore, sink OUR ship and run for the hills.

It was a 5 night, 6 day cruise: *Barcelona, Spain-  *Palma de Mallorca-  *Ajaccio, Corsica-  *Marseille, France *Savona, Italy-  *Barcelona.  I know I am sounding like a broken record by now- but the weather was a bit chilly.  We saw many great and beautiful sites.  Savona, Italy was especially exciting and quite the experience.  Upon a nice woman's recommendation, we ate at the oldest restaurant in town.  There were stone fired ovens and the people there did not speak a drop of English, or so they said.  When they brought out the fish, it was literally the whole fish on a plate, head and all.  The server spent the next 10 minutes performing the show of extracting the meat from the fish.  Since I can't eat something that is looking at me, I had the chicken- which was equally flavorful and great.  The food tasted delicious and we left with some good memories.

Once back in Barcelona, we spent a couple days seeing the city and enjoying the Gaudi sites.  Here are the highlights.  A quick note:  Unfortunately, we absent-mindedly left our backpack and our camera on the train- and lost all our pictures!!  Although the camera and pictures we took are lost for good, we were lucky that Clark and Joyce were there and have shared their pictures with us.  Most of the following pictures are from various websites- but capture the sites we saw.

The music on the train:

 The Casa Mila Apartments (click the link for more info)

Parc Guell  (Click for more info)

Sagrada Familia (Click for more info)  *This was the most AMAZING!!! and memorable man-made structure I have ever seen.  If ever I belonged to a church, I think this might be a fitting site for worship.  Gaudi, the architect, was inspired by nature- honeycomb, trees, flowers, etc. and it was beautiful beyond compare to any other building we have visited.
To see more pics, click here

Montserrat (Click for more info)
Montserrat Monastery (Click for info)

We had a great time in Barcelona.  The weather was good there, the food was amazing, and the sites were exceptionally beautiful!  Spanish style shwarmas will live in my mind forever.  The tapas were memorable too.   Before we knew it, it was time to return back to London- so we said goodbye to Clark and Joyce and headed for home.  We would see them again soon...

Learning From the Masters

My friend/neighbor from Korea taught me and a few of our other friends how to prepare authentic sushi (back in early May).  I was so excited about this.  Tyler and I love to go out for sushi.  I never feel like we order enough rolls- so now we can make our own and eat as much as we like!  Yum!

Hampton Court Palace

A day trip to Hampton Court Palace with some of Tyler's co-workers in late April.  Another cold, rainy & gray day- but the palace and gardens were beautiful! 

(I wish I could take credit for this picture, but I just found it on the Hampton Court Palace website)

We had fun splashing in the puddles and getting through this giant maze of shrubbery!

A trip to Belgium

To celebrate the end of tax season back in mid-April, we decided to take a trip to Bruges, Belgium.  Bruges (yes- the entire little city!) is a World Heritage Site and was a beautiful place to visit.  It is the "Venice of the north" with an impressive canal system running through the heart of the city.  Medieval architecture gives the city a unique feel. 

The weather, as usual, was not kind.  It was quite cold and rainy the entire time.  We tried to make the best of it, despite this (But it was really, really hard to stay optimistic at times).  

Here is our trip in pictures...  

Let me introduce you to the nectar of the Gods!  This was truly the best orange juice we have ever had!  Because we drank this, we will undoubtedly live to be 100+.  It was absolutely amazing!  This became our tradition almost twice a day while we were there.

  

The sun actually came out for a few minutes once while we went on a boat ride in the canal.

The Frites and Belgian chocolates were to die for!  Yum!

One of the days, we took our rental car and drove 2-3 hours to go see the Keukenhof Tulip Park in Holland.  It was a long and rainy drive, but well worth the wait.  The sun even came out soon after we arrived.  The sites and the smells were intoxicating.  Tulips, tulips everywhere!  So many beautiful gardens lining every walkway for acres and acres.  I will never forget the sweet smell of hyacinth.  This was one of those places that just flat out blow your mind.  Unforgettable!

There was the best petting zoo ever at the Keukenhof.  Ady had a great time there as you can see...  I have no idea what that sheep looking thing is- but I must say he was quite photogenic.

On the last day, we took a drive to a nearby coastal town and touched the ocean.  It was especially cold and windy that day- and quite frankly, we were all ready to call our trip done.  We decided to return the car early and see if we could catch an earlier train home.  Even though we knew to expect it, we were still shocked at how much it cost to refill our gas tank.  It was 60 euros, which is the equivalent of 90, or so US Dollars- for a little car.  We came to the conclusion real fast that renting a car is not at all economical.  Trains and flights are definitely the best way to go.  Cars are so stressful, too!  Oh man, we have become weaklings!

If the cold and rain hadn't worn us down yet, when we arrived back at the Brussels train station, we went to see if we could get on an earlier train.  The clerks were persistently adamant that our tickets were unchangeable.  This meant we had to wait at the dingy, dirty and scummy station for 5 hours!  Unbelievable!  We pleaded with them several times, but they didn't care that we had a 3 year old.  We decided to brave the rain and get out to see what Brussels had to offer.  Unfortunately we must have gone out the wrong side of the station into the most ghetto part of the city because it was a terrible sight.  There were several abandoned buildings, homeless people- and disgusting amounts of human waste all around.  We quickly turned around and went back into the train station to peruse the shops.  Right off the bat, I saw someone steal some headphones from one of the stores.  What was this place?!  And would we seriously be able to last 4 more hours here?!  Soon we decided it might be best to just sit and wait in the chairs right next to our ticket gates.  Luckily, the time seemed to pass by quick enough and after a meal we found ourselves on the train headed back to London. Phew!  It was nice to be back.

The Heart of the Great Alone

There was an incredible photography exhibition at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace capturing the race to be the first expedition to reach the south pole.  This year marks 100 years since the journey of Captain Scott's "ill-fated journey."  It was a beautiful show and an amazing (and haunting) story.  We found it to be really interesting.

You can see the photos here and you can even hear the audio guide narration to each scene.


http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/HOTGA/MicroSectionList.asp?exid=439

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/HOTGA/MicroSectionList.asp?exid=439

West Hampstead

West Hampstead is a charming little area that is only a 10 minute bus ride from our place.  We took a jaunt up there together back one saturday in April and enjoyed some yummy crepes (which we waited in line for an hour for)!  We strolled around at the little market and picked up some fresh veggies and a lemon thyme plant that was just the same as the ones we had for table decorations at our wedding reception way back when (which has since died because I left it without water for too long while on one of our later vacations.  Oops!  I am the WORST plant mother ever!).  I found some steals at the great little charity shop there as well.  We came across a beautiful church there that looked quite old- but then had this crazy vibrant blue door.  It was awesome- so we took some quick pics.

Dancing Queen

Any time there is music playing, Ady cannot stop herself from dancing.  This is proof.  We were in the mall walking along and heard some good beats.  She could not contain herself.