Ohmigosh...SNOW!

Here I was thinking that by moving to London I'd have to just be okay with not getting any snow because we're at sea level. (You'd think I'd have gotten used to it in San Diego where it's warmer...not so much). And then this morning I woke up to a snow covered ground!! Sooo exciting. So here are pictures of my oh so exciting snow covered New Cross. Luckily my lecturer on Wednesdays starts late cause I was running late to class...but HAD to get the pictures before everything melted...everything was going my way today. Plus I got to reconnect with an old friend, meet with my dissertation supervisor so I feel like I'm more on track and get a great yoga workout. Good day! Hope everyone else had a great Wednesday too. Snow covered wishes to you all!


Snow on what little greenery I have out my window [yup...those are bars...I'm safe:) ]


Same snow on the same greenery above...just a different view (with less vertigo)


View of the quad with a dusting of snow and evidence of others keen to play in the snow!


The up close artsy shot...gotta have one of those

All good things must come to an end

Well...that's been our trip. On the 5th we all ventured to Heathrow...via the tube with 4 huge suitcases, a backpacking backpack and 3 carry ons. That...was exhausting. But my family, sadly, caught their flight home and I hopped back on the tube and headed back to New Cross. We did have a fantastic trip and I know we were all excited to sleep in our own beds and rest from the busy vacation. Here's the map highlighting everywhere we drove to...we certainly traveled some distance!



I hope you enjoyed the Reagan Family Christmas card (belated since it's now the 11th...sorry...I had two 5000 word papers to write...but enough with the excuses). Keep checking back as I update with more stuff I'm doing here!

Lots of Love to Everyone!
Heather

Sanctuary, Sanctuary, Sanctuary! Cathedral Day!

We dubbed the 4th cathedral day cause we visited Westminster Abbey, wandered the waterfront and then visited St. Pauls Cathedral. It really was a fantastic day because both cathedrals are very different but equally beautiful and St. Pauls is my new favorite place in London. It's got good vibes :)


Outside of Westminster Abbey - You can't take pictures inside either cathedral soooo...guess you just need to visit me :)


The main entrance...imposing isn't it!


A different view of Parliament (cause the Abbey is right across the Street.


Blue Skies on the Waterfront (Finally!)


There's this skate park on the south bank of the Thames that's just cool and people are always doing neat tricks there...but...evidently they were taking a break cause Patrick didn't get a picture of any of them!


Bobbies on a Bridge (I love the funny hats)


Shakespeare's Globe Theatre


View of the front of St. Pauls Cathedral.


At St. Pauls you can climb a gazillion stairs to get outside balconies on the dome, both at the base of the dome and the very top. This is a view from the middle one of the Millenium Bridge and the Tate Modern. Well worth the trek!


Another sprawling view from the middle level...pretty cool.


Here's a view from the very top with a Patrick in it.


This was a pretty awesome sight...the sun breaking through just one point in the clouds when we were at the top. Absolutely beautiful!


These were the stairs at the very top...you basically had to squish your way through and hope you had the balance to not fall cause...no arm rails!


I found this statue on a postcard and almost bought it since we can't take pictures, but then...I found the statue next to the cafe...where we can take pictures!! I just love this one.


And...after St. Pauls the boys managed to hunt down yet another football stadium...this time it was Arsenal.

Steaks and Stones - tee hee...punny!

Get it? We visited Salisbury (steaks) and Stonehenge (stones). Hmm...my wit may be a bit off tonight...but it made me giggle when I came up with the title :)

Since our trip made us start a day behind, we didn't get a chance to visit the souther areas of the country and we really wanted to see Stonehenge. So on the 3rd we hopped a train to Salisbury and then a bus to Stonehenge and took the walking tour (in wind and cold...brr). It's smaller than I though it would be, but it's still awe inspiring. The stones are huge and the area just has a great vibe to it. I'll definitely need to visit that place in warmer weather and explore the surrounding area.

Salisbury is a cute little town with a cathedral that has the highest spire in all of Europe. It was rainy though so we wandered a bit, got some food and railed on home. We did make friends with a girl on the train who was just starting her own whirlwind tour of Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands. We played cards and she kicked our butts (much to Patrick's dismay) and then we exchanged blogs so we could see how the other's trip is going. I...am a blog slacker so you're getting all this 7 days later :)


The gushing river Avon travels through Salisbury too!


Look...it's like a medieval gazebo!


Salisbury Cathedral photographed Patrick style - crooked!


The cathedral courtyard.


Also part of the courtyard...really cool hallway thing.


It really is an impressive sight! The huge stones in the outer ring were brought to the sight from 19 miles away and the smaller ones on the inside were brought from Wales, 240 miles away. And it was done 4,500 years ago! Unless they had prehistoric cranes and flatbed trucks...that musta been difficult!


This is a lonely station stone. I forget what it does except look cute and tiny compared to all the others.


The henge in all its glory.


The heel stone. Looks like it has a face.


Another of Patrick's artsy photos. You dizzy yet?

Oh where, oh where did the Tower of London Go?

So...On the 2nd we visited the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge and took lots of pictures, but between all the memory cards we had with the downloading and cameras and such...I didn't end up with any of those pictures!! So you'll just have to use your imagination until I find them or Patrick finds them and emails them to me. If you don't feel like using your imagination you can visit the Tower of London website...but they aren't as spastically funny as I am...so you'll have to do with the witty repartee :)

The rest of that evening we changed hotels and went to see The Producers in Covent Garden. It was hilarious and lucky for us we got to see it before it headed out of town...it's last day was the 6th! Highly recommend it!

Boys are from Chelsea, Girls are from Kensington

We let ourselves sleep in on the 1st and didn't really plan much. Dad and Patrick wandered off to Chelsea to check out yet another football stadium (boys!). Mom and I spent the morning touring Kensington Palace. It was probably a good thing the boys didn't join us for that one though because it's a tour full of dresses, decorations and old empty rooms. We found it gloriously entertaining but it's not the first tourist choice for males :) The rest of the day we spent in Greenwich and good ol' New Cross doing some laundry so my family and I wouldn't stink! I don't have more pictures of New Cross cause...there's not much to see.


Chelsea! I forget if they're good or not. But they're in London and they're Blue!


The stadium and the store...more boy shopping!


The Orangery - used to hold fancy royal parties, now serves tea, cake and interesting (by interesting I mean weird and gross) British food to tourists.


Kensington Park and the Round pond (which is actually square with inverse rounded corners...who names these things??)


Swans at the round (don't get me started) pond :)


The front of the palace. The statue is if one of the queens (I forget which one...ooops) but I do remember it was sculpted by her daughter (love how my brain holds on to the useless but fun information...pshaw on people's names!)


Lookie what we found!! Nevada Street in Greenwich! See...I'm only about a 30 minute walk from home!

Happy New Year!

After spending the whole day walking around the city...we spent the evening...well...walking around the city! We ventured down to the north bank of the Thames across from the London Eye and prepared to watch the fireworks at midnight. We did spend about an hour in the queue waiting for the potties. If London had a suggestion box I'd write them a note to tell them that they're gonna need more than 10 porta potties for the gazillions of people that are going to show up for the Olympics in 2012. They needed more than 10 for the millions of people they trapped on the embankment for New Years! Sheesh!

We did make it out of that queue (we were relieved in more ways than one) and we shoved our way through the mobs of people, found a little bit of open space and waited for the countdown.


The Eye all Aglow


We look all bundled up...and we are...but it actually wasn't that cold out and the wind had miraculously stopped.


10 minutes to go!


5 minutes...not much time left!


Bang! Boom! Can you hear them? Do you feel like you were there? (hmm...blogs have their limits I guess)


Fancy Fireworks! They hired the guy who did the fireworks in Sydney for the Millenium!


Good practice for the Olympics!


This was the crazy flaming finale! It was a truly awesome show and now we can say we celebrated the new year in London!


Apres the fireworks...it was butt to butt traffic! This is the mob in Trafalgar square. Tube travel was free that night but we weren't about to trap ourselves underground with crazy drunkards so we walked back to the hotel


This is a bunch of looneys jumping around on the statue in front of Buckingham palace. The queen got no sleep that night!!

We Made it to London! No More Left Turns!

We got back to London the evening of the 30th and basically had no time to do anything but return the rental car to Heathrow. As much help as Ms. Kensington had been...Dad was definitely ready to give her back. Britain is a nutty driving country and London is full of traffic. So we traded in the car for tube travel cards and crashed!

On New Year's Eve we woke up early and started our tour of London with the London Eye! Then we wandered around and took a bunch of pictures of the cool stuff...so here it is...


A picture of the inside of the tube for those who wonder. It gets stinkin hot down there!


Big Ben at 11:10! (Okay...so we didn't get the earliest of starts!)


London Taxi, Red Double Decker Bus and Big Ben - Total cheesy postcard material!


The London Aquarium - I haven't been and don't really plan on going because I'm scared of what kind of creatures a land locked aquarium on the dirty brown Thames holds. Heebie jeebies!


View from the London Eye! (Don't call it a ferris wheel!)


Mom and Dad up high in a bubble!


Buckingham Palace from the Sky! I think I see the Queen waving!


View of the eye from the eye, we are up so very high


Do we look like Pod people? We feel like Pod people.


Parlaiment from the sky. It's quite a pointy building.


The National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. We didn't go inside...but we assume it has lots of stuff about the nation in galleries. (I'll visit sometime and let you know what's really inside)


Buckingham Palace up close. I wonder if the royals ever just people watch from their windows. There are a lot of us weirdy's out there.


The furry headed guard at Buckingham Palace. No red coat though...too cold. Wish this were video though...they walk funny.


A Canada memorial in Green Park...lookie at the maple leaves! Do I count as Canadian? Does Mom even count at Canadian?