Letter from London and Barcelona
Hello All:
So a week has passed and we´ve only visited two cities.....it feels so weird not to be moving around as much!!
Here´s the highlights from this past week!
October 29 - Today was the day for the British Museum. Katie has been looking forward to this visit for quite some time as this Museum is the home of the Rosetta Stone. It was great to see it and read the deciphering story of how they figured out how to read heiroglyphs. There are stories that go along with that, but this costs money, so we have to keep it short :) After our visit to the Museum, we headed off to Leicester Square to meet up with Heather and Kiel from our Trafalgar Tour. We found them amidst the throng of people trying to buy last minute half price tickets for shows and headed over to the Maple Leaf Pub for lunch! Dan was sadly disappointed at the pub as being Canadian, you would think that there would be some Canadian beer. The only one to be found was Molson and ew.....who drinks Molson! He was very sad that there was no Keith´s.....guess he´ll have to wait until we´re home! Then we were going to try and visit the London Dungeon, but as it was two days before Halloween, the lines were extremely long and we decided not to wait. Heather and Kiel said that they would come back another day and we all headed off to Tower Bridge. Dan and Kiel enjoyed walking around on a map of the world, pointing out places that they´d been or wanted to go. Then we said goodbye as Heather and Kiel were off to see the Phantom of the Opera, and we went to see a movie. We saw the new Zorro movie in a MASSIVE movie theatre with 3 levels of seating! The movie was excellent and after, we hopped onto the Tube and headed back to our hostel - interesting place by the way.
October 30 - Today was Sunday, so we decided that we would visit St. Paul´s Cathedral for church. It was the only way to get in for free and being the cheapos that we are, decided it was a good idea! We attended two services and loved the organ there! After the service, we rushed over to Leicester Square to grab tickets for STOMP that afternoon. We were redirected to the theatre and got our tickets. We met up with Heather and Kiel after lunch and we all went to see the show. Absolutely incredible! Of course, we´d already seen some of this type of action from our good friend Nicole Jeffrey in Ottawa and her Stomp-like group, OFFBEAT. They did this one routine with lighters and it was just really cool. After the show, it was time to say our last goodbye to Heather and Kiel as they are off to Egypt the following day. It was sad as we had spent a lot of time with them on the tour and really enjoyed their company. We hope that they are having lots of fun in the heat! Then we had dinner and headed back to the hostel.
October 31 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAREN! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Today was Dan´s favourite day in London so far. We caught the tube and headed to Heathrow airport. Seeing as how we weren´t able to get to the aviation museum in Edinburgh, this was the best alternative so far. We arrived at the tube stop and as we left the station, the planes were using the runway right overtop of us to take off! A huge British Airways 747 took off right over our heads and it was extremely loud! Then we walked to the Green Man Pub, where Dan has always wanted to visit. We had a Pepsi and met Jules, the owner, and had a great chat. She even gave us a number/email address for somebody in Toulouse who might be able to get us onto the Concorde! We´ll see about that. She also gave us a CD Rom loaded with heaps of information and pics about the Concorde prototype that she and others are restoring at the nearby Brooklands Museum! Dan was so excited! Then we left the pub and walked around to the visitor centre. On our way, we passed the Concorde (BA G-BOAB) on old runway 23, which is no longer used. It was sad to see it just sitting there watching all of the other planes flying around :( . The visitor centre was excellent with a great plane watching platform. As we headed back to the Tube station, they were pulling a British Airways 747 across the road! Dan has always wanted to see this happen, so we stood and watched and it was great! When Dan finally picked up his lower jaw, we headed to the tube station and went back to the hostel.
November 1 - Today we headed into the city to see the Changing of the Guard. It was neat and all the guards were in their winter uniforms. We also had hopes of seeing the Queen as she was heading to a special 7/7 ceremony for the victim´s families, but she must have left before we arrived or taken the secret way out, because we didn´t see her at all! After the Changing of the Guard, we walked up to Hamley´s Toy Store. Katie was so excited! It is 6 floors of straight toys! We spent a good 1 1/2 hours there just playing! Then we headed back to the hostel and used the internet to do some post travel planning.
November 2 - Today we flew to Barcelona. This means that we spent almost the whole day at another airport. Dan hasn´t been so happy since he proposed. We took the easyBus to the airport from Baker Street (where Sherlock Holmes ´resided´) and the driver of the bus was CRAZY! Maybe it´s because it´s been so long since we were in a car, but it seemed to us that she liked to swerve and speed A LOT! We arrived at the airport in record time and we were too early to check in. So we killed time in the lounge, checked in, and after we got through security, found out that our flight was delayed for 45 mins. We finally left about 2 hours later than we were supposed to due to a crew delay. When we got on the plane, lots of people were super pissed off, but the crew did a great job of handling them all. Even the captain came out and told people to just sit down as his crew was doing their best to get the plane off the ground. We got to Barcelona and finally found our hostel (after a bit of wandering around :).
November 3 - Today was beach day. It was a beautiful day with temps around 22 degrees. We had some breakfast down on the harbour/marina and then changed into our swimsuits to go swimming. The water seemed a little bit cooler than when we were here 2 weeks ago, but we both braved the cold and enjoyed a quick dunk. Then we relaxed on the beach, just soaking up the sun! After a long walk, including checking out some big cruise ships (Dan´s first) we returned to the hostel to have dinner and some crib. Early night tonight as we were both quite tired out.....too much sun?
November 4 - This morning we got up, had some great breakfast from the nearby grocery store and then headed off to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral that has been in the works for almost 200 years! The main architect was Anton Gaudi who loved nature in his architecture. That is the main theme for the building with the main columns inside the cathedral representing palm trees and there is fruit all over the cathedral! We really enjoyed climbing all the stairs up into one of the towers and the views were awesome! Though a lot has been completed on the cathedral, there is still much to do and it probably won´t be finished for another 50-75 years! Based upon the designs that we´ve seen, it will be incredible and HUGE when it is finally finished.
Anyway, that is our week in a nutshell....we´re certainly looking forward to getting home and back to ´normal´. Miss you all and hope that everybody is doing well.
So a week has passed and we´ve only visited two cities.....it feels so weird not to be moving around as much!!
Here´s the highlights from this past week!
October 29 - Today was the day for the British Museum. Katie has been looking forward to this visit for quite some time as this Museum is the home of the Rosetta Stone. It was great to see it and read the deciphering story of how they figured out how to read heiroglyphs. There are stories that go along with that, but this costs money, so we have to keep it short :) After our visit to the Museum, we headed off to Leicester Square to meet up with Heather and Kiel from our Trafalgar Tour. We found them amidst the throng of people trying to buy last minute half price tickets for shows and headed over to the Maple Leaf Pub for lunch! Dan was sadly disappointed at the pub as being Canadian, you would think that there would be some Canadian beer. The only one to be found was Molson and ew.....who drinks Molson! He was very sad that there was no Keith´s.....guess he´ll have to wait until we´re home! Then we were going to try and visit the London Dungeon, but as it was two days before Halloween, the lines were extremely long and we decided not to wait. Heather and Kiel said that they would come back another day and we all headed off to Tower Bridge. Dan and Kiel enjoyed walking around on a map of the world, pointing out places that they´d been or wanted to go. Then we said goodbye as Heather and Kiel were off to see the Phantom of the Opera, and we went to see a movie. We saw the new Zorro movie in a MASSIVE movie theatre with 3 levels of seating! The movie was excellent and after, we hopped onto the Tube and headed back to our hostel - interesting place by the way.
October 30 - Today was Sunday, so we decided that we would visit St. Paul´s Cathedral for church. It was the only way to get in for free and being the cheapos that we are, decided it was a good idea! We attended two services and loved the organ there! After the service, we rushed over to Leicester Square to grab tickets for STOMP that afternoon. We were redirected to the theatre and got our tickets. We met up with Heather and Kiel after lunch and we all went to see the show. Absolutely incredible! Of course, we´d already seen some of this type of action from our good friend Nicole Jeffrey in Ottawa and her Stomp-like group, OFFBEAT. They did this one routine with lighters and it was just really cool. After the show, it was time to say our last goodbye to Heather and Kiel as they are off to Egypt the following day. It was sad as we had spent a lot of time with them on the tour and really enjoyed their company. We hope that they are having lots of fun in the heat! Then we had dinner and headed back to the hostel.
October 31 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAREN! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Today was Dan´s favourite day in London so far. We caught the tube and headed to Heathrow airport. Seeing as how we weren´t able to get to the aviation museum in Edinburgh, this was the best alternative so far. We arrived at the tube stop and as we left the station, the planes were using the runway right overtop of us to take off! A huge British Airways 747 took off right over our heads and it was extremely loud! Then we walked to the Green Man Pub, where Dan has always wanted to visit. We had a Pepsi and met Jules, the owner, and had a great chat. She even gave us a number/email address for somebody in Toulouse who might be able to get us onto the Concorde! We´ll see about that. She also gave us a CD Rom loaded with heaps of information and pics about the Concorde prototype that she and others are restoring at the nearby Brooklands Museum! Dan was so excited! Then we left the pub and walked around to the visitor centre. On our way, we passed the Concorde (BA G-BOAB) on old runway 23, which is no longer used. It was sad to see it just sitting there watching all of the other planes flying around :( . The visitor centre was excellent with a great plane watching platform. As we headed back to the Tube station, they were pulling a British Airways 747 across the road! Dan has always wanted to see this happen, so we stood and watched and it was great! When Dan finally picked up his lower jaw, we headed to the tube station and went back to the hostel.
November 1 - Today we headed into the city to see the Changing of the Guard. It was neat and all the guards were in their winter uniforms. We also had hopes of seeing the Queen as she was heading to a special 7/7 ceremony for the victim´s families, but she must have left before we arrived or taken the secret way out, because we didn´t see her at all! After the Changing of the Guard, we walked up to Hamley´s Toy Store. Katie was so excited! It is 6 floors of straight toys! We spent a good 1 1/2 hours there just playing! Then we headed back to the hostel and used the internet to do some post travel planning.
November 2 - Today we flew to Barcelona. This means that we spent almost the whole day at another airport. Dan hasn´t been so happy since he proposed. We took the easyBus to the airport from Baker Street (where Sherlock Holmes ´resided´) and the driver of the bus was CRAZY! Maybe it´s because it´s been so long since we were in a car, but it seemed to us that she liked to swerve and speed A LOT! We arrived at the airport in record time and we were too early to check in. So we killed time in the lounge, checked in, and after we got through security, found out that our flight was delayed for 45 mins. We finally left about 2 hours later than we were supposed to due to a crew delay. When we got on the plane, lots of people were super pissed off, but the crew did a great job of handling them all. Even the captain came out and told people to just sit down as his crew was doing their best to get the plane off the ground. We got to Barcelona and finally found our hostel (after a bit of wandering around :).
November 3 - Today was beach day. It was a beautiful day with temps around 22 degrees. We had some breakfast down on the harbour/marina and then changed into our swimsuits to go swimming. The water seemed a little bit cooler than when we were here 2 weeks ago, but we both braved the cold and enjoyed a quick dunk. Then we relaxed on the beach, just soaking up the sun! After a long walk, including checking out some big cruise ships (Dan´s first) we returned to the hostel to have dinner and some crib. Early night tonight as we were both quite tired out.....too much sun?
November 4 - This morning we got up, had some great breakfast from the nearby grocery store and then headed off to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral that has been in the works for almost 200 years! The main architect was Anton Gaudi who loved nature in his architecture. That is the main theme for the building with the main columns inside the cathedral representing palm trees and there is fruit all over the cathedral! We really enjoyed climbing all the stairs up into one of the towers and the views were awesome! Though a lot has been completed on the cathedral, there is still much to do and it probably won´t be finished for another 50-75 years! Based upon the designs that we´ve seen, it will be incredible and HUGE when it is finally finished.
Anyway, that is our week in a nutshell....we´re certainly looking forward to getting home and back to ´normal´. Miss you all and hope that everybody is doing well.
posted by Daniel Pergau | 10:57 a.m.
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