A very happy Thanksgiving

So last week was a quite eventful one for me...as I suppose most of my weeks have been recently. A week ago Sunday Heather flew in to spend the week with me and, having changed her plans last minute, Christine flew in on Monday afternoon. What a fun week!

I took the express train to Heathrow Sunday morning and picked Heather up and brought her back to my hotel, where we both took naps until it was time to get ready for church. I'm lucky enough to be staying just on the opposite side of Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens from the Hyde Park Chapel, so Heather and I walked through it on our way to church. Here's us by the Italian garden in Kensington Gardens: Unfortunately, I still had to work while Heather and Christine were here, but I met up with them in the evenings. Monday night we went to 'Mary Poppins', very appropriate for being in London, and not to mention a fabulous show! Tuesday night we went on the London Eye. It was cooler than I expected, but being at night and constantly moving, however slowly, made it difficult for taking pictures from it. I did capture this one after we'd gotten off and were walking back along the Thames:

Wednesday night, Heather and I had tickets to a Barts Choir/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performance at Royal Albert Hall. We were supposed to sit in the upper circle, but were upgraded down to a section just off to the side of the choir. I enjoyed the performance very much, and it kept us out of the pouring rain that night. Christine, meanwhile, met up with a friend for a very posh meal.

Upon returning back to my overheated hotel room, we all had to pack for our next adventure...PARIS! That's right, we were going to spend Thanksgiving in Paris. Here's a look at my little hotel room:

So Thursday, we boarded the 7:30 am chunnel train, the Eurostar, to Paris. The train only took 2 hrs. and 15 min., approx., to get there. Heather and I were so excited for our first time in Paris!



Unfortunately, we were sat at the opposite end of the train from Christine, so we met up again when we got off the train.

Christine was wonderful because she speaks French and was able to communicate much better than Heather and I could. Thanks Christine!

Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous day! After finding a hotel, we made our way to the Basilique du Sacre Coeur:

Where I saw for the first time in real life...a mime. Here he's smoking. Typical. Perhaps he was taking a break...

Back at our hotel, Hotel Cambrai. We had a balcony...

One cannot enjoy Thanksgiving without a bit of turkey...jerkey!

We went into the city centre and walked along the Seine from Notre Dame cathedral to the Eiffel Tower. It was a beautiful walk, full of various sights and adventures. We ran into Christine's friend Ben (she had been going around Europe with him the previous week) randomly along the Seine.
Enjoying some turkey jerkey with Ben at the Eiffel Tower (Heather and I made sure to name some things we were thankful for whilst walking there)!
After our photo shoot at the Eiffel Tower (there are SO many more pictures than these), we walked back to Notre Dame along the Seine. Paris has fantastic night views!

This is the Pont Neuf bridge

Notre Dame cathedral

Friday morning was a bit overcast...and rainy. That made for an interesting trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower:

We went from there to the Arc de Triomphe

Where Heather and I went to the top while Christine was off having some fun of her own

Afterwards, Heather and I made our way down the Champs Elysees...

...to the Louvre...

...where we saw this lady, and half a million other paintings and sculptures.

Do you know who she is? I think she's famous...

Then we walked along the Seine from the Louvre towards Notre Dame again, enjoying a nice sunset...

...and looking forward to our crepes. Yummy!

Friday night Heather and I left Christine in Paris and caught our train back to London. Then Saturday morning I saw Heather off on the express train to Heathrow. It was so nice having company all week!

After my farewell to Heather, I got ready and then decided to take advantage of the morning before going in to work. I went to St. Paul's Cathedral and climbed all 484 (or there abouts) stairs to the top of the dome to get a good view of London. It was a bit overcast, but I wasn't disappointed. Here I am...

I walked along 'The Strand' past the Royal Courts of Justice....
...stopping at Gregg's bakery on my way to the National Gallery. I spent an hour or so there. It was quite nice.

But then I had to do some time at work. Here's a look at a bit of UCL:

Now only just over a week left...time has certainly flown by!

What a jolly 'oliday!....

So here are some long awaited photos of the past almost month...has it really been that long?...of my time here in England, the first 2 weeks of which were spent driving nearly 2000 miles all over this island with Jana, my sis. (For more details of our adventures you'll have to check out her blog here) I will say this: I don't really have the time to go into a too detailed travel log, but roughly here's where we were:

Sat. 20th: Arrive, nap, Lyme Park (below)

Sun. 21st: Church and visits
Mon. 22nd: Peak District: Hathersage, Chatsworth House, Bakewell for their famous pudding (it's a pie/tart), Castleton and Mam Tor (one of the 3 peaks that give the Peak district its name)

Here's Chatsworth House:

View from the top of Mam Tor

Us at the peak

Tues. 23rd: Preston Temple and visit to Mary Boswell, a companion of mine, in Wirral (near Liverpool)

Wed. 24th: Drive from Mary's to Ashington via the Lake District

The Lakes, Beatrix Potter country

Thurs. 25th: Holy Island, Bamburgh Castle

Lindisfarne castle on Holy Island

Fri. 26th: Dunstanburgh Castle, Alnwick Castle (Harry Potter's castle), Cragside house

Dunstanburgh castle

Alnwick castle

Sat. 27th: Durham and its Cathedral, Quayside Newcastle

view of Durham Cathedral from the river

Sun. 28th: Church and visiting

Mon. 29th: Drive from Ashington to Montrose, Scotland, to visit another companion, Roseanne, and her husband

Tues. 30th: Edinburgh

Wed. 31st: Drive from Scotland back down to Sheffield via Hadrians wall

Sunrise

Hadrians Wall

Thurs. 1st: Drive from Sheffield to London to stay with another companion, Rosie, London Temple Fri. 2nd: central London (too many specifics to list) and 'Wicked'

The London Eye

Tower Bridge

Buckingham Palace

Sat. 3rd: Drive back to Sheffield

Sun. 4th: Jana to the airport, Church, train for me down to London

Here are some picts from my two extra sightseeing days before officially starting work.

Big Ben

Trafalgar Square

Westminster Abbey

The Queen and Prince Philip leaving the Houses of Parliament after giving her speech (notice the very posh, gold-inlayed carriage)

St. James Cathedral

Don't worry, there'll be more to come. Heather's flying in Sunday morning and will be here for a week! And to give thanks this year we'll be spending 2 days in Paris!

Livin' in London...

So I've been in London now for 4 days now, and in England for 2 and a half weeks. Jana and I had quite the whirlwind of a trip, which I enjoyed very much. I did well at tiring Jana out, that's for sure. I'll have to post pictures another time, though, because I've had a few delays getting connected to the internet -- they charge extra at the hotel, you see, and I'm still getting all set up at work -- I'm at an internet cafe at the moment.

Speaking of work, I've finally gotten started after a 2 day delay. The scanner, which was supposed to arrive last Friday so I could start on Monday, didn't arrive until yesterday afternoon. I still went in briefly on Monday to meet Richard, my contact at the library, but that only took about 45 min. Otherwise, I had the rest of Monday and all day yesterday to do extra sightseeing (again, I'll have to post pictures later). Monday I spent about 4 hours going around the British Museum -- very cool place...and free. Yesterday I got a bit of a treat. Not only was it the most clear and sunny of all days I've had here yet, but it was the State Opening of Parliament here in London and I had the luck of being able to see the Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, riding in their very posh royal carriage, flanked by horsemen and armed guards, both to and from the Houses of Parliament. After that display of pomp and circumstance, I took advantage of the nice weather and walked around a bit. I went to St. Paul's cathedral, Oxford Street (London's equivalent of NY's 5th Ave.) and attended Evensong at Westminster Abbey (my way of getting to see inside the Abbey without having to pay the £10 entrance fee!).

So today it was straight to work so I'll have to wait till this weekend to do much more sightseeing. I'll keep you posted...

Milestones and Circuses

So I thought I should probably catch up a bit before I actually leave the country and start posting pictures from England here... A few weeks ago my car hit a milestone...100,000 miles to be exact. I made sure to catch this one on film...or in picture rather:


I marked this occasion while I was on my way to meet up with Tommy and Heather to go to the circus. Yes, that's the real Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey circus...my first real circus in the U.S. (The one I went to in Russia was cool but a bit sad). The RB & BB circus was quite exciting!

Heather and I enjoyed the zebras. They brought back fond memories....

And the clowns were very entertaining...even the ones that were really elephants...

Here we are at intermission:

And they really truly shot a couple of people from a cannon! Impressive! (They also had tightrope walkers and trapeze people, even trained tigers and poodles (particularly amusing!))

Off to England....

So, wow, time is flying and my and Jana's trip to England is now only 2 days away! I have been crazy busy trying to pull everything to together for that...and then I found out last week that my company wants me to do a project at University College London for 5 weeks! So the prospect of staying in England for 7 weeks as opposed to 2 has made this past week even more crazy...but, hey, I'll take it! I can hardly believe that I'll get to spend so much time there! And it all worked out so perfectly....I applied for the London position making the project manager aware that I would be on vacation and should the project start while I'm away would obviously mean I couldn't do it. But lo and behold, by the grace of a higher power, the project was set to start the day after Jana and I would fly back home. So instead of flying home with Jana on Nov. 4th, I'll be dropping her off at the airport and then taking a train down to London to start work on the 5th. I've rearranged my flight and will now fly home December 10th...Hurray for England!!