Our American Cousin

Hello Dear Readers,

Well when there isn't a lot going on, I have lots of time to blog and little to blog about, but now there is so much going on I have no time to blog and so much to say.  That's life! Thank goodness for RSS feed or a lot of you probalby would have stopped reading by now, am I right?

Last time I talked about some of my Olympic experiences, what a great time.  At the same time I had my cousin Elias Opgenorth visiting me from Oregon by way of Finland.  He had a friend in high school (he just graduated this summer, congrats Elias) that was a Finnish exchange student and he was spending a few weeks with him this summer.

 As a way of splitting up his ticket and making it cheaper he visited us in this sceptered isle.  I took him to some of the traditional tourist spots, watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace....

 Cheesy photoshoots at the M&M stored which opened recently in Leicester Square where we also bought tickets to see the Lion King, which I've been wanting to see here for a long time, nice to have an excuse to do this kind of stuff every once in a while.....

 We also played tourist in Covent Garden where we had lunch with Chris before seeing the show.  Here is one of the many Olympic mascots we've seen around, this one is a classic tourist.

 And here is another classic tourist, posing in front of Big Ben in the background with Nelson's Column of Trafalgar Square in the foreground.  Nelson's hat had a union flag on it for the duration of the games, how fun.

 When we hit up the South Bank area we considered the London Eye, but the sun was at a very low angle which is bad for sight seeing, plus it's bloody expensive!!! Instead we checked out the pop-up vintage fair near Royal Albert Festival Hall. For a tenner we rode on the swings (pictured above) and the tornado roller coaster which you can see below in this photo, wheeeeeeeee!

 The weather has managed to  behave itself for most of the Olympics and my guests, though it has been still raining off and on, this IS England!  Fortunately we were able to catch sight of an awesome rainbow at the end of the day.

Other highlights of the trip included seeing some Banksy graffiti art near Holburn (this, this and this),  going to the National Portrait Gallery TWICE, and going to a Dim Sum place in Chinatown (no Lee Ho Focks, but I think that place is closed).  Here is Elias trying to try some chicken feet, they didn't go over so well, but Chris enjoyed them.

It was a great trip up until he missed his flight home.... Damn Piccadilly line!! He made it in the end but I felt very guilty.  I had just about enough time to wash all the sheets and towels before my sister and her husband arrived next weekend, but that's a blog post for another day.  Besides, we are just taking a break from painting the last of the rooms in the house that need it (ours and Patrick's).  Hooray!  Patrick is cleaning his new bike, Chris is cleaning his new weights set and I'm cleaning the bathrooms from the last round of visits.  Clean fresh rooms ready for a visit from Molly and Madeleine....... best year ever, so glad it's the year of ME.

Olympians!!

Hello Dear Readers,

So I have lots of photos and fun from my cousin Elias' trip to London, but first, I want to share with you some of Chris and mine Olympic experiences from the last week.  Fresh on the heels of the closing ceremonies, here are some shots of my Olympic experience in London 2012!!

 Here is Chris, Patrick and I gathered on Saturday August 7th at Hyde Park.  We left at the ungodly hour of 7 am on a Saturday to line up with thousands of other people, Londoners, foreigners and everything in between.  Too bad we didn't have any American swag with us, but I'm in blue and red, and so is Pat, we gave it our best. (Cyprus won their first Olympic medal EVER - silver in the sailing, maybe Chris is wearing silver for them?)

 Here is the lead cyclist for the women's triathlon in Hyde park...... they did 7 laps of this, and 4 of running......

 ....... and there they go, woosh!  I'm glad they did several laps or else it would have been a long trip for very little pay off.  A Swiss girl won it and there were quite a few Swiss in the crowd around us so it was a great atmosphere.  Of course we had to walk around the entirety of Hyde Park just to get back to South Kensington and get out of there, but it was a good chance to show Elias the sights..


 And here is a giant basketball arena!!

Woah, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Love, Kevan Durant........ Susan Clark, eat your heart out!
Patrick's friend gave him tickets to the basketball quarter finals.  We went to the North Greenwich Arena, also known as the 02 (I didn't know they were the same, that's a phone company around here for my American friends, they sponsor it).  It's also known as the Millennium Dome, built for the millennium celebrations here, though from what I gather it wasn't as popular as other things, like the London Eye, built for the millennium.  We had dinner at T.G.I. Fridays (I know, I know, but you kind of miss that stuff when you are in another country......) and then saw the Brazil/Argentina game.  Major snoozefest.  The only thing that made it interesting was the row of Argentina fans sitting in front of us (they are all the raised hands you see in the front in the first photo).  They were singing songs, chanting, waving their flags and shirts around their head like a helicopter......  We were a little bummed because we thought we only had tickets to that game and that the US/Australia match was at a different park, but lo, as we started walking down from our nosebleed seats, they announced the next teams, score!  We sat in seats vacated by the victorious Argentinians and had much better seats for what turned out to be a much better match. 

We won gold eventually.  For those who didn't follow it.  Not that it's a surprise, they are AMAZING!!!!  I have a new love for basketball, and it was Chris's first live sporting event and he loved it.  That's the great thing about being with someone who never did anything or went anywhere as a kid, you get to do it all for the first time with him!  Next week it's his first trip to Paris........sigh.

All in all a great night, the traffic wasn't bad at all, the tubes weren't crowded, and we had free day passes with the tickets to boot!  I was ambivalent towards the games when they started but I have to say, I was really sad to watch the closing ceremonies.  What a once in a lifetime experience.

Dracula, Captain Cook and Whitby Jet

Hello Dear Readers,

It's been a while, but that's because I've been so incredibly busy.  I knew August would be crazy and I was right, but it's also been a lot of fun.

 

 I'm fortunate to have a friend Jane who's husband runs this great bed and breakfast in Whitby, which is in the Yorkshire area (North east coast of England).  I highly recommend it, it's called Union Place.  She let us stay there the last weekend in July and showed us around the famous seaside town of Whitby.  We walked around the town a bit, here is Jane trying to Splat the Rat at a local fundraiser.

 

We walked around the port and downtown area as well, and climbed up the famous 199 steps to the church and ruined abby.  The steps are famous in their own right, but also mentioned in books set in Whitby such as Elizabeth Gaskill's Silvia's Lovers and...... DRACULA!

 

 Here we are at the top by the church and graveyard, overlooking the very beach at the mouth of the river where Dracula jumped to shore on the ruined ship in the shape of a giant Dog.  Below is the reverse view from a boat ride we took around the port.  The large curved breakers are to protect ships in the port.

Since I'm not taking any time off this year to go anywhere (I'm just having stay-cations as guests come to visit London, but more about that later) this was a good chance for me to go to the seaside since I haven't been since the Scilly Isles at the end of May. 

As you can see, Chris was really having a good time throwing the stick for Jane's dog Hettie.

 On Sunday Jane's son Tristan was generous enough to show us around the sights of North Yorkshire.  One of the highlights was the train station that still uses real steam trains.  Apparently they were some of the trains (or similar to) the ones they used in the Harry Potter films, as well as the train station. How cool is that?  We also ate lunch at this fantastic little pub and walked around a local little town called Gotland that was apparently also the setting for a TV series called Heartbeat.

 It was a refreshing and relaxing weekend away, and so nice to see my friend Jane, who fortunately is going to be back at the museum in September doing some more work on seaweed.   Here is a parting shot as we were driving back to the train station in the evening, a rainbow over the sea, just beyond the moors and Heath (full of flowering Heather).  If I lived in Yorkshire, I'm not sure that I'd ever want to leave.....

Next week, adventures with my cousin Elias in big old London Town, and my Olympic experience!

Cheers!