Archive for the ‘Travels’ Category

London: Hidden Village and Borough Market

Posted in London, Travels, tagged , , , , on Friday, 14 September, 2012| 2 Comments »

It’s our one month “Living in London” anniversary! I spent the day roaming around the city. Started with a London Walks (London’s Hidden Village) which ambled around the Southbank/Bermondsey area. Interesting to get off the beaten tourist path and into another neighborhood.

Industrial Age housing for workers

Our London Walks guide, Ann

The building in the photo below is so odd.  If you stand right in front of it, the wall is flat but it’s been painted so when you look at it from across the street, it looks like it’s the corner of the building. Honestly, it’s a FLAT wall!

Corner wall or is it…

After the walk, I had lunch at The Anchor restaurant which has a nice riverside patio along the Thames.  The restaurant was originally built in 1770 but I don’t believe there’s much left of the original building.  After lunch, my friend Rhonda and I ambled through the famous Borough Market.  The market has roots back to 1276 (first mentioned) but the current building has been there since 1851.  The retail market is open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and, even though it’s packed with vendors selling fruits, vegetables, cheeses, meats, sweets and more, the only thing I bought were savory pies from Pieministers.  John’s pie had beef & beer and Logan’s pie was vegetarian with goat cheese.  Rave reviews from both of them so we’ll definitely have them again.

Here’s Rhonda checking out a bread stand:

The Tower Bridge is always a joy to see especially on a beautiful sunny day like today.

Although I was exhausted from my day out in London, I couldn’t resist an event happening in Chelsea called “Vino and Vinyasa” (Yoga and Wine tasting).  I almost got waylaid by all the stores I passed along King’s Road as I headed to the event, but I made it and really enjoyed the evening.  Since I’m yoga challenged, it might have been better to have the wine before yoga!

As I expected, our time here in London is going quickly and I plan to continue having exhausting days as I explore/savor all London has to offer.

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Keys to the Flat

Posted in London, Travels, tagged , on Friday, 31 August, 2012| 2 Comments »

Where thou art – that – is Home.  ~Emily Dickinson

Forty six days after we moved out of our home in Virginia, having traveled through eight states & visiting with many friends, we finally have our keys to the London flat. As an Army wife, I chose this rambling lifestyle and truly believe we carry “home” in our hearts.  Whether we’re going to be somewhere for 6 months or 6 years, we hit the ground running with each move.

I’ve known Army spouses who give themselves 48 hours from the time the moving truck drives away to get their house organized & decorated, including the drapes.  Our household goods (furniture, etc)  will be delivered on Monday. Can’t imagine I’ll have everything done in 48 hours but maybe a week! If the weather is nice, it’ll be a lot longer.  I know better than to spend a nice day indoors!

The flat is pretty much a blank canvas:

Kitchen ~ lots of counterspace

This isn’t a lifestyle for the faint of heart but the rewards of living in so many different places and getting to meet so many different people, is truly a blessing.  It may be only 11 months in London, but my home will be a soft place to land and always open to family and friends.

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Out with London Walks

Posted in London, Travels, tagged , , , , on Wednesday, 29 August, 2012| 3 Comments »

We got a chance to meet the previous tenant of our new London flat and she was kind enough to give us her London Binder which she created and filled with brochures from all over London and beyond.  Having lived in London for 5 years, she accumulated a lot of brochures!!  I came across a London Walks brochure from 2007 ~ a bit dated but it at least had all the pertinent information for us to find them online.  And I’m so glad we did since we went on two walks this weekend and enjoyed both a lot.

On Saturday, we joined in on the “Ghosts of the Old City” walk which started at 7:45 pm at the Queen Anne Statue at St Paul’s Cathedral.

There was a slight drizzle while we waited at St Paul’s Cathedral ~ the rain and impending darkness added to the “scary” side of the ghost stories.

Our guide, did a great job and even broke into a song or two along the way.  The stories were interesting but the only place I felt really uncomfortable was the St Bartholomew the Great church’s graveyard.   The church was originally founded as an Augustinian priory in 1123 and has been the location for several movies including the 4th wedding in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Shakespeare in Love, The Other Boleyn Girl, and The End of the Affair.  I checked more on its history and it turns out, there were numerous executions (burnings) there during the time of Mary Tutor.

On Sunday, we decided to lighten it up and went on the “Harry Potter Film Locations in the City” walk.  Very enjoyable and the walk included more than just Harry Potter references. I was especially thrilled when our guide, Richard Walker, pointed out Bridget Jones locations along the way, including the ending scene where Bridget kisses Darcy in the snow.  So romantic.

We will no doubt go on many more walks during our year here.  There’s so many interesting ones ~ and it’s so nice to get the history from very talented and knowledgeable guides.  I’m so impressed with both of the guides we’ve had so far. London Walks has guided tours everyday so there are lots of choices.  Most walks are about two hours and cost £9 unless you get a frequent walker card which costs £2 pounds.  With the discount card, the walks are £7. The discount card is worth it with just two walks.  No reservations ~ just show up by the start time.  More information available at the London Walks website http://www.walks.com/

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Church’s Welcome Sign

Posted in London, Travels, tagged , on Sunday, 26 August, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Walked by this imposing church in Marylebone:

The red sign caught my eye and I had to go closer to read it.  The description was so interesting, I thought I might like to attend one of those services:

Who can resist louder, younger and unpredictable?

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London: Walking in Marylebone

Posted in London, Travels, tagged , , , on Saturday, 25 August, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I love walking around London which is a good thing since we don’t have a car! Each evening after dinner, John and I head out for a walk around our new neighborhood, Marylebone.  I avoid Marylebone-High street and head over to the lesser walked streets. Don’t get me wrong, the High street is great for shops, pubs, restaurants and people watching but there’s so much history around every corner.  I like exploring new streets and alleys.

Each of the mansions/big houses had a mews behind them to house the horses.  Those mews have been transformed into flats and are super cute places to live.  We looked at a couple of them for us to rent during our year here but they were a little too cozy for us. Didn’t think our American sized sofa and love seat would fit up the stairs.  Here’s a mews behind the very large St James Catholic Church (we went to mass there last Sunday):

On my wandering, I came across The Wallace Collection ~ just the building looks fabulous to me and there’s no entrance fee!  Have marked that down as a London Must Do.

Throughout London, there are signs on the houses stating if someone famous lived there.  I’ve started taking photos of the signs so I can look up the names and see what their contributions were.  Hopefully it doesn’t creep out the owners of the house when I’m snapping photos up close.

On a morning walk, I stumbled onto the “Devonshire Arms” pub established in 1793.

I had no idea Ghost has been made into a musical. Not sure if I would go see it but it does look romantic:

These homes across from the Regent’s Park entrance are so beautiful and what I consider quintessential London:

For this evening’s walk, I’m dragging John and Logan on a “Ghost Walk” near St Paul’s Cathedral.  It’ll be dark, rainy and maybe there will even be a bit of fog rolling in…

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London: Our First Week

Posted in London, Travels, tagged , , , on Monday, 20 August, 2012| 3 Comments »

After a smooth British Airways redeye flight, we arrived in London at 7 am.  Not being one to sleep on a plane, I was very thankful our temporary 2 bedroom/2 bedroom flat was ready for us! The flat is equipped with cable TV, telephone with free calls to the states, kitchen, washer/dryer combo and housekeeping services twice a week.  The location is great ~ right on Baker Street, only two blocks to Regents Park, close to the Baker Street tube station as well as bus stops.

It’s exciting to be living in Europe again.  I prefer to embrace the differences rather than attempt to compare or refer back to how things would be in the states.  I don’t even bother converting the celsius ~ I know 30 is HOT, 20-24 is pleasant and 0 is freezing.  The only item I haven’t found and am missing, is tofu. I’ll start an earnest quest today.

Speaking of food, I was pleased with the Marylebone Farmers Market ( Sundays 10-2).  Found all sorts of yummy items and almost all the fruits and vegetables sold there are organic.  It’ll definitely be a weekly stop after church.

 

Our first order of business when we arrived was to tour several flats which were available for rent.  At first, we were only interested in 3 bedrooms so we’d have a room for guests but the third room would barely fit a twin bed so it wasn’t going to work for a guest room anyway.  We decided to let a beautiful two bedroom.  Logan has agreed her room will be the guest bedroom when the need arises.  It’s a very private room with its own bathroom.  Perfect for a teenager!  The best part about our new flat ~ location, location, location!  Here’s a photo of the reception room (living room), notice the current tenant’s drying rack. Seems that’s the method of drying clothes since the mini dryers here take forever.  Took us almost 4 hours to do one load of wash the other night.

Being close to Regents Park has a lot of advantages. It’s a great running/walking route for John and I. There’s also an off lease area for Maya ~ not that she’s a dog I’d let off leash very often but maybe early in the morning when no one else is out yet.  And we stumbled onto a Tennis Centre with 12 courts.  No membership required and there are programs for adults/kids/beginners and more experienced players.  It’s only a 10 minute walk from our new flat.  We signed Logan up for the week-long tennis camp. She’ll be there daily from 10 -3 and seemed happy when we dropped her off this morning.  As we were shooed away, we noticed she’d already met another British girl her age.  New friends ~ very exciting.

When we aren’t doing things to get settled, we’re out exploring the city. The tube is so easy to use here in London so we hop on it more often than taking the bus.  Yesterday, we explored the Westminster area: The london eye, Big Ben, Thames River, Millenium Bridge, Trafalgar Square, etc

Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Thames River

John crossing the Millenium Bridge

The Thames River

Big Ben and the River Thames

The London Eye

Big Ben

Her Majesty’s Theater

London Film Museum

Paddington Gardens ~ used to be a church graveyard. Over 80,000 buried in the park.

So much more to see…

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Hawaii: Oahu Top Five

Posted in Hawaii, Islands, Oahu, Travels, US, tagged , , , , , , , on Friday, 17 August, 2012| Leave a Comment »

After a vacation, it’s tradition that we list our top 5 things about the trip. We went to Oahu for a quick three-day trip and here’s our Oahu top five:

1) Snorkeling at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore. The ocean is calm in the summer and we got to the cove early enough to get a prime spot on the beach. The snorkeling was fun and being back in the pacific ocean felt fabulous.

2) Spending time with our friends, The Karamaths and The Petersons. Always great to see Army family again.

   Heather, CJ and Hayden

 Jake, Shelley and Hoss

3) Parasailing with Hawaiian Parasail Inc ($62 per person and $30 for their photos) in Waikiki:

4) Paddleboarding in Haleiwa, lots of turtles in the river/bay:

5) Driving along the North Shore ~ checking out all the beaches such as Sunset and Waimea Bay. For a few days, I was no longer a Displaced Beachbum. I will never tire of being on a beautiful beach!

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At Least They Speak English…

Posted in Travels, tagged , , on Wednesday, 15 August, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We love hearing the British accent everywhere.  I once googled information on an excel formula and the guy on the video tutorial had a British accent ~ I kept listening long after learned what formula I needed to use.

When we told people we were moving to London, the number one comment we got was “I love London, it’s so much fun.”  The second most common comment was “At least they speak English there.”  Regardless of the common language, there’s enough difference and I still don’t understand sometimes what’s being said.  But then again, I usually put on the subtitles when watching British movies.

I was expecting not to understand sometimes but I wasn’t expecting the Brits NOT to understand US! To me, the American accent is so flat and clear (no mesmerizing cadence like the lovely British accent)   John said “York Mansions” to the driver yesterday and the driver had no idea what John was saying.  John’s York didn’t have enough emphasis on the O.

But it’s only been 24 hours since we arrived and, I’m sure within a fortnight, we’ll be doing fine with how to pronounce specific words.

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Space Available

Posted in Hawaii, Oahu, Travels, US Military, tagged , , on Tuesday, 7 August, 2012| 1 Comment »

During our current PCS (permanent change of station), John had more leave time than we had money so we decided to attempt a Space A vacation.  For those of you not familiar with Space A, The United States Air Force offers Space-Available (Space A) travel as a benefit to all active duty, dependents (with restrictions) and retired Uniformed Services members. There are different categories during travel depending on the circumstances.  For example, Cat 1 (highest category) would be for those on Emergency leave ~ they get picked first.  Rank does NOT factor into  category or selection.  To find your category, check the link below.

Space Available travel is a great benefit for Military families if you have a lot of leave time (something like block leave), are flexible, are willing to be patient while waiting for flights and would like to save a lot of money on airline tickets. It’s not for the faint of heart.  Ideally, you’ll have a place to stay with friends or family because making hotel reservations in advance is not an option.

In the 17 years I’ve been an Army wife, I’ve used Space A twice.  The first time, it was just Logan and I taking a hop from Germany to the states to visit with my mom.  It was in January 2002 and so easy to get on the flights because most kids were in school. The aircraft was a charter so it was just like flying commercial.  It’s much harder to catch a flight when schools are out whether it be for summer vacation,Christmas, New Years or Spring break.

A lot of the passenger terminals are on Facebook and update their flight status at least twice daily.  It’s also important to CALL and speak with an actual person at the desk for the absolute most updated info.  For example: we were planning to travel from Hickam AFB, Hawaii to Travis AFB, California. Unfortunately, even though there were four flights scheduled and we were very optimistic we would make it to Travis that day,  all four flights were cancelled and we ended up spending the day on the North Shore at the beach, paddle boarding.

Not only do you need to be flexible, have a backup plan. John has a  PACE plan which stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency plans.  Thankfully, we only made it to alternate plans or as I call it, Plan B.  I can’t thank our friend, Heather, enough for welcoming us to her home in Oahu.  When we landed in Hawaii there was a huge military exercise going on so there were no hotel rooms or rental cars available. We finally found a rental car after a long search.

Here’s a link for the FAQs re: Space A  http://www.military.com/Travel/Content1/0%2C%2CSAF_faq%2C00.html

Lessons Learned from our Space A adventure:

  • Things change frequently ~ check the facebook updates, call directly or hang out in the terminal. Sometimes unlisted flights go out and allow space A folks to hop on.
  • All the aircrafts we were on (C5, C17 and a KC10) were COLD and loud. Be sure to wear lots of layers.  I’m talking ski hat and gloves wouldn’t be inappropriate :).  Ear plugs are a must.  On most flights, the crew will pass out ear plugs but take your own just in case.
  • You must wear close toe shoes.
  • Luggage weight can’t exceed 2 bags and 70 pounds (less on smaller planes). Pack light!
  • Buy the in flight meals for about $5.00 ~ they’re substantial. Our meals included a sandwich, chips, fruit, soda, water and granola bar.
  • Be flexible ~ we got “stuck” in Travis AFB, CA but really enjoyed visiting San Francisco, Muir Woods, Stanford and UCDavis.
  • Be prepared to rent a car one way in order to reach your final destination.
  • Make sure you understand the sign up procedures. You’re put on the list according to when you sign up so it’s important to email all the terminals you may use during your trip.
  • Don’t bother venting your frustration if a flight cancels.  You’ve got to be able to roll with the punches.  It’s all about what the mission requires not about transporting passengers.  One thing I noticed while traveling ~ people were disappointed but no one got angry.
  • Be prepared to spend money on a cab, rental car and/or lodging.
  • Enjoy where ever you end up ~ whether it be California, Alaska, Illinois, etc… Enjoy the journey!!!!

If anyone else has done Space A and has additional lessons learned, please leave a comment with your advice.  It’s such a great benefit but takes a little planning.  For those of you who have never tried it,  it’s a lot of fun and can lead to unexpected adventures.

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Burns’ Supper

Posted in Travels, tagged , on Thursday, 26 January, 2012| 1 Comment »

…or Scottish for the night.

We were thrilled to be invited to a Burns Night Dinner which is a celebration of the life, works & cultural heritage of Robert Burns who was born in Scotland on 25 January 1759.  He was a Scottish poet and lyricist. His most popular song being “Auld Lang Syne” which we sing every New Year’s Eve.  Old habits die hard and, being a Protocol person, I looked up etiquette for the event, going so far as checking out the “Selected Poems of Robert Burns” and “The Poetical Works of Burns”  from the local library.  His poems were written about everyday life in everyday language (language of the time) which was the first of it’s kind back in the late 18th century.  He was a poet for “the common people”.  For much more accurate information about Burns’ Night, click here.

The Burns’ supper we attended last night was so much fun ~ our very gracious host and hostess didn’t force us to participate in any readings. Whew!  He addressed the haggis with a long Burns’ poem and I think these words were included: “Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race! Aboon them a’ yet tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o’a grace As lang’s my arm” (Burns).  And one of the Scottish guests recited the Selkirk Grace: “Some have meat and cannot eat,  Some cannot eat that want it; But we have meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit.”

The other guests were from a variety of countries and it was so enjoyable to see everyone’s reaction to learning about a Scottish tradition.  It’s safe to say the scotch whiskey was probably a favorite part of the tradition amongst the men.  Kilts were optional and there were a few men sporting them.

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