England Pilgrimage Day Five

As promised...  England. Day 5.  Where did I leave off?  Ah... that’s right - another mishap with our morning alarm.  This was our last morning in London before we set off across the countryside and since we needed to be ready to catch the coach in the morning, we asked for a wake up call - which didn’t happen!  So here we were - rushing again!  I think it was after this that I figured out that for the alarm that I brought to go off in the morning - you have to set it to AM - not PM!  We didn’t have any other wake up problems after this!

So we board the coach for our first stop at the Avebury Stone Circles.  The cool people, of course, filling up the back of the bus!  It was neat to be out of the city and seeing some of the countryside - which we would be seeing a lot of for the rest of the trip.  I kept trying to take pictures out of the bus while it was moving that inspired the phrase, ‘Maybe you should leave that to the professionals!’  So the Avebury Stone Circles were fascinating - to see all of these stones so methodically placed in a circle - my favorite, though, were the SHEEP!  Our first sheep siting - and the location of my best sheep picture of the entire trip.

After Avebury, it was off to Stonehenge - and it still fascinates me that I saw this - I don’t know why I have such a fascination with Stonehenge - maybe because it’s so famous and I keep thinking - I was there - whenever I see the pictures.  Anyway - it was cool.

After Stonehenge, we headed off to the Salisbury Cathedral - only to get there and end up driving back to Stonehenge to look for a lost camera - which was eventually found.  This left very little time for lunch - but enough time to walk down and get pasties - mmmm... yummy!  

The Salisbury Cathedral was beautiful!  We got a tour and I was glad that I had done my homework and read up about British history - it really paid off, listening to the stories the docent was telling.  After Salisbury, it was on to Glastonbury - but not before we lost one of the pilgrims and had to spend some extra time looking for him.  Delayed seemed to be the name of the game for this day!  We did finally find him and were on our way to see the Abbey at Glastonbury.

At the Abbey - we only had about 1/2 hour before it closed, but one of the docents (dressed in his monk outfit) was nice enough to give us a quick tour of the ruins.  Again, another place that I was glad that I knew the history.  And, a place that, looking back, I didn’t appreciate as much when I was actually there and would love to go back to see and spend more time there.

It was then on to our hotel - the George and Pilgrim Hotel (built in the early 15th century).  Great little hotel that we filled up completely with our group.  Check in was a bit of a nightmare and Kris and I ended up switching rooms - but as Craig said - blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken!  The hotel had some of the best food of the trip and the nicest managers and I would stay there again in a heartbeat!

That night we wandered down to the grocery store - only to find out that it was closed - got some cool pictures of signs on the way, though.  Kris and I did a little more searching for a food store - which we didn’t find - but did find the United Methodist church in the city.  As we were walking back to the hotel, we also found Jim and Gay sitting on a bench just enjoying the night - next to some crazy woman, who had to announce to the guys across the street that we were from America!  I got the impression  that she was one of the local odd balls!  After that we enjoyed a half pint with Jim and Gay at the hotel and then headed off to bed to get some sleep for another full day of touring and the search for a Fluff and Fold.

More on that later - but for now - enjoy the pictures from Day Five.

England Pilgrimage Day Four

A day on our own in London.  Kris, Jan, Holly and I set off for a day on the town.  We started on the Tube - and it was crazy busy!  It was tough for the four of us to get around - I can’t imagine trying to corral the entire group of 26 during peak hours!  At one point - Holly and I barely made it into the car and were slouched over to keep the doors from hitting us!

Our first stop for the morning was King’s Cross - home of Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter.  We, of course, all had pictures taken with the trolley (aka shopping cart in America).  It was neat to see the train station also - and fun to figure out how to get around the city in the Underground - I finally figured it all out on our last day in London.

Our next stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral and then across the millennium bridge to the Globe Theater.  And across the street was a Starbucks where we ended up sitting and just chatting for a while - it was just a really great day with wonderful weather and fantastic friends and it was just beginning.  

We walked over to Southwark Cathedral - I don’t remember who had a friend that recommended it - but is was a wonderful stop on our tour of the city.  After our time at the Cathedral, we went next door to a Pub (featured in a Harry Potter movie and Bridget Jones’s Diary) and the first of the cranky barkeeps that we came across on our trip and I had fish and chips for the first time.  It was yummy!  Had a pint of cider with it as well.  After lunch we wandered the path along the Thames River - and one of the most fascinating things was that all the businessmen were wearing suits - and they were all wandering around - don’t they work?!

We were on our way to the London Eye.  And how cool was that to see the city from so far up.  The views were just wonderful.  After the Eye, we decided to get ice cream, but it was expensive right there - so we were close enough to Westminster Abbey that we just walked over the bridge of the Thames and went back to the Abbey for the really yummy ice cream we had earlier in the week and also had a chance to wander through the gift shop which was closed the first time we were there - they had Christmas ornaments of Henry the VIII and all of his wives!

Finally we paid homage to the Queen and went by Buckingham Palace.  The Queen was in residence that day - and it looked like she was getting ready for some kind of event.  There were people arriving and being escorted in - never looked at the papers to see what it was - but it was all rather fascinating.  And thus ended the daylight hours of the day - we wandered back to the hotel - which was only about a block away and had a bit of a low key dinner - most of the group were out and about and doing their own thing for dinner.  After dinner - Kris, Jan, Terrie, Bettina and I went across the street for girls night out at the pub.  A lovely end to just a wonderful day!  Enjoy the pictures here...  

And check out something I learned about Picasa tonight - if you click on View Map - it will show you a map of where all the pics were taken - how cool is that - I don’t know if I got all the pics in exactly the right place - but I’ll work on that for the previous entries and the future entries - VERY COOL!

And stay tuned for our next day when we had yet another mishap with our morning alarm and we board the coach for the start of our cross country journey.

England Pilgrimage Day Three

Day three of our England trip - our first full tourist day.  Today we took the Tube to the British Museum and before we went in - we stopped at a Starbucks.  A Starbucks with seating downstairs!  Pretty cool.  Today is also the day that Kris, Jan and I wore our Hawaiian shirt uniforms - nothing screams American more than matching Hawaiian shirts - the only thing that would have been better is if we all had been wearing our white sneakers!

So the British Museum - we’d heard about waiting in the Great Court before the museum opened and how cool it was and when we first got there and were standing outside - I thought - yeah - what’s so cool about this - and then we went in to where the Great Court really was and it truly was cool!  The picture of me in the side bar was taken by Jan as I’m just looking around - it was fascinating!  We had the morning to take in the British Museum and saw the Rosetta Stone, Mummy’s and a cool exhibit on the number of prescription and non prescription pills we take over our lifetime.  We then had to get lunch before we headed over to the Tower of London.

After looking around the British Museum - we went looking for a place to eat - we heard about this really good pub - but when we went by - it wasn’t open yet - which ended up being a blessing - some of our group ended up there and said it was terrible.  We ended up at a different pub - where the owner had just gotten back from America and attending the Kentucky Derby.  We had good food - good drink and some good conversation.  We then met back up with the group to take the Tube over to the Tower of London.

I was really looking forward to this - but it seemed very touristy to me - maybe because it was a Bank Holiday and it was very crowded.  I was a bit disappointed by the whole place - again - maybe because it was so crowded and we got stuck wandering around the White Tower with a group of Italian tourists.  It was fascinating though to be in a place that has such history and it certainly has history!  So we saw the Tower of Torture (the display wasn't very impressive) - we saw the place where the scaffold stood to chop off the heads of Henry the VIII’s wives and other folks - we saw the crown jewels and walked down a ton of narrow winding stairs to get out of the White Tower - but best of all - we saw people hanging their laundry out to dry (first of the fluff and folds).  Apparently, there are people that live on the Tower grounds and hang their laundry out on clotheslines (we saw a lot of that over there).

After dinner this evening - we took an excursion out to Piccadilly Circus - very cool - our first stop - a Pub for drinks.  We then ended up wandering through Leicester Square and over to Trafalgar Square - very different from the day before when it was packed with people.  We tried getting another drink - but it was just before the time that they stopped serving and wouldn’t serve us - so we found a donut shop that was open - mistake - lousy donuts!  But a great day - check out pictures here.

Stay Tuned for Day Four - a day on our own in London.

England Pilgrimage Day Two

So the next morning - we were to meet for breakfast at 8:30am - so I set the travel alarm for 7am (or so I thought). Luckily at one point in the morning, Kris looked at the clock on the TV and it was 8:21am! Nine minutes before we were supposed to be downstairs for breakfast - my alarm clock never went off! Apparently, if you want the alarm to go off in the morning - you need to set it to AM - who knew?!

It was Sunday, so we were off to church. We worshiped at Wesley’s Chapel - built in 1778 by John Wesley. After church, we had the opportunity to see where John Wesley lived, his grave in back of the church and a museum that had a pulpit he preached in that we could take pictures in. He was a short man, so most of us had to kneel in the pulpit to keep from hitting our heads on the ceiling! As we made our way to Aldersgate Street - we walked through the cemetery where Wesley’s mother is buried. We walked down Aldersgate Street and saw the plaque that commemorates the meeting place where John Wesley’s ‘heart was strangely warmed’ which marked the beginning of the Methodist movement in earnest.

We then hopped on the Tube to Leicester square and walked through Trafalgar Square where they were having a music festival since it was a three day weekend. As we wandered down to Westminster Abbey, we saw the Horse Guards and 10 Downing St. When we reached Westminster Abbey, we had yummy soft service ice cream with a chocolate ‘flake’ in it. We stayed for an organ concert and evening service. I found it fascinating that Charles Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey!

Most of the group walked back to the hotel - a small group of us took the Tube and then stopped in the Bag O Nails pub for a pint. I enjoyed a pint of apple cider - and since I was drinking on an empty stomach, I was pretty happy at dinner - had a nice buzz going on. After dinner Craig took all our camera’s and downloaded the pictures and started blogging about the trip for the folks back home. Thus endeth the first of many religious days of the pilgrimage... click here for pictures of our second day.

And stay tuned for Day Three in the series - a day where Kris, Jan and I wore our uniforms...

England Pilgrimage Day One

So here it is...  what you all have been waiting for...  finally some stories and pictures from our England Pilgrimage.  I hope you enjoy the England installments - I’ll take them day by day.  And this picture here is the first one I took on the trip - this was in our hotel room on the bottom of our nightstand - thought that was an odd place to put the tea cups and complimentary cookies.

So Day One - we all gathered at the church for our trip up to LAX - I was so excited about the trip I could barely contain myself.  And Jan, your comment about Cyndy’s luggage was just the best!  The trip over wasn’t bad - I was able to sleep a bit on the plane and we all had our own screen’s to watch movies so that was cool!  We even flew into Heathrow Terminal 5 and our luggage didn’t get lost.

And then we were there - it all seemed so surreal - and truly for the first day or two - was really hard to believe we were really in England.  So we got to the hotel and checked in and practically the entire group decided to join Craig and his family on a river boat trip on the River Thames.  It was neat to be able to see London at a glance.  So most of the pictures you will see in the link come from that cruise.  

One of my favorite things, though, was to ride the Tube - I loved it - how amazing to live in a city with such wonderful public transportation.  I loved looking at the map and trying to figure out what line to get on and where to transfer.  It took me a bit - but it was the best!  Mind the Gap!

That night at dinner it was a bit painful - I think it took a good 2 hours or so from start to finish - and we were all exhausted!  Looking back on it - my marathon prayer of grace before dinner really fit in!  That night we all turned in early.  Unfortunately, Kris and I ran upon a bit of mishap the next morning...  stay tuned more to come!  Check out pictures from Day One Here