Fit for a King

On Sunday we took ourselves out to Hampton Court Palace or for you history buffs, home of King Henry VIII. (That's 8).  King William and Queen Mary also lived there some time later. Although it rained on the way to church, by the time we got to the palace the rain had subsided and it was quite warm. Still cloudy, but at least it wasn't raining.  

The palace is surrounded by a number of gardens, you have the formal gardens, the pond garden, a maze garden, a rose garden, and while its not really garden it still deserves honorable mention the oldest grape vine in England. Andrew didn't find this vine in the least bit fascinating so he failed to document it. Needless to say I reamed him good for that one. The oldest grape vine in the UK, come on!!! People come from all over to see it!

This is the front of Hampton Court. I think, I actually don't remember, but we'll just say it is. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Here is some delicious looking medieval stew. I was gracious enough to stir it for the castle cooks. Annie B can thank me later.

Now I know this is the front. I remember the statures surrounding the entrance. All in all it was a pretty good weekend. Monday was a Bank Holiday, although I referred to it as Memorial Day. It was also the worst weather we've had since being here. We ended up going to Westminster and the Imperial War Museum. Thanks for the reference Adam, the trenches were really cool. We were trying to figure out what they wanted them to smell like. I felt that the sound effects needed to be really loud, great big booms, I think it would have been even more realistic. 

Bath-time Fun

Welcome to Bath! Home of - The Roman Baths, and The Jane Austen Centre. Both of which were extremely enjoyable.  I am going to go one the record and say that so far, Bath has been my absolute favorite place we've been whilst in the UK.  Bath was beautiful, it was surrounded by lots of green countryside and picturesque hills. We first when to the Abbey, where Andrew became obsessed with stain glass windows. Apparently we are to have some in any future home we may live in.   

  Here is a picture of the Roman Baths with the Abbey in the background. Andrew thinks himself some sort of professional photographer. 
 Andrew wasn't feeling well so he decided to partake of the healing powers of the waters of Bath. I am pretty sure it was blessed by some Roman goddess afterwards.  My favorite thing about the Roman Baths were the holograms of fat Romans bathing . Well one wasn't fat, but the others were. Let's just say bravo to Bath for getting the holograms anatomically correct. 

After Bath we took the train back to London via Salisbury to see the Cathedral.  It was amazing. Once again Andrew took an extreme fondness to the stain glass art work. This is one of at least 100 pictures he took of the cathedral.  I think it looks like a postcard. Salisbury was totally worth the trip out there, it was really old, and really big. We liked Bath so much that we will probably buy a vacation home there one day, visitors will be welcome and encouraged. 

Museums...

London has a million and one museums. Literally. The thing that I find interesting about all of the museums is that they are free, however, every time you turn around there is a "suggested donation" box, or someone there to ask for a handout. They don't make you pay for entrance, they guilt you into it. The suggestion boxes always say things like "please help keep this museum open" or "please help the museum employees feed their starving families." Maybe that last one is an exaggeration, but you get my point. Another thing about the museums, is that they don't stop you from taking photographs, they just make it impossible to get a picture. Either by adding glass, or windows, or by the weird lighting they use to illuminate their treasures. Regardless two of my favs here in London, are the V&A museum, which just seems to be full of really cool junk, and the British Museum, which by the way got an honorable mention last night in IJ4....awesome. 

Here is  a Buddha from the British Museum. It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where they up Homer as a Buddha and cover him in gold paint in order to get back the Chinese baby girl. 

 This is a Mayan artifact, and as you can see it was quite impossible to get a good picture. When I turned off my flash, you were unable to see from the picture just how brightly colored it really is. 

 This is the V&A Museum. I didn't get any pictures of the inside, because my camera died shortly after. But this is actually one wing of the museum as seen from the inside courtyard. It was in this very courtyard that I actually considered killing a pigeon for the first since being here. 

 Here is part of a bust of Julius Caesar from the British museum. I am finding that I really enjoy the classical Roman and Greek sculpture. There were some really amazing sculptures are the Louvre, but my camera battery had died the day before, I forgot to take the charger to Paris.  But no worries, if you never get to the Louvre, I'll invite you to a backyard garden party, and you can view my sculpture garden that will be full of replicas....once I get a house, with a garden, so just sit tight. 

 This is my all time fav. No I didn't take this picture, and I can't tell you anything about it at this time because my computer battery is about to die. So go research it on the internet. It looks like I need to work on charging my electronics. 

One more thing

Now you can't really appreciated the awesomeness that is his fohawk in these pictures...but its there trust me. Sorry Andrew I think I am going to have to be a Man U fan.... I like to be on the winning teams' side. Oh and here's some more pictures of another famous Man U player...just because I like them: 

Final Showdown X2

The final showdown X2 refers to two consecutive highly anticipated finales. First off we have the "super bowl" of soccer, or the European Champions.  I am sure many off you were more aware of the second final showdown or "the Battle of the Davids." First off least review the Football match. I had Andrew write a little something about this, because as I am sure will come to a surprise to many of you.... I don't know that much about soccer. So here is what he had to say about the match.

In case you missed it, and you probably did, the soccer match of the year was played yesterday in Moscow.  For the first time ever the match involved two English league teams, two of the biggest English league teams: Manchester United and Chelsea. 

We live in Fulham, which is mere minutes from where Chelsea has their home stadium. Which it is rumored you can hear from the front "stoop" on game day. 

Here is a little bit of background, so that you can understand the magnitude of the game.

Manchester United:

More commonly referred to as Man U, is the perennial superpower of English Football. Yes, ladies this is the team that Beckham once played for. (Thus making it highly favored in Hailie's eye).  They have won the English title many times. In fact this year they earned their 10th English League title. 

Chelsea:

Chelsea is owed by a 40 year old Russian billionaire who has no qualms about spending loads of cash to bring great players to his teams (Ala the New York Yankees, and as a Yankee fan, I understand this behavior and even applaud such lucrative business tactics). Chelsea has never been to a European Championship and is looking to gain some respect by knocking off its English rival. 

The match was a classic. An epic struggle between the traditional power Man U and the new kids on the block (who have a new CD out FYI), Chelsea. 

At the time the first goal was scored, Hailie and I had just left the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. We were feeling very cultured and sophisticated after having appreciated the works of master artists such as Von Gogh, Monet, and Caravaggio. As we walked to our tube stop, still riding the wave of cultural enlightenment, we heard a loud cheer from inside of a pub. We initially ignored this roudy cheer, as being beneath us highly cultured people, but soon remembered that was could only be called the match of the year was being played.  Too tempting to pass up, we poked our heads inside one such pub just in time to see a replay of a brilliant header by Ronaldo (a Portuguese guy with a fohawk). Man U was up one-nil. (No soceer post would be complete without the using of "nil"). Going from appreciating the fine arts to enjoying the workingman's game just shows what great cultural range Hailie and I are capable of. 

When we arrived home, Chelsea had evened the match 1-1 moments before halftime. The rest of the game was hard fought, but after 30 minutes of extra time, the game was still tied and went into penalty kicks. Keep in mind that the game was delayed in Russian, so by this time it was well after midnight in Moscow. 

The first penalty kicks went back and forth. The Ronaldo of Man U stepped up. Ronaldo is one of the best players in the worl. However, on this occasion his attempt was poor and the Chelsea keeper took the shot off his face and it bounced away from the goal. All Chelsea had to do was make its next two kicks and they would be the Champions! Chelsea netted the next attempt. Then English soccer icon Terry stepped up with a chance to win the match and the European title for Chelsea.

Terry approached the ball and struck it, sending it to the keeper's left as the four previous Chelsea strikers had done with success. Unfortunately, he sent it a little too far left, and it bounced off the post and into the Moscow night.

At this point, the penalty kicks became sudden death. 

Man U connected on the first, so did Chelsea. Man U again connected. But, this time, the Chelsea kicked was stopped by the Man U keeper! A tragic end for the Chelsea blues. Manchester won 6-5 on penalty kicks.

Thank for that enlightening analysis Andrew. Just so you know I added everything in the parenthesis. Oh and the next day found out that there had actually been riots in Chelsea and Fulham due to the loss. That's what I think American sports need....more fan riots. 

And on to the Battle of the Davids.....needless to say I haven't watched it yet because it doesn't come until Friday. I heard the news and all I have to say is.... I heart David Cook. 

One more thing.... seeing as how we are 7 hours ahead of all ya'll back in the states, Andrew and I have the great opportunity to see the new Indy Jones flick.... and let's just say it was AMAZING. Now I know that there are some avid daily readers of this blog, and so I am not going to ruin for anyone. But let's just say that it did not disappoint. Even in his old age Indy still had it going on, bravo Indy, bravo. 

A sampling...

Here is a sampling of some of things that we have been doing since coming to the UK. Well more like I have been doing since Andrew has to work.  On Sunday we walked down to the Thames and saw Big Ben. It was freezing cold, but we still had a good time. 

This is a picture of the London temple. On Saturday we were able to do a session with Andrew's parents, and then "tour" the temple and see all of the different sealing rooms. In order to get there you have to ride a train and then take a taxi. The temple grounds where really pretty and green, and we found a little duck who was quite friendly and followed Dad law around. 

I bet you didn't know the Effiel Tower was in London! Just kidding it is still in Paris. Andrew's parents and I took the Eurostar under the English channel to Paris last week. It was quite an adventure trying to figure out the french subway system. But we prevailed. Paris was amazing I had no less than 18 crepes in the 2 days we were there.  We took a bus tour, and I will say that for the record I think my commentary was way better than the recording on the tour,even though one member of our party didn't agree.  In the plaza in front of Notre Dame there was a fete de pain. Or as I roughly translated it, a bread festival. That was really fun, and there was also delicious bread! Vive la France! 

Back to England, this is the front of the NHM, as the locals say (I just made that up) or the Natural History Museum. The building might possibly be cooler than the museum itself, but I'll reserve judgement until I see all of it. The nice thing about the museums is that they are free, so you can go back as often as you like. 

 Ahhh.... the Paris Opera House. This place is legendary, as I felt like I had already been there, due to that fact that Dad Law took no less than 800 pictures of it last year when he went to Paris. I was like I don't even need to see the opera house, but I felt I had to see for myself the magnificent building that prompted such maniacal photography. And let me just say for the record that the Paris Opera House does indeed deserve every one of those 800 pictures. It was amazing. 

This last picture is of the tower at Windsor castle, one of my favorite places I've been thus far in England and France. We were able to take a guided audio tour of the grounds and the state rooms, however I believe that the next time an audio tour is being recorded I should be consulted first. There was amazing furniture and decorations in all of the rooms, and all the guy from the audio tour could talk about was the stupid paintings on the wall. Which would have been fine by itself, but then there would have to be some "professional commentator" adding his two cents as to what this painting represents or should evoke, and see the brush strokes...blah blah blah. I felt like I was back in art history my freshman year. In any case I was able to score some awesome english monarchy magnets for the fridge. Oh and I have suddenly become inspired to start collecting china, donations would be appreciated. 

So there is a short update. I think that I should get a prize for being in a good mood through all of the touring that was done in the past week an a half, I feel that I was surprisingly well behaved even though I have a massive sinus infection and a fever blister that is taking over my entire lip. It isn't pretty.  Cheers! 

Welcome to Fulham

Welcome to Fulham! This is a picture of our quaint little street in one of London's most fabulous boroughs. I don't know if that's true, but it is pretty great, and they do have a decent football (soccer) team! 

This is where we are staying while in London, it was built in the Victorian era and is quite old.  Right now we are staying with our english landlady and a couple of Australians, all with only one bathroom. Which is never really a problem for me, because I am the only one without a job, so I can sleep in as long as I like. Oh and did I mention the cats? She has three. If anyone would like to hear a little story about the cats ask Andrew's parents. But I do enjoy it, mostly because she gets free phone calls to America, so I can talk to my mom as much as I like!  

Coming to the UK....

The title of the post is a take on the Neil Diamond song that David A. sang last week on AI. So please sing it like that to yourself, or outloud, whichever.
So.......... we are now in London. I have no exciting news to report from the plane ride, except for the observation that there was a Jon Voigt look-a-like in the seat in front of me, and he was possibly the most annoying passenger ever. He must have had family with him but in the other parts of the plane, because he was up and down and was holding a baby, and then he wasn't holding a baby, then he was sleeping on the girl next to him, who in fact was not related. Eventually, he switched his wife for her seat in first class, which was a good thing because he was about to lose his life at my hands. Oh and another observation, why are their pigeons inside the JFK airport? Yesterday was our first official day as londoners. It hasn't rained yet, it hasn't been cold, I think that the city pulled out all the stops to welcome us. Which slightly offends me, because how can I buy a new rain slicker and some galoshes, if it doesn't rain? Come on L-don, give me something to work with.