Merry Christmas!

or Prettige Kerstdagen! if you want it in Dutch.

We wish everyone a happy holiday with friends and family, and hope that the New Year brings you peace and happiness.

love,
Ellen, Ben, Bella + Spud

One of the perks of Ben's job here is that he occasionally need to travel to other places for a few days. And if this were a normal job in the U.S., he'd be traveling to places like Omaha and Nashville, but since we're here his business trips take him to places like Italy, Spain and England. Not too bad. And if I'm not busy, all we have to do is buy a plane ticket for me and I can go along. Even better!

Ben's latest trip took him to Northwood, England (not too far from London) for a half-day work thing of some sort. I couldn't fly there with him due to this pesky thing called "my job", but I met him the next day after his work obligations were over. We spent the night in the hotel near Northwood, explored a local department store, hung out. Then the next day we walked to the train station to begin our one day whirlwind tour of London.

We managed to get checked in to our London "hotel" by about 10 a.m. I put hotel in quotes because, it was no luxury. It was more than a hostel, less than a Holiday Inn. But it was clean, and quiet, and we didn't get mugged at the bus stop, so what more can you ask for at 59 pounds a night? And it was really clean. I know I mentioned that already, but from the looks of the place outside the extreme cleanliness inside was a nice surprise.

After we got settled, we set off to see London, armed with our one-day travel pass for the Underground and busses and about 3 different London guide books (don't want to miss anything, you know).

We started of with Big Ben

(and little Ben!)

Played around in those darn cute red telephone booths. I can only imagine how annoying we are to to people who actually live in London.


Saw Westminster Abbey


Buckingham Palace (We got there right in time for the changing of the guard and there was a band playing music and 500 million bajillion people and it was a little crazy. I had to sit on Ben's shoulders)



Then we wandered through St James Park


And over to St James palace where there was one lone guard pacing back and forth and pretending like he didn't want to kick the asian tourists who kept running up and taking pictures with him.


Then we finally, finally found a Starbucks so Ben could get his mug


And after that we wandered, did some shopping, wandered some more until it was time for... High Tea! We went to the Orangery next to Kensington Palace and had tea and cucumber sandwiches and a scone and cake and it was so fun. I've decided I may start instituting a high tea here at home, just so I can drink tea and eat little sandwiches and cakes in the middle of the afternoon.




Our last hurrah of the day was Tower Bridge, which was pretty impressive.


And then we hobbled back to the Underground station and made our way back to our hotel just in time to catch an episode of Ugly Betty while lying in bed and eating salads and stuff from the grocery store.

I'm not quite sure how we did everything we in a day (because we actually saw a few more things, like Picadilly Circus and Harrod's), but we had a great time. We decided that London isn't our favorite like Paris is, but it could make for a good friend to hang out and drink a couple of pints with and maybe get a little silly. We'd like to go back, but if we do, we'd prefer to do it with more money. London was fun, but expensive. But worth it for the day.

Cheers!

Where the heck have we been?!?

No, we didn't disappear. Just took a tiny bit of time off from the blogging. Okay, maybe more than a tiny bit, but we're back! And we've been doing things and going places! Exciting things! Fabulous places!

A while back we had decided that Thanksgiving was going to be no big deal here, so we found cheap cheap tickets to Barcelona for 2 days. And then we invited a couple of friends to join us, because we like them and because we figured if it's fun to go out to dinner with other people, it will be extra fun going out to dinner with people in a foreign country. And it was!

We arrived on Thanksgiving, hit one tapas bar,

made some Thanksgiving phone calls to family,

and the hit another tapas restaurant for dinner.


After that we went out dancing like the crazy young people we are until my feet hurt so much I thought they might die and/or fall off. It was an excellent Thanksgiving.

The next day we saw as many sights in Barcelona as we possibly could...





And of course, found a Starbucks so Ben could add to his mug collection.

And then we flew home the next day. Ay caramba. Muy tiring. But fun, and definitely worth the trip.

And then, a couple short weeks later, we did a one day only quick trip to London. Are we crazy or what? London photos to come soon. A quick fact before I go though - Did you know that London is so full of pollution it can turn a person's snot black? It can! It did! Gross. We won't mention that again.