Jen's London Experience

My BB did such a wonderful job blogging about our incredible trip to London!  I wanted him to blog it because I had been to London back in 2004 when I graduated college and I was afraid I wouldn't give as much detail as he would.  We had such a great time and I loved showing him around and seeing/doing things I didn't do the first time.

I was about 8 weeks pregnant when we were there and I had started to feel really tired though and I really struggled with food.  Starting around 6 weeks I lost my appetite and it was very difficult to find something that not only sounded good to eat, but something that I would actually eat once it was in front of me.  Ha ha.  I had been consuming a lot of Ramen noodles in the weeks before we left.  Let's just say that the food in the UK is NOT very good at all.  I had experienced that on my first trip, but was able to find some food that was good.  This time it was much more difficult.  I was no longer eating chicken (the word chicken would make me gag) and I normally don't eat turkey or pork, so that pretty much only left beef.  Hamburgers were my friend, but they weren't cheap.  I did eat a lot of pasta, which was great, especially at that Italian place we ate at the first night in town.  Best fettuccine I've ever had!  What I was really craving though was smoothies and salads.  I don't think I ever saw a smoothie place and I looked!  Also, most places we went didn't have decent salads.  They had Caesar salad, but I'm not supposed to have that, so eating became pretty difficult for me.  Brian was super sweet though and even let me have Subway one night.  He was also great about keeping a good pace each day.  I was grateful that we got to spend a whole week there because we didn't have to cram everything in.  We slept in most days, and didn't stay out too late.  It was a perfect trip...if only it had been a little warmer.  :)

Also, Brian told you of my first bout with the dreaded morning sickness.  I had been experiencing the nausea for weeks, but hadn't actually thrown up until the day of our long day trip.  That was a rough day, but only 1 day out of the whole trip is pretty good.  I wished I could say that was the only time I got morning sickness, but that wasn't the case.  Oh well, all part of the process!

Anyway, I just wanted to tell my thoughts on the trip as well.  It was wonderful and I'm so glad we were able to do that.  As you'll read coming up lots happened after!

LONDON!!!! Days 6 & 7

March 7, 2011

Here we are at St. Paul's Cathedral.


Then we went to the British Museum. We didn't take any pictures, but it's big and there's lots of stuff in it. We saw the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens and the Rosetta Stone (Not the kiosk where the guy tries to sell you a yellow box so you can learn another language. This one's from Egypt and can translate hieroglyphs).

We stopped for lunch and I decided to have a traditional English breakfast. That's toast, fries, egg, tomato, ham, sausage, mushrooms, and baked beans.

All I can say about the meal is: God bless America.

Then we went to Trafalgar Square. Nelson's Column is in the middle of it. It's surrounded by big lion statues that kids like to climb on. There's two big fountains and the square leads into the National Museum which we checked out.




We caught the tube back over to Westminster Abbey. We thought it'd be cool to be inside for a service. We went to Evensong which is a service where the boys choir sings prayers. Then we headed back home.

March 8, 2011

Today's the last day. We slept in and had some time to kill before our flight so we just sat in Hyde Park for a little bit. This is the Wellington Arch which was nearby.


The flight back home was long too but again there was plenty of entertainment to keep us occupied. Here's a photo of Las Vegas as we passed over it. Thanks for touring London with us!

LONDON!!!! Day 5

March 6, 2011

Today didn't start out so nice. Jen and I got up early, had breakfast, came back up to the room then Jen barfed. Hooray, morning sickness! She had felt nauseous before but this was the first time she hurled during the pregnancy. It was bound to happen I guess. We already paid a lot for a tour today and though she didn't feel well she was a trooper and we headed off.

We took a quick bus ride over to Windsor Castle. That's where the Queen lives. She was there too though we couldn't see her. You can tell by the flag that's flying over the castle. If it's the Queen's flag, she's there and if it's the Union Jack, she's not home. Here's some pictures of the outside. We couldn't take photos inside. It's decorated very ornately and lavishly and there's lots of old guns and swords and art displayed that the royals obtained over the years. We got to tour most of the inside but not all because like I said this is the Queen's house.


This one is of Jen up on the outer wall overlooking the town around it.


This is the inside courtyard.


Jen doing the royal hand wave. Or throwing up a gang sign. She did live in Moreno Valley.


This is a church on the premises. King Henry VIII is buried inside but we couldn't go inside because it was Sunday and they still have services there.


Jen stood by this guard that just stands there at his post all day. It may be a boring job but it beats Afghanistan.


We hopped back on the bus for a longer drive and made it to Stonehenge! This was a sight to behold and one of my favorite things on the trip. The stones are much bigger than I thought. Incredible the amount of time they would have had to put into this to place these stones. It's roped off so that you can only get about 30 yards close to it but I zoomed in for some closer photos. I'll shut up and let you enjoy.


Very cool. We hopped back on the bus for a ride over to a town called Bath. This is where the Romans built a bath house to enjoy the warm natural spring. There was quite a bit still intact. Here's a pool of the water and some of the architecture and statues around it.


At the end of the bath house tour they let you taste some freshly purified water. It was warm and had an aftertaste from the minerals.

Here are some pictures of the nearby cathedral.


Bath is a beautiful town. All the architecture blends well together. You can walk around and get to plenty of shops and restaurants.


These are row houses that form a circle. Very expensive area. Some celebs own a few of these houses: Nick Cage, Matt Damon and Johnny Depp.


We stopped to get some ginger candies for Jen. The tour guide said he'd heard that this is good for morning sickness. It seemed to work alright for Jen.


Then we took the long ride back to London. Here's some pictures of the countryside.


We were tired when we got back so we just ate in the hotel room and relaxed before bed.

LONDON!!!! Day 4

March 5, 2011

Jen and I slept in late this day. We like to plan off days where we can actually relax on our vacation. Later we walked over to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Lots of sculptures and paintings. Here's a picture of the courtyard with a shallow pool of water and the nice red brick of the museum.


There was a massive room that contained these impressive architecture. These are actually casts of real architecture from across the world. That means people painstakingly put plaster over the real sculptures, pulled the plaster away and put a reconstruction up in this museum. They look incredible. A nice way of seeing them without having to go to the locations. This one is the Portico de la Gloria from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.


This is Trajan's Column from Rome. They had to split the column in half because it didn't fit in the building. It's 30 meters tall.


I don't know what this one is. Looked Asian.


Lunch time! I stopped at a Cornish bakery and got a steak and ale pasty. Basically a pita pocket with steak and potatoes. It was good! Not all English food is bad. It's mostly bad but not all.


Are you ready for some football?! Soccer is the NFL over here so me being a sports fan I arranged for us to go to a Premier League game. That's the top-notch teams. We took the tube over to Craven Cottage which is the stadium and home of the Fulham Football Club. They took on Blackburn in a regular season match. Fulham is in white. Here's the view from our seats.

The guy in the middle is Clint Dempsey, an American. He also plays for Team USA. He's the favorite player of my nephew, Jackson.


I couldn't figure out what the mascot is. I'm thinking a panda/raccoon hybrid.


Soccer can be pretty boring. I was praying it wouldn't be a lame zero-zero tie waste of time. This game actually had action though. It went back and forth. We even got to see Fulham score on a penalty kick which was the difference as Fulham won 3-2. Go pandaccoons!


That evening we went for some traditional food again at the local pub. We both ordered fish and chips with mushy peas. They call French fries chips. It was okay.


Let me just say that everything is expensive in Britain. It not just because of the exchange rate either. (1 pound equals $1.62) Everything is expensive there because England is an island and they have to import everything. So even though they're money is worth more than ours, they still get screwed because everything is so expensive. Movie tickets are 14 pounds each ($22.74!)
A gallon of gas is over $5! We had burgers and fries the other day from a regular downscale restaurant and it was 19 pounds ($30.86!) Sorry Brits but you're getting ripped off.