Around the World in 43 Days! 2007-2008

Rich enjoyed his 47th birthday in a really different way this year. On the 30th of December we bid Brian and Valerie goodbye after Brian very kindly drove us down to London. Sue spied Harrods and said drop us of here! Unfortunately, Harrods weren’t opening until midday because of their sale. Fortunately, we decided to walk down to Buckingham Palace and as we got there they were doing the changing of the guard thing. There was marching and there were police and there were 5,000 other people there to watch the same thing!

After visiting the Palace to see the Queen (she must have lost our appointment in her busy diary..) we ducked down to the London Eye as Rich thought it would be a good thing to do on his birthday. After seeing how large the queue was and how much the ride cost (in ₤), he decided that, as it was such a beaut day, we would take the opportunity to stroll around a few London sites. Of course we managed to wend our way past Big Ben (not so big now next to OUR big Ben!) and Trafalgar Square and No 10 Downey St.



The most important activity, however, seemed to be getting pictures of red phone boxes, red post boxes and red double-decker buses with the fancy digital cameras that highlight just the red colour..


Sue and the kids went down memory lane as we had lunch in the crypt under St Martin in the Fields church where they had done brass rubbing in 2000. Met Russell and Zita and Kelsey and Matthew Horton at Harrods later in the arvo, and we then went for a stroll down Oxford Street in the evening. It was resplendent in Christmas lights. The day ended with Rich’s birthday dinner request – more English food in an English pub. This time he had bangers and mash and he and Russell had English ale – dark brown as it was!! Everyone enjoyed the hearty pub meal, and we had to wait until we got back to the Osterley motel to eat the Harrods’ birthday cake Sue had purchased earlier.

Next morning we were off to the airport (ooops, we went to the wrong Heathrow terminal first, and wasn’t that a mistake!!) and then the 2.5 hr flight to Rome.

We've seen a lot of cathedrals/castles over the past three days... three to be exact. That means a castle a day! haha... we are getting historical overload at the moment, and we're loving every minute of it!
We've seen so many OLD structures like cathedrals, shops, buildings, houses and castles. Some of them have been around since 1064 (that's the oldest) and the 1300-1500's. Now just think about that for a sec, some of those buildings have been around 600yrs BEFORE Australia was discovered! Now that's OLD :O

Ok, now that we've established how old these things are, we'll tell you their names! See if you recognise them...
The first one we saw was Coventry Cathedral (an old half-of-a church that was bombed and it's new, amazing replacement next to it) The town square in Rugby has little shops that have been around since 1400's (but mostly 19th Century). They were really dainty and cute! Very Vintage.

One day we drove to Nottingham one day to visit one of Richard's work friends (Will Murray), and after luch with Will and Marie and their lovely boys, Will took us to see the famous Nottingham Castle which was awesome! (hehe- ROBIN HOOD and his merry friends)and the nasty Sheriff of Nottingham. That was castle no. #1.

Today we went to Warwick Castle in the morning. It is a classic castle! really old, but it is still in such good condition. We saw everything there, tried on chainmail/armour, saw all the old Victorian-style rooms decorated lavishly with vintage furniture and climbed one of the towers to walk along the castle walls. :D such a ball!

In the afternoon, we drove to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see William Shakespeare's house (where he was born and grew up) It was such a cool feeling to be walking in this house where the famous William Shakespeare grew up and lived all those years ago! We took a detour on the way home to see castle #3- which was actually ruins of Kennilworth Castle. That was cool, but we just drove past because, of course, IT WAS RAINING! :P

Did I mention Valerie and Bryan took us to an English Pantomime on Boxing Day? that was pretty cool, a bit odd though. Nothing compared to our Broadway experience, but still an entertaining play about Aladdin with silly humour- mainly for kids. Benjamin survived it... just. lol. We were still recovering from our Christmas day lunch - here is THAT turkey..

Since Christmas day we have been treated to a plethora of gastrnomical delights, including Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding, Stollen, Vodka Chocolates, Chocolate Whiskey Cake and German Applecake.

We also "tackled" the Rugby history head-on by seeing the statue of Webb Ellis (the guy who first picked up a ball and ran with it) and also looking at the famous (green) oval where the game & rules of Rugby was created! That was interesting

Apart from this sightseeing, our time in Rugby has been a bit slower and more relaxing than the rest of the trip - which is good. We needed this little break before our "run-around" time in Rome. On our last day in Rugby (tripping through the English midlands) we went to the Cottswolds villages and visited Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold, Lower and Upper Slaughter, Bilbury and Bourton-on-the-Water. The day was sunny and we were treated to a visual feast -

These houses are from the 14th Century. People still live in them,and they are over 700 trs old.

On Sunday (30th) we are off to London for a day to meet up with the Hortons (and it's also Richard's birthday). Then on Monday (31st) we are off to ROME! We'll be in touch some time after that. We hope all is well with you all.
The travelling Shoes