One More Thing

The final tally for our high stakes cribbage tourney was Loretta 15 games, Erin 10. I was kind of bummed about this, and Loretta offered a double or nothing game on the plane ride home. It was close, came down to the final hand, but Loretta won.

So...I will be picking up after Jack whenever I'm with them at the dog park for the next two months. Could have been one month, but I really thought I could win that last game. Sigh. :)

Big finale

Hey blog readers!

This is the last post...as we hop on the tube tomorrow morning to head to Heathrow and then hop across the Atlantic and then home. Here are a few photos from our last day in London!

First, we spent a long time enjoying St. Paul's cathedral. No pictures allowed inside, so we climbed the dome and took some from there. (What's a European trip without at least one claustrophobic climb to the top of a gigantic church dome?)
This is the view from a teeny window in the floor of the dome...the people below are small indeed.
Taking a little break halfway through the climb.
Many landmarks in the background...the London Eye, Westminster bridge, the Houses of Parliament...
Spycam at work once again: tourist caught taking pictures at the top of St. Paul's...
Special picture for Hank Lee...can you see the Eiffel Tower way back there in the distance?
Thunderstorms broke out right as we were getting ready to head for dinner...such a far cry from Greece and 111 degrees!
And, finalmente, here is our happy group at the end of our celebratory meal tonight at Nobu London. Not an easily forgotten dinner, that's for sure. Afterwards, Stasia just kept patting her tummy and saying, "So satisfied, so satisfied."

So goodbye, faithful blog readers...it will be sad not to write the blog anymore (because obviously that means vacation is over...), but it's been great fun to write and to read your comments. Happy summer to you all!

E and L

and hey, if you just can't get enough, we've posted most of our many photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/loretta.matty/

Happy Summer!

Quite busy today, quite busy....

We did indeed begin our day with a tube trip out to Wimbledon....we had done our research and pretty much decided that even if we were willing to pay 87 pounds per person to see the men's final, we weren't willing to camp out in the queue overnight to get our hot little hands on the tickets. So we thought we'd just go in, walk around, maybe buy some official merchandise. We also brought spy cam, and on the walk to the grounds, we saw these boys:
Given there gear bags and the credential tags they had around their necks, we feel almost certain that they were official ball boys for the tournament. And that's pretty much as close was we got to Wimbledon, as the queue looked like this and it was still 6 hours before the match:
We still soldiered on to the entrance, where we were stopped by an extremely polite older gentleman steward who asked if we had tickets. When we said no we were kindly informed that no, we could not go on the grounds, or to the shops, or anything really, but we were welcome to join the queue. Then he asked where we were from and we had a nice chat about how he's been to California several times to visit his sister and how lovely the Monterey area is, etc etc. Such a polite way to say, "sorry, go away!"

We headed back to our hotel and consoled ourselves with a full English breakfast at our corner pub. See if you can find all the following in the picture: Fried potatoes, fried eggs, bacon, sausage, stewed tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, and of course beans:
The rest of our packed-full day included wandering around Covent Garden:
(look, Jill and Pete, we found two good name choices for kids at a little kids' shop there!)
This was Lo's favorite sign...she said she agrees with the sentiment.

We headed back to our teeny room for a rest before meeting up with the Hansens and a walking tour of the Westminster area.
(This is the whole room, one wall to the next, and i'm standing at the door...)

Scenes from the walking tour:
What's a blog about London without a picture of this particular landmark?
Here's Stasia and I standing in front of Westminster School, one of the top three private schools in the U.K., and a virtual steal at only 24,000 pounds a year for fees!
And, if hobbits lived in central London, this would be where:
We headed into the Abbey for a free organ concert...and check out who looks down from above the entrance!
(Yes, it's our very own MLK Jr...this part of the building is called the 2oth century martyr wall)

And finally, because it's vacation, and treats are good on vacation, some members of our group enjoyed ice cream in the park:
For our last hurrah of the day we all headed to a pub called the Jugged Hare for very delicious beers, homemade meat and veggie pies, and the girls had more treats for dessert. (the grown ups just had another yummy beer.)

Cheers for now,
E

Picture Post

Here we go...our last few days in photos:

Killing time in Athens, we made our way to the ORIGINAL olympic stadium...built in ancient times, fell to ruin, excavated, and reused for the first modern games in 1896...still used today for the end of the Athens Marathon. (Which of course begins in Marathon, 26.2 miles away), and was used in the 2004 Olympics for the archery competition. Can hold 50,000 peeps.

Look, Jill Gidlund's favorite little creature...scavenging at our table during our last Greek meal.

spycam on the job once again: sleeping vendor on Athenian street...

and we're off...Big Mama and Big Backpack, supporting each other while waiting for the metro to take us to the airport.

Ah, this London weather is SO NICE. No more stickiness, lovely breezes, and it stopped raining when we got here. :)
For reals, we're in London now...
Here comes the publicity caravan for the Tour de France prologue stage...lots of free but useless stuff gets thrown at the spectators.
These folks made a real effort...baguette waving, garlic holding, the stripes, etc.
Lo was the most successful catcher of us all. Of course, we gave everything to Stasia and Kayla, since we're grown ups and don't need silly tchotchkes.
We took a break from hanging out in the park watching the Tour and walked through the tres riche neighborhood of Mayfair. Here's what the average street looked like. I felt right at home. :)
Our little lunch group. We were super excited because we found a little grocery store that was just marking down their sandwiches for quick sale. Sometimes food tastes more delicious when it's real cheap! Especially in London where everything is twice as expensive...

Shout out to the Jensens!
So that's George Hincapie, or at least the best photo I could get of him. (They were whizzing by super fast!) He went on to win 3rd place yesterday. But the guy who won was truly amazing...fastest speeds ever recorded in the tour prologue.
This was the crush of people trying to cross over the tour route at one of only a few crossing points in Hyde Park. It was crazy packed, but still fairly orderly...very British.

Look, it's Lance! (or at least, Madame Tussaud's version of him). There was a bike next to him you could climb on and take a picture, and it was so cheesy, but I was actually gonna go for it...utnil I found out it cost 5 pounds. That's 10 dollars too much. :(
Here I am at Princess Diana's memorial fountain. You are allowed to: put your hands or feet in, sit along the edge. You are not allowed to: walk in the fountain, which was a big circular shape. The granite is from the princess' native Cornwall, and the shape emulates her big arms of love encircling the whole world, just as she was in life. (I made up that last bit. :)
Recognize those girls crowded into the tube train?

Happy Day in Hyde Park

Hello everyone....quick post today...no pics as we can't upload them here at our hotel...we'll try to figure something out tomorrow.

We're safely and finally in London after what turned out to be a long day of travel yesterday...we are stuffed into a great but teensy room (maybe 8 x 6?) at the Cherry Court Hotel right near Victoria Station. Today we met up with the Hansen family, which was great fun, and then spent the day in Hyde Park watching the Tour de France riders whiz by during the prologue time trial, along with what felt like the rest of London's population. Huge crowds, but quite well managed, of course, we're not in Greece anymore after all. :) (Yesterday, boarding our Olympic Airlines flight, they simply said to get on the plane, no organization at all, and massive crowding promptly ensued).

Anyway, today was great fun, tomorrow morning Lo and I are planning to head out to Wimbledon to at least soak up the atmosphere a bit in the morning, since Centre Court tickets are £87. Yikes!

Cheers,
E

Lasts

Hey all,

We're in Athens again this morning, and are off to London later today for our last few days before we head home. We are busy doing "lasts", mostly having to do with eating: Last gyros (last night - so good), last spanikopita breakfast, last Greek salad, last yogurt and honey. Here are a few pictures from our last motorbike ride on Naxos before we left that lovely island:

We jokingly called this "The Portal" the whole time...it's and old temple to Apollo that is the iconic symbol of the island.

Greek swim lessons. Right below that old temple, near some marble steps, in the Aegean Sea. Pretty different from the YMCA...

On the bikes, ready to head along the coastal road to the other tip of the island...

...and finally, after and 1.5 hour ride, we got there. (we sort of didn't know it was going to take that long, and Lo's gas was on empty for several kilometers, but all was well in the end)

Not sure if you can see clearly in the photo, but these were cheerfully painted beehives...honey is one of the island big exports. Yum.

A Greek bee, brought to you courtesy of spy cam.

dessert on our las tnight on Naxos. This place called Waffle House lets you build your own crazy concoction. We had Mocha and Cream Cookie gelato with chocolate sauce and broken biscuits, all over a fresh, crispy waffle. Lo was real excited.

And, finally, good old Big Mama and I, relaxing by the pool while waiting for our ride to the ferry. She's been great this trip, I haven't even had to expand her yet, but after all our Athens shopping yesterday I think it will be time...

Motoring About

So here we are! The bike I wiped out on yesterday is actually the one Lo is on...it's a little more tricky to start, so we've switched. It seems not the worse for wear, though, unlike me. Injury report: (and thanks to Dr. Jood, wish I'd known that about hydrogen peroxide yesterday!) Scrapes are already starting to heal, though they hurt all the time, and aches and pains are effectively gone, hooray.

This morning we began with our usual spani and, special for today, the closest thing we could get to a latte, which was more like a frappucino:

This is the little terrace of our place, not sure if we've posted a picture of it since our little movie won't upload. In any case, after breakfast we consulted our map of the island, and to our dismay, we found this:








We should have known! For you see, the road we were on yesterday was this one:




So had we consulted the map...well who knows. We might have tried it anyway, actually. Anyway, I'm glad to be feeling better and back up on the bike, as you can see in this casual picture:







Shopping for gifts was next on the agenda, aided by this helpful town map:










Finally it was time to head for the interior of the island. This little jaunt was made entirely possible by the motorbikes...and it was beautiful, as promised by guidebook and motorbike renter man both. At first, it seemed a little desolate and dry. Then, as I looked around I started to notice more things....things like the absolute silence (broken by our motorbikes :(, but also often by the screeching of cicadas, which can be a VERY loud noise. The hillsides are terraced and full of crumbling stone walls and olive trees. We saw the occasional goat or donkey, the occasional village, even the occasional marble quarry. See if you can find them all in these photos:


And after a while, the countryside didn't even seem so brown...I started noticing the gray-green of the olive leaves, the bright greens of figs, these purple flowers along the road side, and even the red in the rocks as we whizzed by. When we rolled back into our pension, we both agreed that it was a great ride.

We leave you for today on a sweet note: our dessert last night was yogurt and honey. The honey was amazing, and the yogurt...well, let's just say that it's definitely not low fat. Yum.