WELL, WE ARE DOING IT AGAIN

Come visit us at our newest blog, duaneandarleen4.blogspot.com and follow our new adventure around thw world.  This time we are going east and getting to see antarctica and south america and africa.  See you in the blog :)

now on to our new adventures

Come follow our new adventures in Greece and Turkey. We have started a new blog.

Duaneandarleen2.blogspot.com

We are leaving September 30th, so come along, even if only by blog.

MORE PICTURES OF LONDON

In case you just logged on, we have added the pictures from England. They are all in the last London post.

Thanks for following our trip. We really had a great time and are looking forward to our next trip in October. We are going on a land tour of Greece and Turkey.

WE MADE IT HOME

April 29th

After travelling for more than 20 hours, we arrived at our front door, and had NO idea where our housekeys were. We both knew we saw them, but were tooooo tired to remember where. So, we started looking and ended up unpacking some of the suitcases right there in our driveway, in front of our neighbors. We weren't even embarassed. Who had the energy. The neighbors were very nice about it, and even came by to return the purse Arleen left in their car.

But we made it home with most of our belongings and ourselves intact. Thank you for your continued attention and comments. They kept us connected. When we get more settled Arleen will put in the final pictures from London, so don't quit yet.

I just realized, since we told everyone when we would be home, noone may even see this post! Oh, well. It is good to be home and at the same time, we look forward to our next adventure.

We have one planned already. We are going to Greece and Turkey in October. No cruise this time, a land tour.

Talk to you on the phone, now that we are home. Feel free to call. (if you are someone who we don't know and would like to, drop us a comment and your email address)

Bye for now. I will post more if something happens that relates to this trip.

LONDON, ENGLAND AGAIN

Westminster Abbey

This is Rosa. She is the wonderful woman who offered her home to us. She has a wonderful home in Walton-on-Thames. This is Walton-on-Thames. The river is only 3 blocks away.
London. A view down the Thames
The Tower Bridge, beautiful, isn't it.
This statue is a man who stands there on the river walk. He stands like that all day, for tips
This is a real Bobby. He was standing in front of St. James Palace. We didn't know where we were, so I asked him. He said "London, England" Smarty!

The archetecture in London is amazing. This is just a sample. I took tons of building pictures.
I just love the duck. Right in the middle of the city.

New and old together. This building is called the "gerkin" by the locals.

Tower of London Old and New again. Tower of London and new buildings
Beefeater. And no one knows where that name came from.
Duane and the only female beefeater.


Hampton Court Palace

The refrigerator alley. This was designed so no son reaches the bottom, but the rain does, thus causing natural refrigeration at the bottom.
Wonderful designs on each chimney
Duane "lost" in the maze.
Formal gardens

April 26

We went back to London. It was much easier the second time. We were experts by then. We went again to Waterloo station, but this time we stayed there.

We walked across the pedestian bridge after seeing street performers near the Thames. We walked near Parlament and Big Ben and heard it strike one. We walked towards Westminster Abbey. On the way we found the "Vatican of United Methodist Churches". We went in and saw the great room, the chapel and met with a caretaker who helped Duane look for his relatives in the "book of names" where all Methodists signed up arount 1900.

We then went across the square to Westminster Abby. By then we were too late to get in as tourists, but we were still able to go to evensong at 3pm. Well, instead of being able to see 1/3 of the church as tourists, we got to go into the main part of the church, right where Diana got married. We got to hear the boys choir sing many songs and hymns while we looked around the beautiful church and watched the pidgeons flying around. It was wonderful.

After that we walked and walked. We went toward Buckingham Palace. We saw it and the mall area around it. We then went to St Paul's Palace where Prince Charles and Camilla and the boys live. Then, on the way to Picadilly Circus we passed a sidewalk shopping fair and of course Arleen wanted to go in. In the back of the courtyard where the fair was, was St. Paul's Church. It is a small church, but lovely and they were practicing for the evenings special musical service. So we stayed for a while and listened to different kind of music than we heard before.

So, we walked some more to Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar square. Nothing much there. We then headed back to the train. Nothing is very far away. We walked for about 5 1/2 hours total.

We were tired when we got back. We still have a 35-40 minute walk back from the train station to the house. Rosa cooked for us every day and everything has been wonderful. She is quite a wonderful hostess. We will miss her an awful lot.

HAMPTON COURT, ENGLAND

April 25

We took a bus all over the place to get to Hampton Court, where King Henry VIII lived as well as many other monarchs. We saw his apartments and the King's apartments and the Queen's apartments. Some of the rooms were ornate and some were not, which was surprising.

We took a tour of the royal kitchens. Boy, was that a lot of work to cook for over 600 people at a time, and serve hot food. We also learned that when they made meat pies, the outside pastry was not to be eatten. The pastry was made as a cooking pot for the meat and you were supposed to take the top off and only eat the insides. I think that has gone by the wayside nowadays. We had a pastie, just to try. It was delicious and we ate the whole thing.

Another interesting thing, there is a outside walkway that has no ceiling and is very narrow. It is designed to not let the son enter to the bottom, but it can and does get rained on. What this does is creates a natural refrigerator. So there were "cool Pantries" on both sides of this walkway to keep the stores for the court fresh.

We made our way thru the maze. That of course was fun. We also walked thru some of the formal gardens. By then we were pretty tired.

Took the bus back, even tho it was over 1/2 hour late. We were worried that we weren't in the right place, or something else was wrong, but no, we were ok.

LONDON, ENGLAND

April 24

We took the train to Waterloo station in London. Then we took the Tube to Tower Station. We went to see the Tower of London. We spent almost all day walking around. It was amazing, because it looks just like a castle, because it was one. We, along with costumed leaders, participated in an escape from the tower by a nobleman who was to die the next day. We helped his wife get him out. It was a lot of fun and when it was done, we found out that we had re-enacted a real event. That made it even more fun.

We saw the royal jewels, the 530 carat diamond on the queen's sceptor and lots more. Even tho it usually takes quite a while to get in to see the jewels, we walked right in and could take all the time we wanted to look. Very lucky. This was so even tho the kids were out of school due to a teacher's strike. We also went to the White Tower, where the nobility lived. Then we went into the Bloody Tower, where they kept the prisoners before they killed them. Some people stayed there for many, many years. There are several towers where the prisoners carved grafitti on the walls. Some of them very detailed and beautiful (must have taken a very long time)

If you were a very close friend of the King or Queen, when you were beheaded they did it right there on the grounds of the tower, otherwise you had to go outside the walls and get beheaded in public. So, I guess it was good to be friends with the King.

We saw the tower bridge. And amoungst all these very old buildings we saw the new "gerkin" that is what they call the new glass office building. London is a strange combination of old and new. The architecture of the city is what really is interesting. We have taken (ok, "we" didn't Arleen did) tons of pictures of buildings. Too many, I'm sure, for most people to want to see.

The pictures will be uploaded later, because here in London, we don't have access to the cords we need to upload to the internet. So when we get home we will put the rest of the pictures on. So please check the blog even after we are home.