Buckingham Palace

Of course we tried to visit the Queen. She wasn't home. We were hoping to stop in for a spot of tea but those darn guards were really blocking the doors! It's quite a production to see the "changing of the guard". We arrived early and had a great view from the castle gate.

The Queen's Walk

If you ask Lilly what she did in London she would tell you that she got to walk on the same street where the Queen of England goes for her walk. It was a very dirty walk. Garbage was everywhere and we could not figure out why. Later we learned that they do not have garbage cans in London because of the terrorist threats. Needless to say this is a huge problem. People just set their garbage on any level space and hope that the poor street sweepers will clean it up!

London Eye

Our first time into London was at night. We took a ride on the London Eye and had a birds eye view of many amazing landmarks like Big Ben, The House of Parliament & Westminister to name a few. They were practicing for New Years Eve and had countdown lights along with music piped all over the square. It was fun to see all of the excitement, but not have to be there on New Year's Eve. It was already way too crowded for us.

White Cliffs of Dover

First stop was to see the White Cliffs of Dover. None of us really knew anything about the cliffs, but Taylor had been "talking it up" so we took a little detour. They are a beautiful backdrop to a very rugged ocean. It was cold and windy and we were very glad that we didn't take the ferryboat. Found a terrific local fish & chips joint for dinner. It was amazing to actually order our food without any difficulty...we understood every word they spoke!

Eurostar

Today I'm playing "catch up" and trying to finish documenting our Christmas vacation. We left Germany on the night train and arrived in Paris at 9am. Everyone slept much better on the second train. We had parked our car in the Gare de Nord station so we hauled all of our luggage down several flights of stairs (the elevator was broken!), piled into the van and started our journey to England. While driving we saw two different rainbows...we truly felt like we were "somewhere under the rainbow". We arrived at the English Channel just in time to catch the next Eurostar "chunnel train" to England. It's a very slick way to travel. You drive up, pay your fee, drive through a security check & passport control and then onto the train (see photo below). Photos are not allowed in the train as they can inadvertently start the fire alarm. We had to roll our car windows down half-way, sit back and enjoy the ride. It was quick. We went under the water and popped up in England in about 25 minutes! Isn't modern technology amazing? How did they possibly conceive the idea that you could travel in a tunnel under water? Incredible!

La Danse (Dance)

Friday is la danse day. I was invited to join a group of french women in their dance class. It takes place at Celine DePoorter's home. None of us are especially coordinated, but we have a lot of fun. Our instructor, Charlotte, is British and she can really move. I think she could hit it big on "Dancing with the Stars". Today we did the marengo, disco, hip-hop and cha cha. This is a major stretch for me, but I don't really care. This entire experience in France has been a stretch and it feels good to get out of my comfort zone!

Supermarché (Supermarket)

I finally hit the "jackpot" at the supermarché. Yesterday I discovered the HYPER Casino. This is a major breakthrough in grocery shopping. Since our arrival in France I have struggled to find a grocery store that makes sense. The Carefour is WAY TOO BIG (bigger than a SuperWal*mart!) and the Champion is way too crowded (there is often a 25 minute wait at the check-out). I simply had to drive the other direction to find the Casino. Funny how changing directions can open up a whole new world (city in my case). Usually it is a 20 minute drive to the supermarché, but the Casino is only 8 minutes away. It does require driving onto the toll road which means a quick stop (see picture of yellow toll booth below) and a 30 cent charge each direction, but it's worth it! One funny thing about shopping here is the extremely small packaging. For instance you can only buy flour in 1 kg bags. When you are cooking for a family of 6 a 1kg bag of flour is enough to just dust the pans.