Kensington Palace...Not so Great

Week 4 has come to an end. We have decided we better fine tune our planes to visit areas outside the city before its too late. Within the next month or so we plan on visiting Edinburgh Scotland, and Brussels Belgium.

This weekend we visited Kensington Palace which was once a royal residence and was mainly used as the home for the lesser important royals. We got in free because we got a membership at the Tower of London that lets in free to a whole bunch of places. The Palace is not worth the actual cost to get in. Many of the rooms are bare so it does not look that impressive. There is also not really that much to see. The park around the palace is another story. That is very nice and we have actually been several times. Morgan really enjoyed the play ground.

We also had the opportunity to go to an Indian restaurant Friday night. They were not happy to see the kids and we were a little under dressed for the restaurant. We had originally planned on trying fish and chips when we left the flat. I have no idea what I ate or what it was called but I ate it just the same.

This week I experimented with our web cam and you tube. It takes alot of effort to put a video together so I think I will just do it once a month.



Click here to see the normal slide show

London Week 4

More about Food

This weekend we went to the Natural History Museum. They have dino bones and other animal exhibts. Morgan had fun and it was free. During lunch we went to a Chinese buffet called the paper tiger. It was awful and the place should be condemned. You have to walk down these small steep slippery steps. the ceiling height is like 6'1 and in some places there are beams that go even lower.

We tried spotted dick and that will be the last time we will try that. It was like mushy eggy mess. Gross! Katie tried to make chocolate chip cookies and they didn't come out right. We used brown sugar but found the consistency of the sugar to be odd. Brown sugar here is natural cane sugar not sugar with molasses. They call our brown sugar something else. We had a hard time finding it too. We ended up at a whole foods near Kensington Palace. They had several hard to find US products such as the brown sugar, maple syrup, molasses, dairy free products, and pretzels. Yes Pretzels are hard to come by! We also bought a Steak and kidney pie. We have yet to try it.

On Sunday's there are some really good markets on brick lane and spitfields. They sell just about everything you could think off from fruits and veggies, power tools, cleaning supplies, clothing, nic nacs, bread, shoes, dvds, electronics, watches and the list goes on. Some of it is just a big garage sale with people trying to sell their used junk. Other parts are all brand new stuff. We've been buying our produce there as it is really cheap and fresh. 6 pounds bought us all our produce for the week. Not bad!

We also found that our local McDonald's has free Wifi so we should be able to use our web cam now. If anyone wants to try and schedule a call so we can try it out on the weekend let us know.

Here are some pics to enjoy.

The Tower of London

Week 2 has come to and end. This weekend we visited the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, The science museum, and we went on a double decker bus. The tube was partially down for maintenance for the weekend. We didn't realize it until it was too late and we got out at a tube station without any clue as to were we were. An employee of the tube told us to get on a bus to take us to the DLR (dockway light railway) We got on the bus and found it to be really cool and scary. It felt like we were going to hit several cars. When we got the DLR the main entrance was blocked off for maintenance and we didn't know were to go. We eventually figured it out and made it to the Tower.

The guide books say leave 3 hrs for the tower. We spent nearly the whole day there. We also found that if you buy an annual membership you get free admintance to the tower along with several other historical sites we intend to visit anyway.

I'm also experimentating with YouTube. I plan on making a video of the best slides like Jay did when he went to Japan. Should be exciting. Next weekend we plan to hit up some more free museums.

Good Fun!

London week 2

More Food Please

Everything is the same but different in the UK. You can get just about everything you want, but it just a little different. For example...



Notice the shape of the bottles. That is so they fit in the door of the fridge.

We have also had the opportunity to eat some local cuisine. We had sausage wrapped in a pastry. Morgan loved it but I thought it not that great. We had bangers and mash. Sausage and mashed potatoes. Not so great. I've been to the local Pret Manager which is a sandwich place. Its good and the prices are not really that bad.

We also bought some British candy. Now the Brits love their candy. We've been to the grocery store several times and the candy section is larger then the meat section and it is super busy. Explains the bad teeth I guess. I brought cheap American candy with me to share with the gang. They went crazy over it.

We bought what is called a flake bar. Its flaky milk chocolate. It wasn't worth the money.

The Cheese Smuggler

The company allowed me to ship a few boxes ahead of my trip. Its ment for personal effects in my cube and supplies I can't get here that I might need. We packed a few food items as well in the mix. Well I shipped the boxes out over a week ahead of me. When I arrived they were not here. Instead I got a letter saying some of the items I had shipped had been seized by UK customs. I had packed just enough powdered cheese for making macaronni and cheese to reach their limit of so many grams. The next box had tuna fish in it and your not allowed to ship any fish. My toothpaste was also missing as well. So why ship tuna you ask? There tuna is packed in brine not water. The powdered cheese was more of a "well we have room why not"

Oh well so in an effort to save some money I lost out and those items were "distroyed" My guess is some bloke is eating my tuna fish and crappy cheese right now. Then brushing thier teeth with my toothpaste. Speaking of which most brits have lovely teeth but there are some classic british smiles out there. SCARY!


Here are some more pictures that have nothing to do with cheese!

London week 2 Mid

I see British people.

Katie and I were sitting on the couch late the other night and it was very quite. I was thinking of that movie with Bruce Willis and the kid who sees dead people. Anyway I leaned over and in a scary whisper said "I see British people"

Now for something completely different!

Our first weekend has come and gone and we have some great pictures and memories to share. It really made up for the horrible first week we had trying to get settled into things. We mainly stuck around the high tourist stuff this time out.

The Tube (subway) is very easy to use. Its very similar to the T in the way its laid out, and no were near as confusing as NY. We bought Oyster cards which save us money on the tube. They have all sorts of deals and even great deals for tourists if you come and visit. We got the pay as you go cards. You load up the card with money then just swipe it when you enter and leave a station and it automatically deducts it from the card. They give you a huge discount on the rate and they also put a daily cap on how much they will charge you in a day. So at the most I won't pay over something like 4 quid (pounds (like dollars)) to travel in a day. The unfortunate part is that we are directly in between two tube stops and it takes about ten minutes to walk to the bethnal green stop. The old st stop takes even longer but it is a more direct line into the city. On the flip side Morgan and Gwen are free as long as they are with one of us. I can't imagine letting Morgan go alone anyway. That would just be crazy.

So check out the slide show. Its about 55 images so it will take awhile.

Week1

The Flat

Finally you get to see some pictures of the flat. Click on the image below to see the slideshow in all its glory. Where located on the fourth floor which is labeled as the third when you take the lift (elevator) because the ground floor is not 1 it is the 0 floor. Confusing yes! If you look at the picture we are on the corner on the far right.

The flat was very dirty when we first moved in. The floors needed a good wash, the walls needed to be repainted (emulsified), some things were broken, and there was mildew around the windows. It also did not have many kitchen tools to cook a proper meal. For example there is nothing to use in the oven in order to bake or broil with. I did make some jacket potatoes (baked potato) as they did not need any special tools. The company did send in a cleaner and painted some of the walls. They are also working on getting more kitchen tools as well. We are starting to settle in finally.

FLAT

The old Homestead!

So I thought since we won't see the house for 6 months why not take some pics to remember her by. Plus you guys might be interested too. Double click on the image to open the slide show.

15 Turnpike rd