ENGLAND ~ London, Southampton, Bath, Portsmouth

On Friday, July 17 we had plans to to to England for a four day trip since Stig had Monday and Tuesday off for a Belgian holiday. When Stig came home to the apartment on Thursday evening there was a parking space right in front of our apartment. So instead of parking in the garage he decided to use that space so that we could load our luggage directly into the car from our apartment that evening. I however did not have everything packed early enough to load it into the car so we just had it sitting by the door and decided we would load it when he picked us up at noon after working a 1/2 day. On Friday morning as Stig was leaving for work he discovered that our company car had been broken into. The little triangular window on the driver side was smashed out and the entire car had been gone through. They were probably looking for the GPS that Stig had taken inside the apartment! SHEW! The thieves came up empty handed aside from the gas card they stole which was cancelled immediately. Stig had to call the police to report the theft and they only spoke FRENCH, so with his limited abilities in French he did figure out that they were asking him to bring the car to them to file the report. Amazingly enough, he was able to get the car to the police and then to the window repair and fixed in time to pick us up at the original departure time of 12 noon!

Now, we are off to England! Let me just back up and share with you about telling the girls our plans for this trip. We had decided to keep our trip to England as a "special surprise". On Thursday morning Stig dropped the girls and I off at our new church so that I could type the bulletin and do some other admin work for the church. The Pastor greeted the girls at the door and said, "so I hear you are going on another trip"! The girls looked perplexed and he realized that he was about to spill the beans on a surprise, but at least he had not mentioned the destination! So it was still a surprise as far as where we were going. Then that evening Stig decided to mention to me that my phone charger would not work in ENGLAND! Yep, he spilled the beans right in front of Elena! She was so excited and started jumping up and down. It actually ended up being a great way to share our surprise. Now the girls were so excited that they had no problem helping mommy get their bags packed for this new adventure.

We drove from Brussels to France to board the Euro-tunnel. We had to show our passports at the gate and then continued through and drove right onto the train! It was so cool. They line the cars up inside the train car as close as they can get and you can either stand next to your car or just sit inside it for the 35 minute ride under the ocean over to England! When we arrived in England the doors opened and we drove off and headed to the highway, and yes, we made sure that we were driving on the LEFT!

We arrived at our Marriott hotel outside of London after a very long drive in a lot of traffic. It was nice to get out of the car and freshen up for dinner. We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. They had a good children's buffet and a buffet for grown-ups too, but too many beef products, so I ordered a pizza. The restaurant was pretty nice and our room was great. After dinner we took the girls to the indoor swimming pool and that was a lot of fun. They really had fun when daddy decided to get in and throw them around the pool!

On Friday morning we went down for breakfast in the same restaurant which was again buffet style. We couldn't eat fast enough to get out of there! There were a lot of families there because Lego Land was close by and those British children were WILD! We could not believe so many parents were just sitting there and letting their children run around the restaurant and act like they were on a playground. ICK!

After breakfast we took the hotel shuttle bus to the airport to get on the Metro. This was a bit of an adventure trying to figure out exactly what to do and how to do it! Stig had asked for directions to the British Museum but when we arrived at our stop we had ended up at the Museum of Natural History. We did go inside, but it was not holding the attention of Adriana or Isabella or myself for that matter! So we decided to leave and when we went outside it was a gorgeous day. I decided that I would rather just walk around London than be inside. We started off down the street and saw a stopped double-deck tour bus. Stig asked the driver how much it would be so that we could go for a tour. The driver did not have any change for our money so we were not going to be able to take a tour. The driver said, "Oh, just get on"! He let us on for FREE!!!! He even gave us the headphones to plug in and take a tour. We were so excited about his generosity and gave him a nice tip. It was really fun to ride on the top of the bus and site-see. When we got off of the bus the driver directed us to the common tourist sites. We walked to see Buckingham Palace, West Minster Abbey, Big Big, The Thames River, The London Eye and many more points of interest. It was an awesome day. We went back to the hotel, had dinner and again, the girls wanted to go swimming, but it was 9:30 and Stig and I were really tired. I did decide to let them go for a short time. The girls were so well behaved and got out of the pool the instant that I gave them my hand signal that it was time to go! I was so proud of my well behaved girls after seeing all of those wild children in the hotel!

On Saturday, we went to breakfast, then packed up our things to leave them in our car while we went back into London. Again, we took the hotel shuttle (not free) to the airport to get the Metro into London. This time we did get off at the correct stop for the British Museum, but the signs were difficult to follow and we ended up walking for 45 minutes trying to locate the museum. Once we arrived it was really wonderful. We went to see the Egyptian Mummy exhibit. While looking at the "mummy's" Isabella said, "this one is a Daddy, because he has a beard". We were all cracking up! We then saw a man that had been very well preserved by the sand and still had skin and even a bit of hair on his scalp. Although he was well preserved he did have some missing finger parts. Again, Isabella cracked us up, she said "aw, he bit his finger off"! I think Elena could have stayed at the museum reading each and every exhibit for hours. While at the museum she decided that she would like to be an archaeologist when she grows up. Again, the museum was losing the allure with Adriana, Isabella and myself. Probably because we were getting so hungry. We left the museum in search of lunch. We ended up at a Pizzeria called Pizza Express that has been in business since 1965 ~ we were NOT so impressed. There were about 3 "drops" of cheese on mine and Isabella's CHEESE pizza. We looked at it and Stig said to the waiter, "is there cheese under the sauce"? The waiter replied "no, would you like more cheese"? Um, yea! Are you kidding? It is supposed to be a CHEESE pizza. He took it back and returned with about 6 more "drops" of cheese. Okay, I am so hungry....just give me the sauce pizza. (We didn't actually say any of this to the waiter, we just smiled and nodded and said thank you.) After getting some food in our stomachs we decided to go back to the museum. We saw the Rosetta Stone and many, many more amazing things. All in all it was a good day. We rode the Metro and shuttle back to our car and headed off for Southampton England.

As we arrived at our next destination the Meon Valley Marriott, there was a sign that said BEWARE OF GOLFERS! Funny sign! The hotel was very weird. It was broken up into several different floors and was very random. They had luggage carts in the lobby, so Stig brought one out to the car and loaded up. When we pushed it into the lobby the desk girl said, "we don't have an elevator going to your floor." Huh? No elevator, how are we supposed to get all of this stuff for five people up to the "sixth" floor? It wasn't really six full flights, but still. The hotel staff carried our stuff up for us since we were a bit dumbfounded and tired from a very long day. This hotel is like a maze, you actually go down some steps to go down a hall to go back up more steps to get to the room. So weird! Another nice side note...NO AIR CONDITIONING! We had to sleep with the windows open and a group of golfing buddies partied in the room below us until about 3 am with their windows open too! Guess that is what the sign meant by BEWARE OF GOLFERS! LOL

The next day we went to see Stone Henge. It was awesome. The girls really seamed to enjoy listening to the audio tour and learning about this historical site. After walking around the site and listening to the tour we got the girls an ice cream cone. We then went for a walk in the pasture surrounding the site that had some burial mounds that we could walk over and see. We then went into the pasture with the sheep. As we were entering the pasture there was a sign on the gate that had a cartoon picture of a sheep laying on its back, legs in the air. It read, "I am heavily pregnant and have fallen over, please help me up or call this number". We thought it was a joke, but there was an actual number to call the farmer! We headed off into the pasture and there was so much poop to avoid that I was about to have an anxiety attack! (Yes, if you know me well, you know I do not like to get "dirty".) As we approached the end of our walk near the parking lot, there were people SITTING in the pasture having a PICNIC. Two different families. When we finally got to our car I said to Stig, "would you want to sit out there and eat"? He said, "are you kidding? NO." I said, "I love you, you are the perfect husband for me"! Guess who ended up with poop on their shoes after diligently shouting to everyone how to avoid the piles? You guessed it...ME! UGH!

We left Stone Henge and headed off to Bath England. Beautiful scenery on our drive. Bath is a very cute town and is the location of some awesome Roman Baths. We ate some lunch/dinner and then headed off to the Roman Bath Museum. It is just so interesting to see the engineering that went into this so many years ago. The water is from a natural spring that is about 80 degrees. We were awe struck. Again, the girls enjoyed listening to an audio tour. They even had one that was special for children and asked questions for them to answer which kept their attention and helped them to learn at the same time.

On Tuesday, we packed up our things and headed off to Portsmouth England. We saw the HMS Victory ship and decided to tour the Mary Rose shipwreck remains that are in the process of being preserved. After viewing the actual ship remains, we went into the museum where we even met one of the divers that found the Mary Rose. The Mary Rose was commissioned by Henry VIII and was a battle ship for 35 years before sinking.

Now, back to the Euro-tunnel and back to Belgium. We had a busy weekend and a busy day following our weekend trip. Our final shipment arrived from the U.S. was delivered on Wednesday, July 22.