Vacation: July 22nd

One last day in London. We had to make some hard decisions of what of the many sights left to see we would actually squeeze in. Westminster Abbey won out over St. Paul's Cathedral. In the end, the Poet's Corner was just too much of a draw. And look, flying buttresses!
And another photo of the entrance to Westminster. So after we left Westminster, we had to check out the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill. If you've seen the movie Notting Hill, you know that scene where Hugh Grant is walking down the street & the season's change while the song "Aint No Sunshine" is playing in the background... that is the Portobello Road market. Unfortunately for us, we finally got to experience typical London weather... rain.
After the market, we thought, what kind of tourist would we be if we didn't at least see Buckingham Palace? So we took a little stroll over to the Palace. Here's the front gates.
The Queen Victoria memorial.
A closer shot.
And here's Lady Luck right in front of Buckingham Palace.
And Trina taking a picture of one of the guards. There's so much more left to see in London. I'm sure I'll make it back. I mean, I didn't even make it to the British Museum, St. Paul's, The Globe Theater, or Harrod's. Take my advice, 3 days are not nearly enough time.

Vacation: July 21st

After the whirlwind tour the day before, this was the day to see the things that we absolutely HAD to see & do. Well, after you see "the gherkin". I couldn't tell you what this building is actually called. Even the tour guides called it the gherkin. I actually thought it looked more like a Faberge egg.
1st stop was the Tower of London, which just happens to be right beside The Tower Bridge (which I believe I mistakenly called London Bridge before).
This is the view of the Tower as we were about to enter. This is the White Tower. It currently holds lots of armor & stuff like that. It made for a nice tour except the fact that it was very hot that day & really old buildings like this do not have air conditioning.
I wish I could say exactly what building this was. Whatever it is, it's cool.
Looking at my handy little map, I believe this just may be Lanthorn Tower.
A view of Wakefield Tower & The Bloody Tower. The Queen's House is the Tudor style building at the far right.
And here's another photo of the Queen's House. Of course you know, the current Queen does not live here.
Here's one of the ravens that live at the Tower. There's an old saying that as long as the ravens remain at the Tower, the monarchy will stand. And just to make sure that's the case, all the ravens have their wings clipped & 2 remain back in the cage each day.
Here's Trina in her usual position;)
Now because we had to make some decisions, we didn't get to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We did however get to see the changing of the guards at the Waterloo Barracks (which hold the fabulous Crown Jewels).
And because we were so great at timing things, we got to see the military parade in front of the White Tower when we exited the Crown Jewel exhibit.
Just so you know that Trina did more than take photos, here she is without the camera. Probably my favorite part of the Tower was the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist which is located in the White Tower .
And the view in the Chapel looking towards the altar. The sunlight streaming in the windows made this room seem so peaceful.

But this wasn't all we did. It's just all I have photo's of. After leaving the Tower we ate a sandwich at Subway (yes we went to a foreign county & ate at a American chain.. & we did it several more times too... it's just nice & cheap when you're on a budget). Then it was on to The Charles Dickens Museum. It's a bit off the beaten path, so it took us a little while to find it. Trina will tell you that it was worth the time. And yes, even I thought it was nice. Now there was that girl that was carrying around a very old edition of one of his novels clutched to her chest looking at everything in awe that I thought was a little strange (& no it wasn't Trina).

After that we had just enough time to get back to the hotel room to get ready for MARY POPPINS ! I will say that there are some differences from the movies, but the stage version was almost as great as the movie. I only say "almost" because it's really hard to try & replace Julie Andrews & Dick Van Dyke. It's opening on Broadway sometime in the next few months so if you have the chance to see it, definitely go. There's one scene in particular that's amazing but that's all I can say without ruining the surprise.

I Got Them!

Hockey season's just around the corner... and I just received my season tickets! Yeah! I will say there's a difference between being a partial season ticket holder & a full season ticket holder. Last year my tickets were the usual box office tickets held together with a rubber band. This year the tickets are bound together in a book with pictures of the players on the tickets. Just a very nice presentation... if you care about such things & you've probably noticed that I do. But that's not all. I also get to go to a meet the team party & several other nice perks.

I do have to say they did a pretty good job on the photo shop on some of the players. The photo's are all action shots of the players... only Jason Arnott & Josef Vasicek haven't worn a Predators' uniform & yet there they are in Predator's gear. The only reason I really noticed was the helmet on Vasicek's photo just looked a little weird.

Vacation: July 20th

Our 1st full day in London & we did what all 1st time visitors to the city do (& I highly recommend it). We took a sightseeing tour of the city. There are a couple of big companies that use the double decker buses. We used the The Original Tour. For one ticket, you have access to 4 different tour routes plus a river cruise. You can hop on & off of any bus for 24 hours. It's Big Ben!... oh &Parliament too.
And here's Trina taking photo's of Big Ben.
And here's Lady Luck showing off in front of the London Eye. We didn't actually ride it because... well... I have a little fear of heights & one rotation of this thing take 30 minutes.
The dome in the back is St. Paul's Cathedral. And the rest is um... stuff around St. Paul's. All I know is that every time I see it, I start humming the Birdlady song from Mary Poppins.
The Tower of London. I'll have more pictures of this on the post for the 21st.
London Bridges. For some reason, when I wasn't singing the Birdlady song, I was singing the Clash's "London Calling".
I have to confess the rest are photo's that Trina took. This is Big Ben from the bus as we were going across the Thames. While we were on the bus, my batteries died & my back-up rechargeable batteries weren't actually charged. So until we found a Boot's & batteries, I was camera-less. What's Boots, you ask? Think Walgreen... & just like Walgreens, they're everywhere except they have a really good sandwich, chips, & drink deal.. & the sandwiches weren't bad.
a statue of Sir Winston Churchill.
The Lions at Trafalgar Square. And yes, I believe that's a bit of construction going on. Although it could've just been part of the set up in the Square for a big show they broadcasted on Saturday night on the BBC. They set a world record for the most different kinds of dancing done simultaneously... or something like that. Trina & I actually walked by while they were taping but we had some very important magnet shopping to do so we didn't stay too long.
Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery in the background. It was so hot that I did squeeze in & put my feet in the fountain late in the day. We got to see a lot of beautiful paintings in the National Gallery. The Monet's were wonderful. Unfortunately the room with the Van Gogh's was being remodeled. So there's something to look forward to in the next trip. On of the dragon's leading into the City of London. You should know that London is actually made up of a lot of smaller communities. Only part of London is truly London. If the dragon is facing you, you are entering the city. If you see it's tail, then you are leaving the city.
And last, here's one of the buses that we traveled on. I had heard before I left that London had done away with all the open air double decker buses and was sad that we would miss that. I soon discovered that it was just the city buses that no longer are open.

Guess what tomorrow is?

It's the start of Predators' training camp!!!!

So what have the Predators done during the offseason. Let's see...

1. Made a huge (literally & figuratively) free agent signing in center Jason Arnott.=)
2. Traded Scott Walker:( for another big center Josef Vasicek.
3. Resigned Marek Zidlicky to a 4 year deal.
4. Also resigned Martin Erat, Scotty Upshall, Scott Hartnell, Jordin Tootoo, Chris Mason, Jerred Smithson, Vernon Fiddler, and David Legwand.
5. Said good-bye to the team captain Greg Johnson:( as well as Mark Eaton, Adam Hall (sorry Michelle), Yanic Perreault, Danny Markov, Mike Sillinger, and Brendan Witt.
6. Out of the blue, signed JP Dumont after Buffalo walked away from arbitration.
7. Tomas Vokoun was cleared to play & signed the largest contract in Predators (short) history.
8. David Legwand finally had the ACL surgery he needed... after playing the last part of last season with it torn. Rehab looks to be going well.

And now they just have to have the following questions answered.

1. Can they get Dan Hamhuis re-signed? please, please, please
2. Who will be the next team captain?
3. Will all the new guys mesh well with the old guys?
4. Will the number of forwards & potential rookie phenom Alexander Radulov force the team to trade away someone?
5. How will the extremely young but very talented defense play?

Oh I'm excited! Preseason in the NHL is much different than the NFL. They'll be playing their first game this Sunday. The first game that I get to see is a week from Saturday.

Rock Star: Supernova

Finale tonight. Looks like I was a little mistaken on the final 3. Somehow Toby snuck in there over Magni (who had become my favorite over the last few weeks.. oh well). But in the end it was Lukas. The strange thing was that tonight his vocals were probably the weakest of the 4 that performed. But once he was named the winner & was singing with the band... he was a very good fit. Now I have to decide if I want to spend my money on a Supernova album/download.

9/11

I keep reading articles & seeing news reports that tell us "to always remember". I have to ask, how can I ever forget? There are very few days in my life that are seared into my brain in their entirety. Most days I do good to remember a moment out of a day. But I can remember where I was, who I talked to, & what I did from the moment I arrived at work & heard the news until I finally fell asleep in my tears at 3 AM. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

So what I'll ask is not to always remember but to always pray. Pray for the families of these people to find comfort & solace. Pray for the military, firefighters, and police to be vigilant & safe. Pray for the leaders of the world to be wise & understanding. Pray for our enemies to have a change of heart. And then if you just have no idea what to pray about next, just remember Romans 8:26...

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

Old 'Blood & Guts'

I know it's not Memorial Day or anything, but I read an article in the paper this morning about a World War II veteran that made me cry. Go here to read it yourself.

Vacation: July 19th

It's amazing how much you can do before noon if you try. We knew we had to be checked out of our hotel room by 12, which was good timing because that was just about the time we needed to head to the airport. Somehow we were able to have a nice breakfast, take a trip to Prazsky Hrad (Prague Castle), go back by the old town square, buy some souvenirs, get lost, and still make it back to the hotel with enough time to get the souvenirs packed and check out before noon. So here's some of the photos I took that day. The view from our hotel room. A cute narrow little park. I loved the brick design on the sidewalk.
The castle is on top of a nice little hill (which is always the most logical place to build a castle). But that meant we had to get up that hill. Even though Cindy had given us directions on how to get to the top of the hill on the trams, we decided to walk up the old castle steps. At that point in the morning it wasn't too hot. Plus the view we had of the city was wonderful. This was right at the entrance to the castle. England's not the only place that have guards stationed outside the gates. Apparently they have a changing of the guard ceremonies too but we didn't have a chance to see it. Yes that's a sunflower growing out of the wall of the castle. It's currently the wallpaper on my computer.
And a view of the city from the castle.
And another view.
A view of the bridges over the Vltava.
Inside the castle is an area called Zlata Ulicka (Golden Lane). This was the one place in Prague that I knew I absolutely had to see. These are small homes built into the wall of the castle in the 16th century. If you look at the top of the homes, you can see the grey castle wall. They are now used as little tourist shops. I bought some wonderful soap in one of them.
My second most favorite building in all of Prague. And here's Trina (in the shadows) taking pictures.
A view down Golden Lane.
And now on to the rest of the castle. I wish I could remember what this building was...
Look.. it's flying buttresses ! Any way, Trina & I were excited to see them. And the required bit of construction. Katedrala sv. Vita (St Vitus's Cathedral) is breathtaking.
Looking straight up at the cathedral.
Beautiful mosaics at an entrance to the cathedral.
Another view of the cathedral. On my next visit, I have to go inside!
Another pretty building in the castle. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of this one either. I guess that's what happens when you are on a very tight schedule.
Anther pretty building.
Ok, I was very sad to see later that I had not taken any photos of Lady Luck in Prague (I guess that's one more reason to go back). So instead, I'm showing a photo of Trina walking on the cobblestone sidewalk somewhere in or around the castle(& just a little bit of the cobblestone road at the upper right).

So all of that was done before noon. After lunch we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our flight to London Gatewick was uneventful. Customs between EU countries was very easy. So easy that if you have nothing to declare then you don't even have to talk to human being. We found our way to the train to take us into the city. Once at Victoria station we stumbled around until we found the Underground.

A short time later, we found our hotel, the Ambassadors in Bloomsbury. And wouldn't you know it... the hotel was undergoing a renovation! Luckily, the room had already been renovated and was very nice with good AC... and thanks to AAA, the cost was pretty reasonable for a hotel in London. After we got showers (since we happened to arrive in London on one of the hottest days in London history & were drenched in sweat), we headed out to explore the Bloomsbury neighborhood. And it truly was hot... if I remember correctly it was in the high 90s, which is hot even for this southern girl.

UPDATE: Trina reminded me that we did actually have to talk to human while going through customs. It was just so brief that I had forgotten about it. For some reason Trina had a harder time talking to security so she probably has a better memory of that. I was only remembering the part after whe talked to the man & had to decide which line to enter depending on where we had been. That was the part where we didn't have to talk to anyone.