Off to the Mediterranean...

At the moment, we are packing for our first big trip while being in London.  Tomorrow morning we leave for Rome, and then we are taking a 10-day Mediterranean Cruise.  We will be in Rome for 2 nights, then we travel to Cinque Terra (Italy), Nice (France), Barcelona (Spain), Ibiza (Spain), Tunis (Tunisia), Naples (Italy), Ajaccio (Corsica) and return to Rome on Aug 10th.  We are going to be on the brand new Celebrity Silhouette, which was just launched on July 23rd (we are the 2nd voyage for the ship).  I doubt I will have any new posts while on the cruise, but will definitely post pictures as soon as possible.

Here is a picture of the ship that I found online

Rubbing Elbows and the Palace

On Saturday, we met up and had dinner with our friend Erik and his friends David and Sebastian.  After dinner, we made it to a couple of bars and then decided to go to a private members club called The Groucho Club that Sebastian is a member of.  In London, there are several of these clubs wherein you have to be a member in order to gain access, and The Groucho Club was started for people in the arts and media.  Inside, there were a couple of bars, a restaurant and several bedrooms. It was very interesting and the crowd was very eclectic.  After we were there for a little bit, we all looked up and suddenly Rufus Wainwright walked in.  For those of you who don't know him, he is a singer/songwriter who is probably best known for his song "Complainte De La Butte" on the Moulin Rouge Soundtrack (the french song).  We were all very happy to see him, and even got to meet him as he was leaving...no, we weren't stalking.

Last night, we went to Buckingham Palace and took a tour.  During the summer when the Queen is not in residence, they open the Palace to tourists.  You can either take tours during the day, or you can choose to take a semi private evening tour.  What is great about the evening tours is that it is limited to 30 people you have a guide, and you don't have to wait in the long lines (our guide told us that on average there is about 5000 people per day that visit the Palace).  We were able to see all 19 State Rooms, and also 2 special exhibits....The Royale Faberge Collection and Kate's wedding dress.  The dress was displayed in the Royal Ball Room, and it was great to be able to see it up close...it really is quite beautiful.  At the end of the tour, we were all given a glass of champaigne which we enjoyed on the terrace overlooking the Royal Gardens.  It was a brilliant tour and evening....unfortunately, they didn't allow us to take pictures.  

Last night...

Looked out the window of our flat, and there was the biggest and clearest rainbow that we have ever seen.  :-)

Trip to Bath

Not only are we trying to see as much of London as we possibly can, but we are also trying to see a lot of the UK as well.  On Saturday, we decided to get a train and go out to Bath in Summerset, which is about an hour and a half west of London.  As you can see from the picture below, it was rainy and kinda cold (yes, I'm wearing a jacket and a long sleeve t-shirt in the middle of July).  It is true that the English weather is not all that warm.  In fact, we only have really had about half a dozen days where we could actually wear shorts.  We now know why everyone was looking at us as if we were crazy when we kept asking for a flat with air conditioning...you never really get a chance to use it here. 

  

The Royal Crescent...you can't really tell from the picture, but this row of flats are in a shape of a half moon.  It's actually quite impressive, and they say it is one of the best examples of Georgian Archetecture in the country.  The picture really doesn't do it justice 



Here is a better picture of The Royal Crescent that I found on the web.

Three Blind Mice

Last night, Darrel and I went to see Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap.  It is the longest running play ever, and as you can see from above it has been around for 59 years.  Opening night for the play was on November 25, 1952 (at the Ambassador Theater next door) and it transferred to The St Martins Theater on March 23rd, 1974.  It was good, but we both think that the reason for the longevity of the play is because of it's longevity.  However, it was interesting to see such a staple of London's West End.

Harry Potter Mania

The British have many national treasures...and Harry Potter is definitely one of them.  All week long  newscasters have been talking about the World Premier of the final film taking place here in London tonight.  For the Premier, a red carpet starts in Trafalgar Square, wraps itself around the National Gallery and ends at one of the cinemas in Leicester Square (the length is probably 2-3 football fields long).  Also, a gate was erected around the whole square, and organizers were handing out around 3000 wristbands to people letting them into this gated area.  What is crazy is that people have been camping out in the square since Monday, in hopes to get a wristband. 

No, I didn't get a wristband...I managed to make my way up to the National Gallery to take these pictures :-)

The Castle, Whiskey and a Queen

This past weekend, we took the train up to Edinburgh, Scotland....the English countryside is beautiful! 

Berwyck upon Tweed...a small town we went through right before we got to Edinburgh.

We left London at Noon and arrived in Edinburgh 4 1/2 hrs later...

On Saturday, we got up and ventured up to the Castle. As you can see from the pictures below, it is set high up on a hill/cliff, and overlooks the whole city. 

The front gate of the Castle

St. Margaret's Chapel...the oldest building on
the grounds of the Castle and in Edinburgh. 
It was built around 1130.

The back of the National Shrine...inside it names the scottish soldiers killed in WWI and in later conflicts.

The front of The National Shrine

Since we arrived in Scotland, I wanted to find a place to try some different Scotches (a little side note...in Scotland they don't call it Scotch, they just call it Whiskey).  After our trip up to the Castle and lunch, we did find a place offering tours called The Scotch Whiskey Experience.  It was more of a tourist trap (if you couldn't tell by the name), fairly expensive and you only were able to try 1 whiskey.  However, they did have a restaurant and bar in the same complex...so instead of taking their tour, we just went to their bar and had our own little tasting.  They had probably over a hundred different kinds of Whiskeys, and we had the bartender gives us tastings of the ones she thought we'd like.  We tried 5 different ones, and it was a really great way to try some we had never heard of before.

On Sunday, we had some time to kill before we had to be at the train station and decided just to walk around seeing more of the city...

The Royal Mile (aka High Street) leading up to the Castle

St Giles' Cathedral

Inside St Giles

During our trek, we stumbled upon this church...

What is so special about this Church you might ask?  Well, we were thinking the same thing.  It was odd because the church had policeman in front checking id's and names of those trying to enter.  Also, you can somewhat see all the petitions being set up in the picture. 

Well, an hour later we had our answer...

That's right...we found ourselves about 6 feet away from the Queen!!!  We had heard on the news that she was in Edinburgh a couple of days before to open the Scottish Parliament.  What we didn't know is that she was staying  for the week and that we happened to be at her church at the perfect time :-)  We couldn't have planned it any better. 

We were very lucky not only because we got to see the Queen, but also because the whole time we were up in Scotland it never rained. If you know Scotland, you know that it rains probably 85% of the time. So our track record of bringing good weather is still with us ;-) 

We had a brilliant weekend, and hope to get back up to Scotland again.

Miss Jackson If You Are Nasty

Last night, Darrel and I were able to get tickets to Janet at the Royal Albert Hall.  It was her #1's Tour and last night was the first night of 3 that she is doing here in London.  In fact, it was the first time in 13 years that she has played a concert in the UK, and it was really great...for the most part.  The only problem we had was that it was too short, and there happened to be an intermission that was too long which was a little odd.  It was one of the first rock/pop concerts that we've been to that actually had an intermission, and we wondered if she had done an intermission with all her shows in the States or rather it was something new that happens here in the UK.  Even though the show was short, we still loved it and thought that it was quite brilliant. :-)