Enjoying the Journey: Europe

Joel traveled a lot this year. He was away for most of the month of November and when he was gone on my birthday his Client (energy solutions) bought me a ticket to London. I will only go on trips with Joel if he doesn not work. He had finished his work and was able to spend time with me without work for a week.

I flew to Minneapolis and met up with Allison Malouf. Chris Malouf works with Joel and his wife flew out too. It was nice to have her to fly with to London. When we arrived, the meeting spot was not where our husbands were. Joel's cell phone did not have international coverage so he was unreachable. Chris did have coverage on his cell but it was off and on. Allyson and I didn't have cell coverage so we were stuck. We waited and waited but no husbands. Finally we got Allyson's laptop and took it to a cafe where we could get some internet. We tried to email/text Chris, but he didn't answer. 3 hours later we had pretty much talked ourselves into the fact that something was terribly wrong and our husbands were in an accident and were dead somewhere along some road. We were trying to figure out how to call Jason Roberts when Joel walked in the hotel lobby that we were waiting in. It was like slow motion. I grabbed my head and started to cry. He and Chris got off work late and had to drive from Bristles. He thought we were meeting somewhere else and spent about 45 minutes trying to find us. I was never so happy to see my husband...ever!

We drove to our hotel in London and walked around a bit then enjoyed a nice dinner.

The next day we went to Trafalgar Square it is the largest square in London and has been a central meeting place since the Middle Ages.
Trafalgar square also contains a large number of statues and two fountains by Sir Edwin Lutyens, added in 1939. The square is surrounded by many great buildings. On the north side is the neo-classical National Gallery, built between 1834 and 1838. It houses a collection of more than 2300 paintings, including works by van Gogh, Renoir, Leonardo da Vinci and Claude Monet. We toured the National Gallery and saw lots of paintings. It was Ricks College Humanities class all over.

We then went to Westminster Abbey, which is located near the Houses of Parliament, is more a historical site than a religious site. Since 1066 every royal coronation, with the exception of Edward V and Edward VIII has taken place in Westminster Abbey. The abbey also serves as the burial ground for numerous politicians, sovereigns and the abbey is stuffed with tombs, statues and monuments. Many coffins even stand upright due to the lack of space. In total approximately 3300 people are buried in the Church and cloisters. Some of the most famous are Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton and David Livingstone.

We saw Big Ben on the way to Buckingham Palace, which is the Queen's official London residence and is used to receive and entertain guests on state, ceremonial and official occasions for the Royal Family. The palace was originally built in 1705 for the Duke of Buckingham. As we were standing in the front of it some guards asked people to back away from the gates and a security car drove up with a black car driving behind. In the back seat was Prince Charles. A few minutes later a hellicopter took off, I'm sure it was taking Prince Charles somewhere.

We walked through Hyde Park. It was really pretty with all the leaves on the ground. We had great weather the entire time. It wasn't too cold and it never rained.

The guys surprised us and took us to see Phantom of the Opera. This was amazing and I really loved it.

We went to The Tower of London (this was my favorite). It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078, and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new ruling elite. The castle was used as a prison since at least 1100, although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat.
Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the World Wars of the 20th century. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period. We stood at the place where King George executed several wives my beheading. We saw writings on the walls in the prisons that were around the 600AD time frame.

This is the outside wall. Notice the cross bow cut outs.

This is on the inside. They would put their bows through the cut outs and protect the castle.

There were 3 exotic animals in the tower. A polar Bear, Elephant and monkeys.

London Bridge

The white tower

King Arthur's armor

The chapel

Be-heading stone and ax

Changing of the guard in front of the building that holds the crown jewels.

The Queens quarters

This is a picture of the Queens crown I got from the internet. We saw a diamond that was 106 carats. We couldn't take pictures, but the royal archives were pretty amazing. Queen Victoria's crown was there.

We got around by traveling the tube, the underground subway. It was great to pay so little to travel so far. Chris had been to London several times for work and knew his way around pretty well.

We also went to Pica delly Circus. It's much like Times Square in NYC. There were many street performers and interesting people and things to see.

The people is London were very nice. I loved thier accents and the city was cleaner than NYC. It was very european with the cobblestone streets and buildings that are so old.

We flew a short 45 minute flight to Paris. When we arrived it was late at night. We tried to be creative and save money, so we rode a bus that cost like 16 Euro each. It took us to the Arc de Triumph. We got off the bus with all of our luggage and decided to walk the rest of the way. It was about a half mile of so to our hotel.
Once again the streets are cobblestone and very narrow with very tall and old buildings. Window boxes with flowers.

Our hotel was nice and the best part was across the street was a bakery!  Hot Breads and pasteries baked fresh each morning! We were in the land of crepe's and pasteries that are out of this world good.

Our first day in Paris we walked to the Arc. This is a huge round-a-bout in the heart of Paris. We climbed to the top. We saw the tomb of the unknown soldier and the flame that never goes out. Paris is full of statues! Most of which aren't fully clothed. It is also full of Paintings that are of people not fully clothed. We saw enough naked bodies to last a life time.

We walked around the streets and went to some department stores. We walked to the Lourve where we spent the rest of the day. This place was amazing. Originally a royal palace, the Louvre became a public museum at the end of the 18th century.    There are about 35.000 objects on display, spread out over three wings of the former palace. Some of the most famous works of art in the museum are the Venus of Milo, the Nike of Samothrake, the Dying Slave by Michelangelo and of course Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

We saw these bike stationes everywhere and decided to figure out how to ride the bike transportation. The subway isn't very safe. We paid very little and go to ride the bikes for as long as we wanted and we would just return them to a station near the lovation we wanted to go. It was slick and very fun!

The second day we went to the Eifel towerThe Eiffel Tower is one of the most famous structures in the world. It was named after Alexandre Eiffel whose team of engineers designed it. It cost £260,000 to build in 1889 with most of the money being provided by Eiffel himself and the French state. The Eiffel Tower rises to a height of 985 feet and for over forty years it was the highest structure in the world.

We also went to Notre Dame. This was very interesting. It was very dark and gloomy inside, almost scary. Their really are gargoyles on the top that watch the city below. There were actually several "huntch backs". These men got their huntches on their backs by hauling stone to the top of the Cathedral.

We really enjoyed site seeing on our bikes. We rode along the Seine River. We were going to take a boat ride and dinner one night, but ended up so exhausted by the last day we didn't. I also got a head cold the last day and was completely wiped out.

We flew home the next day. we had a great flight that was non stop to SLC. There were many LDS folks on the flight and 5 missionaries going home. It was a 11 hour flight, but we didn't have any problems sleeping for half of it.   We flew into Boise and Coelton picked us up. He did a great job watching the kids and house. The only mishaps was a cracked mirror on the car.