Coming Home!

This will be our last post *sniff sniff*. We are packing up our stuff (again) and about to head out on our long journey home! We are heading to Dusseldorf tonight and back to Vancouver for Wednesday morning :) I doubt that we will have Wifi anywhere between here and home so I thought I would wrap things up today.

Thanks to everyone who was following our blog and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Our 4 week European Adventure was just that - an adventure!! It was super fun and we both had an amazing time!

Here are some of our favorites!

Taryn's Fav Hotel: Hotel Alexis in Rome - super big room and super big shared bathroom!
Brad's Fav Hotel: Hotel Mercurio in Venice - not having to share a bathroom!

Taryn's Fav Moment: Going up the Eiffel Tower! It was such a process getting up there and then we got up to the top for the perfect time! Sunset! It was great!

Brad's Fav Moment: Spending time with Uncle Rossano in Pescina but especially the breakfast with him before we left for Scanno

Taryn's Fav City: CAN'T CHOOSE!!! But not Venice... I wasn't a fan.
Brad's Fav City: Italian cities (minus Venice) for the Food, Paris for the sights, London for the English speaking

Taryn's Least Fav Moment: When I realized that I didn't have my passport :( followed closely by walking through Venice at 2am....
Brad's Least Fav Moment: Trying to drive to Marco Polo Airport at midnight on Italian backroads so that we could return the car on time.

Taryn's Funniest Moment: The disorganization of most of Italy - especially the Ciampino Airport bus!
Brad's Funniest Moment: Uncle Rossano trying to explain why we aren't married to the Italian relatives!

Taryn's Fav Attraction: Tower of London because I super enjoyed the Yeoman tour and it was one of the first things that we saw.

Brad's Fav Attraction: "Because I have already done everything, I think it would have to be driving on the Italian highways.  It's something few people get to do and the Italian countryside is very beautiful... in the day light"

Most Overrated attraction: Oxford Street in London. Both of us agree... total waste of time!! Nothing gained culturally or otherwise. Also, the food in Venice was overrated.

Something that we wanted to do but didn't get to:
Taryn: Swim in the Mediterranean
Brad: See the Macario Brother's house in Scanno

Overall we had an AWESOME trip (despite bad-ness in the last couple of days). It was great and I can't wait to come back! Thanks SO MUCH to Iain for letting us stay at his place and thanks to his flat-mates for putting up with us :D

Palaces and Pomp

Because of our "extra" time here in London we were able to check out MORE royal stuff :) We headed to Windsor for the day to look at the castle and check out the town! Lucky for us it was a weekend and the Queen was in residence!!!

That's her standard flying which means that the "queen is in!" If not it would be the Union flag. We toured the state apartments and the castle grounds. All very impressive!!! The queen is back there somewhere!

I wanted to go into St. George's Chapel where all of the recent monarchs are buried like the Queen Mother, George VI, George V, and Henry VIII (not recent... but still!). Unfortunately it is a church and we were there on a Sunday... so no visitors unless they were coming in for services! So I just took a picture outside! Looks pretty nice!

There is so much royal stuff to do in London I just can't get enough! I convinced Brad that we should go to the Royal Mews aka the Carriage Museum!!! Except it's not a museum because these are all working carriages!! Like the one that took Princess Di to her wedding

And more recently... wait for it... wait for it....the carriage that William and Catherine rode in after they got married!! AHHH!!

Unfortunately we weren't able to see the Rolls-Royce Phantom because the Queen was currently using it at Windsor for the Royal Ascot!

 I love all this Royal stuff everywhere!! I'm going to miss it! But I think I've got my fill for a little while. Especially after seeing the Coronation Carriage! It's been used for every coronation since (I can't remember)... but a while!!

A great day in London!

Today we hit up all the biggies in and around Westminster!! Mainly the Abbey and the Churchill War Rooms!!

The Abbey was outstanding!!!

It was so much bigger and nicer than I thought it could be! Unfortunately "NO PHOTOS INSIDE" so there are no photos from inside the Abbey. But we saw where Charles Darwin is buried (inside an Abbey... I know... kinda strange) and Isaac Newton and many many other famous people! We got a an official tour of the Abbey from a Verger and it was great!

Here is me pretending to be Catherine at the Great West Doors:

I don't know why... but I am devoid of any pictures from the Churchill War Rooms. They were actually really amazing! I liked them a lot! I was told by dad and Uncle Dan that I MUST go to these war rooms and I figured it would be very "dad" but it was SUPER cool :) I think we spent at least 2 hours there!

To finish our fun day we went to Wicked!! Brad got me the tickets for my birthday! I've wanted to see it since it started on Broadway ... so like 7 years?? Anyway it was EVERYTHING I had hoped it would be!! SO amazing!! If it is still playing in Vancouver and you are thinking about going... you should go! Now!

And on our way home (because we thought we would be leaving London shortly...) I took the obligatory London phone booth picture. I didn't get all the way in because it really smelled like urine...

We had a great day and a great night!! Yay London!

The British Museum!

The British Museum was AWESOME to say the least!! I liked it way more than the Louvre... you know why!?! Because there was 10X more Assyrian stuff at the British Museum!! It was fantastical!! And there was lots of Mesopotamian stuff too!! I was fully in my glory :) Check out some of the Assyrian wall reliefs! They were known for their gruesome depictions of war and their depictions of lion hunts (also gruesome) so viewer discretion is advised!!

 This is part of the Lion Hunt series and it shows the King (depicted as larger than all the other people) as stabbing a Lion. Because that seems reasonable... right?? Propaganda much??

 They show an injured lion throwing up... ew!

A little boy releases the lion from a cage. Notice that he is sitting in his own cage for protection.

  

All the slaves / servants carrying off the dead lion!

So you might be wondering about why they hunted lions... in what is now Iraq / Syria?? Apparently they were very prevalent and ferocious, so depictions of the king killing them and hunting them (most likely not even in the wild) was seen as the king being strong and protecting his lands.

Now onto the real war stuff!! Check out this old school tank!! It has a battering ram to take down walls!

 The vultures were pecking at all the dead bad guys!

And as a warning to anyone who would go against the kingdom check out what they do to people they fight!! Put them on sticks in front of the city wall!!! Ew.

 But their protective deities always have a smile on:

We also saw the Assyrian kings library! It has some of the oldest and most famous tablets ever!

Like Tablet 11 from the Gilgamesh epic! Yes.... it is a flood story ... yes... it is from approximately 1400 years before biblical times. There are great translations of it at the library if you are interested!

We also saw one of the first "maps of the world" with Babylon at the center! duh!

One of my favorites was the Standard of Ur! One of the oldest and best preserved articles. No one really knows the purpose it had... but doesn't it look awesome!

Brad's favorite was the Rosetta Stone. He's an ancient languages scholar now and can read Egyptian and Sumerian!!

And a fun little artifact that I though all you Simpson's fans would enjoy:

And just so you know where the tasty bits are and where the poison bits are:

The passport disaster

So I haven't posted in a while, and I am finally leaving London in about a day and a half, so I thought I would do a couple of blog updates (instead of working on my capstone.....)

As most of you already know, I lost my passport at some point between my arrival from Paris and my (expected) flight back to Vancouver. It was a stressful day to say the least!! But we made it to the Canadian High Commission and filled out all of the appropriate forms (there were a LOT!). I got my passport photos done by a post office worker who thought that he was a professional photographer... which is great under normal circumstances and not so great when you are pressed for time!!

Brad took a picture of me booking it into the High Commission. I'm the one with the giant backpack...

So it takes 3 days to get your temporary passport (important information to know!!) and I picked up my new passport this morning!!! Yay!! Thank god because our NEW flight home leaves tomorrow night!! We have a 11 hour stop-over in Dusseldorf (yay?) and then we are heading home via Airberlin!

This has been a (rather expensive) learning experience to say the least! Many lessons learned the hard way... but sometimes that's the only way to learn them!! I'm sorry that I missed father's day!! And I'm sorry that I caused Brad to miss father's day. If you asked me where / when / how I lost my passport I couldn't even guess to tell you. Was it stolen? Was I careless? Who knows!!!

Please accept these next posts FULL of pictures as my apology!! :) See you all soon! Wednesday soon!

Lazy Sunday

We are back in London! Our first day was very very rainy... and we were fairly fatigued from all the late night hockey watching and all day touring. So we took it easy on Sunday. We hit up Harrods to stock up on some AMAZING cookies and take a look around at all of the extravagant stuff we could buy... maybe one day... but definitely not today!!

We were going to go to the Cabinet War Rooms, but it was raining so much and the two tube lines that we needed to get there were closed and I was tired SO we went and had Sunday Roast at the Nags Head Pub instead!! I got the lamb roast and it was super delicious!! Yes... I ate it with the gravy!

We then headed to Covent Garden markets where we picked up some great stuff! Brad got some handmade cuff-links and I got 2 new scarves!! We spent the night watching Geordie Shore with Iain. It is possibly better than the Jersey Shore. No joke. I can't wait for episode 4 on Tuesday night!!!

Now we are off to the British Museum!! So much to still see before we leave on Friday!!!

Last day in Paris!

We slept in a little bit today because of the late late night (go Canucks!). It was our last day in Paris, but we weren't flying out until 8:30pm so we got in some last minute sights like Notre Dame!!

It was pretty crowded but worth it!! The stained glass inside is so beautiful! Here are some examples:

Then we got in the hour and a half line-up to go up the tower!! It was worth it! We got to see the big bell and all the gargoyles up close!!

And another great view of the city!!

 Afterwards we had a little bit of time before we had to head to the airport so we perused the Seine boardwalk and looked at the used booksellers! We saw tons of cool old books but they were all in French (lame!). There was lots of fun stuff to look at and it was a beautiful day out!

Then we headed to the airport and back to London! Au revoir Paris!! It was fun!! (Even though Brad doesn't look too impressed in this picture.... hehe)

Let's tour Paris!!

We were tired of “learning” about stuff, so we decided to take a low-threshold bus tour of Paris.

Hop-on and Hop-off at different stops! We hit up the Champs-Elesyee and the Arc de Triomphe! 

We went to the top of the Arc through this awesome spiral staircase

where… low and behold… MORE children groups!!! Gah. It wasn’t as bad as Versailles though. 

We had a great view of all of Paris, although not as good as from the Eiffel Tower. 

We wandered down the Champs Elyesse and took a look in a few shops. I got some pants! And we had our first restaurant lunch!! It was AMAZING!!! I had chicken and brad had duck! My chicken was in a super yummy gravy … yes I was eating gravy AND dipping the fries in it too!! It was delicious! And Brad’s duck was delicious too! 

We had a nice relaxing day with little to no learning! We were getting ready for the hockey game (Game 5) later that night!! The game started at 2am our time and we had a very late dinner at around midnight after our Eiffel Tower experience and then headed to the Great Canadian Pub in the Latin Quarter! 

It was a great atmosphere there with TONS of people!! We were lucky to snag 2 of the last seats in the house when two Canucks fans saw Brad’s jersey! The French were very excited about the Canucks winning too! They were starting some chants that I had never heard before like “Van-Cou-Vaahheerr,  Van-Cou-Vaahheerr, Van-Cou-Vaahheerr” and “Let’s go Caaah-nucks, Let’s go!” Very strange, but supportive nonetheless. It was a great game and great to have so many Canucks fans to celebrate with in Paris!