We went to Westminster Abbey today. It was so impressive. They didn’t allow pictures inside, but basically it was like a big old cemetery covered with stone and stained glass. It was dedicated as an abbey on 12/28/1065 and has been used for, I think, every coronation since William the Conqueror on 12/25/1066. It was cluttered with the tombs of lots of dead people. Everywhere you looked there was another crypt for a dead British ruler I.e. Elizabeth I, Mary I, Henry VII, Edward I, Mary Queen of Scots, etc. There are also about 120 writers, poets, actors, musicians and artists memorialized or buried here in Poet’s Corner. Also here we saw the Coronation Chair where every future king/queen has sat on their coronation day since 1301. All this makes me wish I knew more about British history because I am sure there are some cool backstories behind their deaths, I.e. beheadings, revolts, traitors, etc. You know the British and their nobility out for blood so they themselves could claim the throne. I am glad I am not the Queen. The thought of my brother, Bob, in the middle of the night trying to strangle me so he could conquer the throne just gives me the creeps. Besides, he wouldn’t make a good King anyhow! LOL Just kidding Bob!

We had decided to do a show while in London. Of course there were lots of choices like Wicked, Spamalot, Chicago, The Lion King, Les Miserables, etc, but we didn’t want just any show. Ryan recommendation, after talking to us for the last few days, was for Avenue Q, and he couldn’t have been more dead on of the something crazy we wanted to see. It was this musical that had Muppets in it, loosely based on Sesame Street characters, but they weren’t “G-Rated” Muppets, they were like “R Rated” Muppets singing about internet porn, closeted homosexuals and how everybody is a “little bit racist”. There was even muppet sex. It was flippin hilarious. You should check out their web site. I think they have bits of their silly songs on there.

After the play went to the Tate Modern (no photos inside). We had tried to make it there yesterday before closing, but despite riding the bus and getting off at 4 different stops we never found it. Today I decided not to use the buses and used Millennium Bridge and the Thames River as landmarks. Modern art is not my thing, but Chris loved it. There were weird rooms everywhere. One I particularly remember was this one area where one lady collected all her personal/junk mail and scraps of paper that she had written on for a year and at the exhibition would read them aloud and then black out all the personal information and then tack it somewhere on the four walls of this small room. It did look like chaos, but I kept thinking that either she must be some kind of recluse or maybe British people don’t get as much junk mail as Americans, because I could have covered those walls probably 4 times over with all the crap I get in the mail. I truly feel sorry for my postmaster!

Tags: Avenue Q,Tate Modern,Westminster Abbey
Categories: Becky Blogs, London
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London has so much history. How do you fit it in in four days? Well you either have to move fast, or you pick your favorites. Chris had already been to London and had done the Tower of London, but I really wanted to go. As he was feeling under the weather with a cold, he graciously let me go by myself while he found a nice nook to read a book and sniffle. It was amazing. There it is this huge structure surrounded by a wide moat ( long ago filled in with dirt and grass). It looks deceiving from far away in that I thought that it was all one structure but in reality once I entered I saw that it was a series of walls that you pass through with smaller towers for defense and then in the center was the huge White Tower with the four pillars that was begun in 1066 with the reign of William the Conquerer. There are also other buildings around it like a chapel, Waterloo Block (which houses the very impressive crown jewels-they are so huge they look fake), and other armouries and dungeons! I of course took the free Beefeater Tour where very knowledgeable guides walk around with you for an hour and give you a bit of interesting and sometimes comical history, but mostly it is centered on all the folks that entered through trator’s gate and were held prisoners here (some for quite a long time) before being led up to tower hill for their beheading. Oh the british brutality, not much better than the french! (Oops, can they imprision me for that comment?)

After Chris had had a bit of a rest, we waited a bit and then since it was not raining (it of course rained alot while we were in Britain, so we always tried to run to do outside things when we had the chance) we decided to do a London Walks Ghost Tour. Our very proper petite british guide led us around the dark streets and alleys telling us the bloody history of this town and some of the ghost lore. It was quite fantastic, not because I saw any ghosts, but because of how the city shined at night. It’s starting to feel very fall here and very pretty. Our London hosts, Ryan and Natasha came with us and I think all had fun. Stopped by a Tapas bar on the way home for snacks to break up the spooky vibes. Good food and new good friends, I can’t think of any better end to an evening.

Tags: London Walks Ghost Tour,the White Tower,Tower of London,Traitor's Gate
Categories: Becky Blogs, London
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We decided that London and the U.K. would be our next stop. We had already delayed it twice. We were supposed to go there before Paris and then after Paris, but plans changed. We still wanted to go, but as the weeks went by we both realized that it was getting colder up there, and since I hate the cold, well it was now or never. As we started planning, I had a bit of a freak out when I started to understand how expensive the pound is. 1 U.S. dollar is only 0.50 British pounds. So, half of our money was being eaten away the longer we were there and the more we spent. Our Eurail tickets for the trains that we had for the rest of Europe also did not work in the U.K., so we had to approach it all a bit differently. We decided to try to couch surf a couple times and also do a bus tour package for transportation so we could see more of the country up into Wales and Scotland.

Arriving in London was also another of those surreal moments that I keep having in Europe. Riding into the city on the bus from the Stansted airport (which is 1 1/2 - 1 1/4 hours away from the downtown area!), I saw the London Eye and Big Ben poking above the horizon. All around me were the double decker buses, the little red phone boxes and the classic black London cabs. It was just like in the movies.

We basically went straight from the bus station to the underground to find our gracious hosts. Ryan and Natasha, 2 lovely people from Toronto who had been loving in London a few months, had agreed to let us couch surf at their flat for a few days and also had invited us out to a dinner on the town. But, this wasn’t just any dinner, it was a dinner where we ate in total darkness. How cool is that. At Dans Le Noir, we ordered in the lobby while there was still light, but it was only a basic description, like no seafood, or meat only, or strict vegetarian, etc. You still have no idea what they are going to serve to you. That is part of the fun. Our server, Nadine, who was blind, led us, just like on the picture, to our table. She then presented us with the water and wine that we had to figure out how to pour for ourselves in the pitch blackness without getting it everywhere (Poor Ryan lost some of the wine on the table). When dinner was served, I tried multiple times to use my fork, but as I did not have sight to guide me I was never sure if there was anything on the fork and multiple times it ended up in my mouth with nothing on it. In the end I gave up and just used my hands. After dinner you are led out and the servers let you try to guess what you ate. It was a very interesting night. I found myself really feeling for the sight impaired. I found myself straining to see light, or constantly checking to make sure my glass was still there and I wasn’t going to spill. I really appreciated sight. As an aside, the restaurant apparently has cameras everywhere in the eating area to make sure everyone is staying safe and you are instructed not to move or get up without assistance. I wonder if anyone has ever flashed them before they knew they were being watched? I bet they have some stories!

Tags: Couchsurfing,Dans Le Noir,London
Categories: Becky Blogs, Couch Surfing, London
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Chris has woken up for the last several days with one or two lesions on him that have been quite itchy. I assumed them to be bug bites of some sort and had him put some hydrocortisone cream on them. I did not really try to make anything of it, but I did not understand why I, who had slept in the same room, had none.

This morning though, he is covered. He was devoured last night and has 16 bites. He was quite frustrated (and quite itchy) and tore the room apart searching for the culprit. I thought maybe it was spiders and that he wasn’t going to find anything. But, after taking down a curtain, he found 7 HUGE European Mosquitos. They are different than the North American variety and have longer legs (like daddy long legs) and are larger in the torso.

So, then the hunt began. I can’t really tell you what it looked like because I was downstairs on the couch, but I did hear alot of zapping. (Julie has this cool thing that looks like a tennis racket, but when you turn it on, it really is a bug zapper. You just swat at the bug and when it touches the electrified mesh, it FRIES!) Chris came downstairs a bit later pretty pleased with himself. He says he won the battle. That’ll show those skeeters to tackle with my boyfriend. I still don’t know why I didn’t get any bites though. He must just taste better!

Addendum 9/28/06 - Due to Chris stripping the room and bed of sheets and fabrics and NOT killing all the mosquitos, I woke up this a.m. with 5 bites myself. Silly Chris. Now I know that it is not the fact that he tastes sweeter, he just doesn’t like to be under the covers.

Tags: Bug zapper,Mosquitos
Categories: Becky Blogs, Germany
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So what would Berlin be without another bike tour? Well, it just wouldn’t have been the same. So we did our 4th bike tour of Europe. This time with the chain Fat Tire Bike Tours. The more you do, there is a discount, and if you hit all three cities they are in, you get a free T-Shirt! Woo-Hoo! Once we found this out, it became our goal. Enda from British Columbia was our guide and was VERY knowledgeable. It was the most thorough bike tour that I have ever been on. He described the political turmoil that has surrounded this city since WWI. It was a beautiful day and to top it all off, this was the first city where not only I, but my bike, was in top working order.

We saw the Palace of the Republic where the communist party had it’s headquarters and the Babelplatz which was the square where the Nazi book burnings occurred under Hitler’s regime. We also saw the massive Berlin cathedral, the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie again, the Reichstag (which is a government building and has a huge glass dome in it that you can climb), the Brandenburg gate (where everyone rallied when the wall fell), a parking lot where deep below the remnants of Hitler’s bunker remain (or so I am told), the huge TV tower (that was still semi decorated like a soccer ball for the world cup) and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Also on the tour was the Victory column with the Victory Angel atop (a celebration of the war Otto von Bismarck waged on the French long ago) and a lovely ride through a nice big city park that used to be the royal hunting grounds. Today though I saw no wild animals, I only saw lots of naked German males sunbathing in the lovely early afternoon sun. Why this nudity in public parks is a staple in Germany I do not know, but what I do know is that the bike tours I take always go by them on the way to and from the Bier Gartens for a meal and liquor break. Maybe it’s better for the bike tour business, who knows!

Tags: Berlin,Fat Tire Bike Tours
Categories: Becky Blogs, Germany
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