The Crown Jewels (no, it's not a euphemism)

It's been awhile since we've updated our blog...sorry. What can I say but they don't have a lot of internet cafes in the super-cute villages and hamlets where we've stayed in Wales and the Cotswolds over the last few days. However, we're in London now which means that we successfully survived driving on the opposite side of the road from the opposite side of the car as they do throughout the UK. We also successfully made it without major navigational issues thanks the trusty navigator Paula. The only quasi-sad thing is that we're nearing the end of this 5-week adventure. I say quasi-sad because it's sad that I will have to return to work (no offense Katie and Gerard if you read this...), but exciting since we'll be able to see our family, friends, and pets (Paula's especially excited about seeing her fat cat Gordon).

Anyway, I'm rambling on now (interesting side note about rambling at the bottom of the post)...on to the update.

As I said, we're in London right now and a block away from Trafalgar Square at the moment. We've just spent about 3 hours in the Tower of London which is more of a compound than a tower, so its sorta poorly named in my opinion. The Tower of London is home to many really fascinating historical events including the beheading of 6 pretty royal and important people among other things. It's also home to the Crown Jewels, which are pretty impressive. Puff Daddy has nothing on the Queen and her bling bling (actually, I don't think anyone on the planet has more bling or bigger bling than the Queen since she has the largest cut diamond). Perhaps she can afford the phatty jewels since they charged us £17 per person (that's nearly $25 per person for a whopping total of $50 for Paula and I).

We've also checked off some pretty cool tourist stops already including Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, the London Eye, the Globe Theater, and Tower Bridge. Tomorrow we'll head to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard, perhaps to #10 Downing Street, British Museum (I know, I know...I said no more museums...we'll make this one an exception because its free), Hyde Park, and other fun stuff. We may even catch a showing of the Wicked musical (I may let Paula do something she wants to since there's no football on the tele tomorrow). Who knows, we may get a bit crazy in London on our last night! If we're lucky, my night will end with the world spinning again and Paula helping me to bed...(just kidding...)

Earlier in the day, we arrived from Burton-on-the-Water and dropped off our rental car. Burton is a beautiful little village in the Cotswolds region of England (west of London and east of Wales). We've been told that the Cotswolds are home to some of the most beautiful towns and rolling hills in all of England and I wouldn't be surprised by that. We walked through beautiful pastures and fields throughout the rolling hills and made our way to Lower Slaughter, another small village that's really just gorgeous residences and hotels. Before that, we made the obligatory but pleasant trip up to the lower Midlands to Stratford-upon-Avon where we visited Shakespeare's birth place and his tomb. Sort of a tourist meca and a literary pilgrimage now, but it was pretty cool and also very beautiful.

The day before, we had drove from Wales where we had spent the night, made our way along the beautiful welsh coast and arrived at the village of Broadway in the Cotswolds. Another beautiful village where we didn't have much time to spend since most of our day was in our car driving through the countryside. We only had enough time to watch my gunners fall to Manchester United and ran into some annoying local Man U fans in the pub. Paula did a marvelous job of controlling me though so I didn't pop my top and say something regrettable.

The day before that we spent driving through Wales. Who knew Wales was so beautiful! For such a small country, they've got loads of beautiful coast, castles, rolling hills dotted with white sheep, and very small and quaint villages. We made our way out to the Conwy Castle in the north of Wales and then on to White Sands beach in the south for part of our time in Wales. Unfortunately, we could only drive through the massively beautiful Snowdonia Park but it was enough for us to get a feel for it and hope to come back to spend more time there.
I almost forgot...the Liverpool v Newcastle game was AMAZING! We sat with the Newcastle fans since I could only get tickets to the game as an official Newcastle supporter. However, the outcome was just as I expected...Newcastle got beat handidly 3-0 (sorry Joel, they were dreadful). Liverpool could have beaten them even worse since they hit the woodwork 3 times and scarcely missed the goal a couple more times. Paula points out that Newcastle did play pretty well at times, but irregardless it was a blow out. The Newcastle fans were histarical though and out-sang the Liverpool fans in my opinion. Perhaps the Liverpool fans had gone to bed, but the Newcastle supporters were singing things such as..."you stole my stereo," "you only sing when you're stealing," and "you're just a town full of smack heads" (apparently there's an image that people from Liverpool are nothing but thiefs and heroin addicts). It was also the place to be seen as well...Daniel Craig (the actor that plays James Bond) was at the match... Lunch was no picnic though...Paula and Lou had fish and chips and I tried the chips and gravy barm (still not really sure what it is). So, I had a great time and I think Paula even enjoyed herself.
This will probably be our last post until we get back home and have a chance to upload our photos.

On behalf of our guest blogger (Paula) and I, the McJohnson's would very much like to thank you for following us on our trip and contributing by way of your clever comments and poll requests. Thanks so much and stay tuned to the McJohnson Times...there will hopefully be more exciting news relatively soon as its house hunting time when we get home!

(Rambling side note: On our drive from Scotland to Liverpool, Lou (our Aussie friend living in Edinburgh) explained to us that rambling (e.g., going on long walks through the countryside) is a big deal in Scotland. Apparently, there's really old rambling trails all over Scotland that are protected under law and anyone can walk on them. The funny thing is that these trails are largely on private land, so anyone can go walk on these trails and essentially tresspass with legal authority. What's even stranger (from an American perspective) is that you can walk on anyone's property and even pitch a tent to camp on their property with no big deal. There's got to be limits as to where you can do this, how long, and how close to other residences, but we don't know them. So, we were wondering whether we could pitch our tent on J.K. Rowling's yard and get away with it. For those that don't know, J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books that Paula and I read over and over again and who also takes up residency in Edinburgh (we Google Map'd her house). We're not sure whether these rambling trails and their camping rules apply throughout the UK, but we did use public walking trails in the Cotswolds which took us on private property. Anyway, thought that was interesting.