Asher Vacations

England #17

2007-11-01T11:08:00.002-05:00

Here is the London Bridge. Impressive, huh? I was surprised to see it, and thought "What's the big deal?" Daniel told me how people tend to mix-up the London Bridge with the Tower Bridge. Thus the London bridge story in Arizona. :)
Here's the proof it's actually London Bridge.

Here are some interesting buildings we passed along the way.

This is the HMS Belfast. A floating Museum on the River Thames. (Between London Bridge and Tower Bridge.) I believe it was used in World War II and the Korean War.

Here I am getting ready to do a little more shopping in Hay's Galleria. Which is a wharf that was converted to a riverside shopping center.

While I was shopping, Daniel saw these guys on the River Thames. We are assuming they are British Navy Seals or something. (He used his zoom lens to get this close up shot.)

Here are some pictures of Tower Bridge.

The view walking across Tower Bridge, heading over to the Tower of London.

The Tower of London. The Tower's primary function was a fortress, a royal palace, and a prison (particularly for high status and royal prisoners, such as the Princes in the Tower and the future Queen Elizabeth I). This last use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower" (meaning "imprisoned"). (wikipedia)

Tower of London and Tower Bridge

Moat around Tower of London.

We had planned on taking a tour of the Tower, but ended up getting there about 20 minutes too late! We were so disappointed. I guess we'll just have to go back someday! The outside was quite impressive on it's own. Here's some pictures.

I really am almost done with our trip!!

England #16

2007-11-01T11:08:00.001-05:00

Next we headed over to see Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Jewel Tower.

Here is a view of Big Ben, right as we came out of the Underground station.

Some of the Security at Parliament.

Here are some pictures of Parliament. It is huge!

Here are some pictures of Westminster Abbey.

This is the Jewel Tower. It is one of only 2 surviving sections of the original Palace of Westminster.

The Jewel Tower Sign

I cannot remember what this is, but it was next to the Jewel Tower.

I know that I am a terrible tour guide! :)

England #15

2007-11-01T11:07:00.000-05:00

Here are a variety of buildings we saw around London and thought were interesting.

Cool Buildings and construction near Trafalgar Square.

Map of where we were.

Some pictures of Trafalgar Square

Fountain @ Trafalgar SquareInteresting?

Statue at Trafalgar Square of General Charles James Napier. He was a British General and Commander-in-Chief in India.

A better picture of one of the accordion buses.

We thought this was fun because the soccer team at Bethel College (where Daniel went to college) are called the Bethel Threshers.

England #14

2007-11-01T11:06:00.001-05:00

London has a lot of museums, several which are free. So we decided to visit The British Museum. It is one of the world's greatest museums of human history and culture. (wikipedia)

It was such a massive museum, it was overwhelming! You would have to live in London and visit it numerous times before you could even begin to experience it. There is SO MUCH to see there. We only skimmed the surface. Here are a just a few pictures for you.

One of many sarcophaguses.

The Gates to Balawat

The Rosetta Stone.

An African chair made out of guns.

England #13

2007-10-29T10:01:00.001-05:00

After the Changing of the Guard ceremony, we took some more pictures near the Palace.
Here are some close ups of the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham.
Queen Victoria

Here I am sitting on a tiny fence in front of some really pretty, colorful flowers.

While we were taking pictures, some of the guards came marching back and went to the Palace. Maybe they forgot something? :)

We were on our way back to the Underground to go to our next stop when we passed this sign on someone's driveway.

Daniel kept trying to get a good picture of the British flag flying in the wind, but the wind kept dying down just as he would get his camera out. He finally got it to work and it ends up being a tattered looking flag! Oh well.

One of the many interesting buildings we passed on our way.

Here are some pictures of the very steep escalators for the Underground. The first time on was a bit surprising.They do have signs that tell you to stay to the right if you are just riding, so that those who want to walk as they go, get the left side. That is very helpful when you are in a hurry!

We thought this Pub was quite nicely decorated.

England #12

2007-10-29T09:59:00.000-05:00

Here are some of the pictures of the Changing of the Guard ceremony. There ended up being a ton of people there and most of the pictures are just holding the camera up above people's heads and snapping away. The joys of digital photography!

You can see the throngs of people all around the Palace to watch the change. We didn't realize there would be quite so many people there, or we would have arrived earlier.

The soldiers arriving for the ceremony.The band arriving

Some more soldiers arriving. I don't know what the difference is between the red uniforms and the black. I'm guessing different branches of the military?

Everyone getting in postion for the ceremony.

The Band setting up.

The change was quite different than what I was expecting. I thought there would be a lot of pomp and circumstance around the 2 guards actually switching out. We hadn't even realized it happened until we noticed the black suited guard where the red suited one had been. We had assumed he would be replaced by another red suited one, so we just kept waiting and watching.

There was a lot of marching around and things that we had no clue what it meant. We just kept snapping pictures.

You see the black suited guard in the box on the left, that's the new guard.

The band played a whole variety of music during the whole thing. They seemed to like American music and movie songs, too.

During all of this one of the doorways was business as usual. People came and went as if nothing was going on.

At one point I turned the camera around and snapped Daniel. You can see a reflection of the Palace in his sunglasses.

We were pressed up against the fence the whole time. It was very crowded!

These guys marched past about 50 times or so. I'm not really sure what they were accomplishing. I would have been curious what their conversation was about. :)

The black suited guards preparing to leave after the change.

Here is a view of all the peoples hands and arms through the fence. It was a bit crazy.

Well, now we can say that we have been at the Changing of the Guard, but you really didn't miss much.

England #11

2007-10-29T09:58:00.000-05:00

Here is a picture of a beautiful lake right across the road from Buckingham Palace.

They had these huge, ornate archways over the sidewalk across the street from the Palace.

Here is a view of the London Eye from the Palace.

We saw a couple of these accordion buses around town. I definitely would not want to try and drive one! Their streets and corners are so narrow and tight as it is.

We thought that we would take a picture of one of their old fashioned looking phone booths. Inside is disgusting! It smelled like a combination of urine and strong men's cologne. Ugh! It's also where they post their pornography. It made me think that these booths belong on the Vegas strip not scattered around London.

England #10

2007-10-29T09:52:00.000-05:00

After Kensington Palace, we walked through another park on our way to the Underground. We saw lots of these guys in the parks.They are American squirrels that got brought over somehow, and now are causing problems. I believe they are too aggressive and killing off the native squirrels. (Sounds very American of them - too aggressive!)

We passed her on our way through, too. She looks relaxed.

At the other end of the park we came upon this. A huge fountain. I don't remember if it had a name or anything.

Here's some various pictures of the fountain.

Then on our way to the Underground station for our next stop.

Riding on the Underground. I think we actually had to stand on this one because it was a full car, as you can see.

Here is a picture of one of the Next stores I visited. I think Daniel might have taken the picture while he was waiting for me to finish shopping. :)

Then we went to see Buckingham Palace. We saw a sign saying that the changing of the guard would happen at 11:00 am.

Here's a picture of a Palace Guard. Daniel's zoom lens got us this close. We have to look through the gates to see him.

This is a big statue right in front of the Palace. It's of Queen Victoria.

Here we are in front of Buckingham Palace. Proof we were there! :)

England #9

2007-10-29T09:51:00.000-05:00

This is Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived. (I thought of you, Gen.) We could only look at it through these gates.

There is a large park, I believe called Kensington Gardens, sort of surrounding the palace. This is a picture of the lake there.

A park over there is mostly big grassy areas with lots of trees, plants, walking/biking paths, and sometimes a lake, too. Basically, a great place for people to relax or exercise.
There seemed to always be people about reading, picnicking, playing some sport, exercising, or napping. It was really cool how these parks are all over the City. No matter where you live, there is probably at least one park within walking distance. (That's probably one reason why we didn't see very many overweight English folk. It's just a part of their culture to be active.)

While there we decided to go see Princess Diana's Memorial Fountain. I had expected it to be this large, ornate thing, so I was surprised to see this.

Actually, when Daniel said this was it, I thought that he didn't know what he was talking about. (So sorry Babe!) Then he explained the idea behind it and how it was supposed to reflect her life. It was quite cool, once I got closer to it.
I think there was some controversy about whether to allow people to put there feet in or not. It was decided she would probably want it that way. For people to enjoy it and just have fun!

This sign explains more about it. If you can, click on the photo to enlarge it and read about the fountain. I think it's pretty interesting.

Having Fun!!

View from the fountain.

Right near the fountain runs the river Thames, I believe. People could rent paddle boats or row boats. We didn't, but we did smile at some of the folks who were boat challenged. :)

Another thing we found interesting over there, were the tiny cars we saw everywhere. I would try to imagine my dad trying to get in or out of them. That was hard to do! (For those of you who don't know my dad, he is 6' 4".)

England #8

2007-10-29T09:49:00.000-05:00

London at last!
Here is a picture of the hotel we stayed at in London. We used Priceline's "name your own price" and got a really great deal! I fully recommend it. I was concerned after our price got accepted, what if we were in the ghetto of London or something?! Then I reminded myself that God is in control. So I looked to see where it was in relation to friends of Daniel's that live in London. It ended up being only about a mile away, so that helped me relax.

Our hotel was The Millenium Copthorne at Chelsea Football Stadium. (Actually attached to the stadium.) When we got over there and I told some folks what I had worried about they laughed and said the Chelsea area is actually a posh place to live. So, no worries!

Here is the sidewalk outside our hotel that we walked down often to get to and from the underground from our hotel. We really enjoyed using the underground and thought once you figured out the system, it was a great way to get around the city.

We never did figure out the bus system. We did ride some buses with Daniel's friend Joel just telling us where to go. That worked very well! :) So we experienced it, but preferred the underground.

We wanted to try some authentic London fish and chips, so we found this place pretty close to our hotel. We are not real big fish eaters, but you can't go wrong when it's fried, right? We enjoyed it.

Here's an intersection we walked past several times on our way to Marks and Spencers to get chocolate croissants for breakfast. Delicious!!

These are Daniel's friends, Joel and Fiona, who live in London. (Or did, they will be living and working in Afghanistan, again, come October.) We arrived in London Sunday late morning, so Joel and Fi invited us to go to church with them Sunday night then come over for supper. We really enjoyed their church and spending a relaxing time with them. Thanks guys!!

Daniel and Joel grew up in Nepal together, and Fiona was there as well, though I don't think they knew her then. I had met Joel while Daniel and I were honeymooning in Nepal, but this was my first time meeting Fiona. It was a very nice time together and I enjoyed getting to know them a bit.

One thing that we enjoyed while in London was the mixture of old and new everywhere. We often saw a really old (or old design) building next to a modern one. Which made for some interesting pictures. I'm sure that I will have more of these sorts of pictures to post as we go along.

England #7

2007-10-29T09:45:00.001-05:00

*EDIT* All the pictures should be there now!

When I did the last post, I forgot about the pictures of Waddesdon Manor. We went there with the Liversidges on Saturday after the wedding. We ate lunch together then went to see Waddesdon Manor, it's a huge estate. The Rothschild family used to live there and now it's kind of like a museum. So, after this will be London.

We were planning on packing a picnic lunch and eating at Waddesdon, but the guys went to the Reception tent to do some cleaning up and take things to the dump. It ended up getting late, so we decided to just picnic on the back patio. It was very nice.

It was a great spread and we had quite a bit of leftover food from the reception.

We had to drive up this very, very long driveway before we got anywhere near the house. People were parked all down the driveway and it turned out to be a very popular place that day. So many people were there, that they had sold out on tickets to actually go into the house. :( Thus, we could only see the outside and grounds. That was quite impressive on it's own, but I was wanting to see inside the massive place. (Then I could really imagine what Darcy's house looked like from Pride and Prejudice!)

Front views of the house.

Up close view of part of the roof. Everything was very ornate.

We're thinking there's a spiral staircase in there.

One thing they seemed to love was statues. They were everywhere. In gardens, in fountains, in fields, wherever. Here are some pictures of a few.

Fountain behind the house and rear view of house.

Close up view of the rear of the house.

We were able to go into the wine cellar. It was huge! I didn't do it any justice since I am not a wine conossieur. Pretty soon it was just another room with more bottles.

Here I am with yet another statue in the wine cellar this time.

We walked among several beautiful flower gardens. There were flowers everywhere. I can't remember how big the grounds actually were, but it was basically like being in a huge forest preserve park or something, but with fancy landscaping. We were wondering how many people it took to care for all the grounds and do such a great job. Here is a 2007 Garden.

Some pictures of various gardens.

Here I am sitting on a bench on the walking path.

We thought this was a really cool passion flower.

Waddesdon Manor is known for their Aviary.

Aviary

A fountain in the Aviary. Another thing they had everywhere were fountains.

We don't have any pictures of the live birds, but they did have some of these metal sculpture birds that they filled in with flowers to make these. Very impressive!

They also had a crown and horses sculpture.

Here is a bench becoming part of the landscaping.

A beautiful view along the walking path.

We thought this was funny. Along one of the walking paths we saw this. It reads: Poupon Baron ? Rothschild's Favorite Pet Poodle October 1903.

As you can see it's a popular place for picnics.

This was somewhere on the house, I believe. So at least some part of it was built in 1880.

These are the stables. We thought they looked pretty cool. We only drove past them as we were leaving.

England #6

2007-10-16T09:43:00.000-05:00

Here is the final installment of Wedding pictures, then it's on to London!

Happily married couple right after the ceremony.

Bridesmaids Jen and Joanna with Flower girl Rebecca.

Right across from the church there was a beautiful field (part of the Community Center) where they took all the pictures after the wedding. Most of the kids just ran all around the field, including the little flower girl. It was such a gorgeous day!

Picture taking/Social time. (That's my new dress.)

The Finlay Family - Jen, Colin, John, and Ali

They had wanted to take a picture of all the men at the Wedding in tartan, but most of them had already left for the reception, so it was just these 4. They were told to "show some leg" which made it quite a hilarious picture, note Colin's laughter!

Colin and Katherine arriving at the Reception. (Sorry it's so dark. I should have had Daniel lighten it up.)

Katherine and I looking at each others rings. Girl stuff!

For the girls: Here's a picture of her ring.

Me distracting Rebecca during some picture taking. :)

They had a Ceilidh (pronounced kay lee) Which is a big scottish dance time. A lot of fun!

Daddy and daughter dancing together. Cute!

Here I am socializing during some of the dancing. I had changed out of my dress, because it was getting cold. I really should have waited until after the dancing, that can really warm you up!

We don't have any pictures of us dancing because we didn't think to ask anyone to take them! :(

At the end of the reception the bride and groom stood in the middle of the room and everyone makes a circle around them. Then we all sang Auld Lang Syne to them before they took off.

Then we formed a tunnel for them to go through on their way out.

Here they are emerging!

And they made it!

Now it's time to say our good-byes.

A very happy looking bride saying good-bye to her mom.

CONGRATULATIONS COLIN & KATHERINE! MAY YOU BE BLESSED!!

England #5

2007-10-16T09:42:00.001-05:00

WEDDING DAY!!

As most of you know, my bag never made it to England. So, I had to do some clothes shopping, specifically for a dress to wear to the wedding! God was gracious and I found one that I liked well enough, decently priced, going to only 2 stores!

Daniel would want me to mention that it took 2 hours. :) BUT I was shopping for other clothes too, I had to figure out size conversion, maneuver stores I have never been in, and double the price of everything. (Right now it takes about 2 dollars to equal 1 Great British Pound.) Also, I was worried about whether or not British Airways would reimburse us or not. (We are still waiting to find that out.) So, I think that I did pretty well, considering!

Since I didn't have my bag, I didn't have most of my hair stuff, make-up, perfume and such to get ready for a wedding. I ended up borrowing a hair straightener and perfume from some ladies working at the front desk of our hotel! I also had lip gloss in my purse. So, it worked out all right, just not my preferred way to have to get ready. :) (I will have a picture of my dress in the next post.)

This is a picture of the church, St. Peter and St. Paul's Church. (I guess they couldn't pick just one.) It was a cool, old building and the weather was perfect!

Margaret, the mother of the Bride and Alison, the Groom's sister, arriving at the church. (Ali was 8 months pregnant.)

Rebecca, the cute little flower girl. (The groom's niece.)

Colin, the groom, wore a kilt for the ceremony. Yes, he's Scottish!

Katherine, the beautiful bride!

During the ceremony.

England #4

2007-10-16T09:39:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures with people in them!

The same day we arrived, we immediately got into Wedding mode. Helping work on whatever needed done. It was great!

We first went to where Colin works as a forester at Wendover Woods in The Chilterns. That was where the reception was to be.

Unfortunately, there had been unusual amounts of rain and there was mud everywhere! Colin (Groom) gathered together these rubber mats to put on some of the most muddy areas. The guys had "fun" dragging them through the park. I helped a little too, mostly just laughing. :)

They rented a Marquee (what we would call a big tent thing) for the reception party. Here is a picture of it just starting to go up.

Here it is all done. It was really nice. They put tons of white fabric stuff everywhere which makes it fancy looking and hung chandeliers, too.

Later that evening, we went to the bride's house to work on some smaller details. Here is Katherine (Bride) and Colin (Groom) arranging the name cards for who sits where at the reception.

Me and Margaret (Mother of the Bride) trying to get the Wedding cake even and balanced. A traditional English wedding cake is fruit cake, I think that I prefer traditional American! They were able to buy the already prepared layers and just assemble it. Convenient!

See what fun we are having? Definitely a good way to really get to know someone; in the midst of Wedding chaos!

The next day Daniel and I worked on setting up the tables in the Marquee. He actually put all the tablecloths on while I was clothes shopping! When I got back I folded napkins while he put out plates and flatware.

We didn't have to do it all ourselves. Colin's cousin Tim and Susie (married just 9 weeks ago or so!) came to help us. Susie and I folded the napkins, Daniel did the plates and flatware and Tim came around and fixed everything we did. :)

They are a very nice couple and ended up driving us around everywhere on the Wedding Day. Thanks so much Tim and Susie!!

Didn't we do a great job! I will never hastily unfold a napkin again without admiring the job someone did folding it first. :)

Here we are all done setting up and socializing the night before the wedding. We are getting ready to go out to supper with the groom's family at a Pub. (Very English!)

For those of you that don't know, Daniel and Colin grew up together in Nepal and that is how we came to be here!

Here is John Finlay (Groom's father) and Jen Finlay (Groom's sister).

The Rose and Crown Pub where we ate supper. We found out that just about every town has at least one Rose and Crown pub!

Here is a picture of everyone all together. Left side of the table is Rheems (Jen's boyfriend), Colin, and John, the right side is Jen, Me, and Daniel. We had a really great time with everyone. Colin's other sister, Alison, was on the way from Edinburgh with her family. We missed them!

The guy who took the picture told us to say "rumpy pumpy", which we found was an awful thing to say for pictures! Jenny's face is quite funny, but the other picture we have, Rheems' eyes are closed. Sorry Jen!

England #3

2007-10-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

We spent quite a bit of time at the Bride's parent's, the Liversidge family, house. We enjoyed getting to know them and they were very hospitable and friendly. (In fact we commented to them how when Colin came to the States for our wedding 7 1/2 years ago, it was my family that ended up doing most of the entertaining and hospitality towards him and now it was Katherine's family doing the same for us!)

They have a very nice house, but their yard was quite amazing. (Or as they would say "garden" because a yard is more what we would call a patio or driveway. They call lawns "gardens.") We did enjoy some of the differences in English language definitions! :) Here are several pictures of their beautiful "garden". The pictures do not do it justice. Enjoy nature lovers!

England #2

2007-10-11T12:48:00.000-05:00

Here is some more scenery from around Aylesbury.

These are pictures of a house we drove past and liked.

It was raining for our first few days there, but it cleared up and was a beautiful, sunshiny day for the wedding! I noticed in England that they will have lots of trees or tall plants pretty close to the sides of the road. Which makes their narrow roads seem even narrower.

A pretty lake picture.

A picture of a part of the English channel system and some doors that they can close if they need to. If any of you have seen the Arkansas river here in Kansas, it looks kinda dirty like that. I definitely wasn't tempted to swim in it!

Here is a picture of what I believe they would call a "serious bridge." Meaning that only one car can fit on it at a time. There were some that had stoplights on them because you wouldn't be able to see if another car were coming.

This car tickled Daniel. It's a picture of a Ford KA. "Yes, this is my KA. Would you like a ride in my KA?" :)

England #1

2007-10-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

(I plan on uploading a lot of pictures to do most of the story telling, so it will probably take several posts.)

Here is a picture out of the plane window during our flight to London.

An aerial view of London. Daniel was chatting with the bride's father, Andrew, about how when we looked down at Illinois through the plane window everything was all in straight lines and very orderly. Then when we flew over England, everything was, as Andrew put it, "higgledy-piggledy." :)

The narrow roads we drove on. I should actually say rode on as we got chauffeured everywhere by very kind people while in Aylesbury. I wasn't going to trust myself driving on the wrong side of the road!

A picture overlooking Aylesbury, the vale town we stayed in for 4 nights.

Our hotel, The Holiday Inn, in Aylesbury. We wanted to stay at a Bed and Breakfast to really experience England, but they were all booked up. Maybe next time!

More to come later!

17 days later....

2007-10-11T12:44:00.000-05:00

my bag finally arrives! (Aug. 11, 2007) It seems that it got lost at O'Hare somehow, but at least now I have it. I just sent in to British Airways the receipts for all my clothes that I had to purchase while in England, so I will have to wait and see if they give me any trouble about reimbursement.

I think free tickets back to England sounds fair! :)

Our trip to England in July '07

2007-10-11T12:32:00.000-05:00

Daniel and I were able to go to England for one of Daniel's good friend's wedding. Colin Finlay married Katherine Liversidge. We were so excited and had a wonderful time. We were able to go and leave the kids with Grandmas, Grandpas, and Aunts!

Sorry for no posts (on Momma Amy ) while we were in England. It's a long story that I do not have the time to go into right now, but basically my bag never made it to England, so we did not have everything we needed to do e-mail or blog posting. Hopefully soon I will get a chance to tell you all about it and post some of Daniel's 1000+ pictures! :)