European Vacation

Hey sweets.
Whoow have i had a week. Ryan and Alex arrived on the 19th and we took them site seeing that night and all the next day. The third day is when we flew to Venice. Venice was great. The canals were cool, and we splurged on a boat ride there. Nothing huge to brag about seeing, it was just cool to be there.

So anyway, We came home from Venice and the next day we spent it grocery shopping trying to get ready for our road trip to Paris and then London. My car has been leaking trani fluid so we thought we might have been screwed but Jess got it stable enough for the trip. We went to a couple of tattoo shops and found one that we liked and scheduled it for the 29th. Alex wanted to get one with us, so that is why we rushed to make the appt.

The next day we drove all the way to Paris...about 4hrs and hit most of the sites that night. It was so great seeing everything at night. We didn't get to do that before. I will be posting some pics. I basically saw all the things I had seen before. We really didn't have time to do anything new because we wanted to make sure they got to see the big ones. Arc'd Triuphm, Eifel Tower, and Louvre.

The next day we drove to the Paris port for the English Channel. We took an hour ferry ride to England which was really cool. The boat is huge and everyone just schedules when the want to get on. There were like 4 decks with bars, casino games and food. We just lounged until we were in England. Jess drove us to London (it was a trip being on the wrong side of the road), and we got to our hotel by midnight. We crashed and woke up at a decent time. We saw the Buckingham Palace from the out side only due to lines. I bought a 30$ tea cup from the 2008 china set of her Highness...I was so surprised about how overwhelmed I was to be there. I actually cried in the gift shop. Then we saw Big Ben and the Parliament and the Tower Bridge of London...that was pretty cool. London Bridge itself is not the original bridge, but they have one there that they light up pink at night. We hit a pub called Hung Drawn and Quartered (referring to how they punished people way back when) and ate the traditional fish and chips. That was neat too. Very good food. Ryan, the husband, and i hung out bored while Jess and Alex went all over the city to get night shots of all the sites (she wants to be a photographer too). The next morning we got up and wanted to tour the inside of Buckingham Palace, but we had to settle for touring London Tower, which was a royal residence for a while. Its where Henry the VIII lived and had all the wives. We got to see the place where he beheaded one of his wives and the church where they found all of the bones of people who were executed. That was very cool for me because between loving history itself and religious history, I was in heaven.

We also got to tour Westminster Abbey where all the memorials for the King and Queens of the past were. That evening we drove to Wimbledon so Alex (played Tennis for 7yrs) and Ryan could tour the tennis stadium. Jess and i hit a local town and had our last British meal. He had fish and chips again, and I had Beef Pie with mash potatoes and gravy with peas. It was awesome.

We really had a blast but we were beat. We had to head back to the ferry and drive 4 hours back home. Jess was such a trooper. We arrived at 4 am and crashed. I had all kinds of jewelry stuff to catch up on and then we had to rush out and make it to our tattoo appts. We had Alex and Ryan try the Turkish Kebabs which they loved and then it was tat time. I got pretty tipsy and then laid down on the chair to be worked on. It just took over and hour and i think it came out great.


K, I know this was short and sweet. We're still all recovering. I will be posting pics on Face book and myspace. I miss everyone.