A LITTLE OF THIS AND A LITTLE OF THAT

Well I sat down and thought I would get going on my first post from our trip. Well that isn't happening today but I have gone over most of the notes I wrote in Word Pad each day and I am pretty sure I will just post those with pictures. They pretty much say it all. Today I am going to share a picture with you that was one of the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was taken on Tuesday 6-14-11, one of the longest days for me. That will be a very long post for sure and you will get some laughs out of it. That was my win some, lose some day! This patch of wild flowers was in Hyde Park. I should probably play with it in photo bucket.

Each day was a new adventure and I enjoyed every minute. There were good times and mad times. Things I can now look back and laugh about. We had a whole bunch of crappy weather but you will see some blue sky in the pictures even on those bad days. The worst day was a day in Paris when we went to Notre Dame, it was our first day out in the city. Looking back now even though I was cold and freezing I am thankful that we did not have the hot sticky weather we had in Italy when each day I had nothing but a head full of wet hair!

Mark works with a man called Phil. Mark hired him to come work here in California. He was an employee at the office in Worcester, UK. Well Phil has a dear friend named Ali who spent some time with us. Without Phil and Ali's help I would not have known how to get around London or Paris. I am so thankful for them and what they taught me. I rode the train, I rode the underground and did things I have never done before in my almost 60 years of life.

London of course was fun because I knew the language. Paris was a little harder but I managed better then I thought I would. The ride from Paris to Turin, Italy was more difficult when it came to communication because we were out of the tourist locations. Learned some things I didn't know like elevator is lift, exit is way out, restroom is toilet, hotel registration is reception, cab is a taxi and lemonade is a Sprite!

Things I would have done differently. I could have taken less stuff. I didn't feel like I packed that much but we took several flights and the size of our bags (large duffel's) just got to us. We were very lucky that the smaller flights didn't charge us. When you take a trip and have other flights to take make sure you know the weight requirements on the smaller flights! We had packed for the 50 pounds allowed but the smaller flights ask for less. I could have taken less shoes but otherwise I thought I did pretty good.

I maybe would only take my smaller camera but I am happy that I took both with me. Didn't use the bigger one as often but it helped when Mark could carry it for me. I would have left my hairdryer at home, never needed it but definitely should have taken the iron. We were in two hotels which equaled about 10 days and they would not bring them to the rooms. Not allowed so my little one would have been awesome. I did wash some laundry but without the iron I ended up getting some done. We must have spent about 300 pounds/euros on laundry which is just a big rip off when it was maybe a few loads of laundry. (that would be about $450.)

Today I have been sending my 1,500 photos to Kodak where I like to store them just in case my computer goes out. (You should always have backup somewhere) I will not bore you with all of them but I did do that with our children this weekend. We hooked the computer up to the TV and viewed all of them! I will probably do some mosaic ones so I can share more of them with you.

Can't wait to share our trip with you and I'm glad to have my skinny ankles back!

There is a new post today at Debby's Tree.