Aack!!

We arrived in London exactly 2 months ago today.  We arrived exhausted and unable to check into our flat.  We spent several hours roaming the streets of London, in the rain, feeling frustrated and completely unsure of everything.

In two months we've gotten used to our lives overseas and thoroughly enjoyed it. Our lease is up tomorrow and we start the next half of our adventure. It is almost impossible to believe that it is passing this quickly.  Tomorrow, we head to Bruges, Belgium. We will be there for 3 nights, then Paris for 3 nights, 1 night in Bayeux exploring the DDay beaches, then driving to Lyon where we will reside from Nov 2 - Dec 29th.

We've spent the past two days packing up all our crap (we've accumulated a fair amount) and putting the flat back in it's original configuration.  I believe that all four of us are in agreement that, if we hadn't already paid for our flat in Lyon, we'd stay in London for another 2 months. We've really liked it that much. However the next week, and the next 2 months are likely to be just as enjoyable. Or at least as much of an adventure.

In the past 10 days we've tried to pack in all of the various things that we hadn't managed to see yet. Time in Cambridge (a wonderful bicycle and punting tour), a few days in the Cotswalds and Stratford-Upon-Avon, and the Chislehurst Caves (totally cool--started by the Druids and used during WWII for up to 15, 000 people as shelter from the Blitz).  We've also managed to pack in a few more shows, Matilda (really fun), Much Ado About Nothing (aka Love's Labours Won, a surprise hit with the kids), Charles III (a fun show about Prince Charles becoming king--totally pissed me off!) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (cancelled after the interlude b/c they couldn't raise the 'iron curtain' and we had to get a refund).

We've said goodbye to the London City Voices Choir, to the friends we've made (Iain/Clare and Andrea) the friends we know (Clay Sublett) and Engin from the little coffee shop down the road. It's a little sad, a little nerve-wracking and a lot exciting.

Picture time.

King's College at Cambridge. We saw Evensong here.

Cambridge is kind of pretty...

And the girls aren't too bad either.

Creepy Grasshopper clock in Cambridge!

When it chimes, it sound like chains falling in a coffin!

Our local coffee shop

Mezze pastrie table. 

The Ingham's with our friend Engin.

Appolini. Pastry goodness filled with chocolate or lemon cream.

We came here every morning...

and were sad when they were closed on the weekends.

This place was cool. Chalk and flint mines started several hundred years ago and then used as shelter during the blitz.  Up to 15k people lived in this maze of tunnels for 1p/day or 6p/week. It was really cool but also a very scary reminder of what people went through not that long ago.