London

Mike and I just returned from a fabulous trip to London! We had a marvelous time seeing the city and enjoying all it has to offer. I was super excited to show Mike my stomping grounds from my semester abroad. However, it was even more fun this time around experiencing the city anew. It's such a dynamic place, and even sites I'd visited before felt new. Not sure if that's the city or me growing up...maybe a bit of both!

Mike's first view of Westminster!

We stayed really close to where I went to school, but, again, it was completely new. Although, I do admit that it was nice to jump on the Tube knowing where we were going. Speaking of the Tube...I was definitely reminded that it's the first and best underground system ever!

We had an interesting start to the trip...mother nature decided the day of our departing flight was a perfect time for a blizzard in Philly. If there's one thing we've learned from living out here, it's how to change our schedule on the fly! Thankfully we got on a flight the day before and missed not only a blizzard here, but also a major wind storm in London!

With the lions and my favorite art museum in Trafalgar Square

Mike had found an amazing tour company, London Walks, and we took a number of really interesting walking tours throughout the city. We even did the Tower and Westminster Abbey via these tours...really interesting. We visited a bunch of amazing museums too.

After our tour of the Tower of London

And the view from inside the Tower

One of our favorite things was going to shows in the West End. We had booked tickets for Book of Mormon a few months in advance for a special birthday night for Mike. And it lived up to the hype...funniest show ever! We had to sell our tickets for the show in Minneapolis when we moved to Philly, and tickets in NYC are way too expensive, so we were thrilled to be able to finally see this show.  In addition we got day of tickets to two other shows.

It wasn't a West End show, but we did happen upon the tents at London Fashion week!

Another favorite: our Saturday historical pub crawl! Again, a walking tour across the city to some of the most historic pubs in London. How did I not know these existed when I studied here? One still has inn rooms and is a location where Shakespeare performed some plays prior to the Globe theater being built. Oh yeah, and Chaucer frequented pubs in this area. These were some seriously historic pubs.

The first pub on our tour...this is the courtyard where Shakespeare performed plays 

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is just showing off..."rebuilt" in 1667 after the great fire!

The Princess Louise - all artisan hand crafted interior - this is just the front entryway!

We did get out of the city one day, and took a bus tour to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge is as interesting as ever (seriously, how did they build that...). And then we had a few hours to wander Bath. This is possibly the most picturesque town I've ever seen! All planned stone homes, and a 1000 year old Roman Bath (hence the name) to boot!

The Roman Baths - bath below and church next door

They're no longer in use, but we did want to jump into the steaming warm water! It's all natural hot spring water

One of our favorite new things to do now is having Indian dinner! Other than my poor excuse for homemade tikka masala, Mike had never really had it. We made up for lost time with at least 4 dinners at Indian restaurants!

Millennium Bridge...on our tour we found out about an artist that transforms the gum on the walking bridge into "art" by burnishing it and adding colors and random faces. Appropriately modern outside the Tate Museum!

From inside the Abbey at Westminster

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Yup, there are still phones inside!

Swans (and a few other birds) in Hyde Park...15 minutes later was an absolute downpour!

Anyone could parallel park this little guy! Oh, and there's a bug behind it - Slug!

Hanging out with the Horseguardsman

On our last full day, we decided to tour St. Paul's Cathedral. Wow, it was really spectacular up close. And then, crazy as we are, we climbed to the top. Now, I didn't think I had vertigo issues, but this climb taught me differently! The outside dome is actually built on top of the interior dome so you walk in between the two...on metal grid spiral staircases. You can see all the way down!!! Deep breaths (and not just from 500+ stairs) but the views were totally worth it!

Just a wee bit of wind from way up here!

We did upload all our pics to our shared site if you want to see more (Click HERE for link). London has officially solidified itself as one of my favorite cities ever..."Cheers" until next time!

Bird watching

Yesterday there was a loon (migrating, I assume) on the river swimming and diving. Today, a bald eagle flying overhead! Nothing like the national and Minnesota state birds to welcome me home from abroad...

January Updates

We've had a pretty normal January - getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. We've especially enjoyed trying to see as many Oscar nominated movies as possible before the awards. We've seen every "best film" nominee for a few years in a row and weren't sure if we'd be able to this year, so we're loving being able to see so many this month.

The last two weekends have been really fun. Last weekend, we had free tickets to the Philly home show. While we aren't exactly the target audience (um, we don't own a home...) we did have a fun time wandering. We met a wonderful gentleman from India who was selling textiles, so I had to stop to purchase a runner. He had an incredible story about how his shop in lower Manhattan had been completely destroyed by Sandy. His insurance still has not paid him anything, and he's lost his shop. It was a sobering reminder that not everyone out here is back to normal after that storm. We were so happy to make a purchase from him!

Afterward, we wanted to enjoy the city a bit, so we walked over to the Reading Terminal Market for a crepe snack (we love that place!), and then onward to a favorite spot in town for an early appetizer dinner.

This past week, we got a last minute invite to a Super Bowl party on Friday night in New York through Mike's team at work. We took the train and were able to find a cheap hotel for the night. The event was a Boomer Esiason's restaurant right off Times Square, and it was pretty cool to be able to meet him, as well as see a few other celebrities while we chatted with some co-workers. We were reminded again that the city doesn't ever sleep as we walked back to our hotel after midnight and saw hundreds of other people out enjoying a beautiful Friday night.

Hangin' with Evander Holyfield!

Mike with Boomer

Saturday was the warmest day we've had out here in a while, so we walked up to Central Park. It was filled with so many others enjoying the day. We found a Turkish restaurant for lunch and I'm not sure if we'll ever be the same - the food was so delicious! We're just loving being able to go up to the city and check out new neighborhoods, and are looking forward to our next time in New York.

Strawberry Fields - the John Lennon tribute in Central Park

Happy Super Bowl Sunday - and to the Zitzmans: Go Seahawks!

New Art

We could only spend about a week in town before we finally made it down to Soft Illusions, our favorite art gallery in town. We've been waiting for a few months to buy a piece of our own. 

Which required a little art shuffling, so we updated the bathroom art!

And with spring hopefully around the corner, I had a little garden/art project to welcome in a little sunshine this week. Looking forward to some daffodils!

Christmas in Minnesota

Our second half of December was spent in Minnesota with so many of you. We had an amazing trip and it was so special to spend time with everyone! After navigating changing flight schedules (a snowstorm hit Philly on our departure date), we were able to celebrate Dad's 60th (!) birthday with a surprise dinner at Dakota Jazz Club. Tower of Power was playing that night and wow was it memorable!

We spent our first week with Mary and Steve in Anoka (special "thank you" for the hospitality!) while getting to see so many friends and family and co-workers in Minneapolis. Another special thanks to Grandma & Grandpa for the car rental!

Christmas with the Fuchs family was on Sunday - and what fun! The special surprise was Mary's gift. Steve got her a framed piece of art that she fell in love with when they came out to visit. We got to be special elves getting the gorgeous painting from Manayunk to Minneapolis!

We were up in Hibbing for a fabulous Christmas! Brie was our amazing chauffeur and it was so fun to get chat time to and from. We missed cutting down the tree in the woods, but we got to enjoy it all dressed up! After a busy week in Minneapolis the week before, it was fun to relax with books and games and some amazing food for the holiday. We even got in a sauna to help us cope with the frigid weather. We're not used to the cold anymore!

We were even able to swing by Grand Rapids for one night to spend the night with Megan, Matt, and Elsa!

We had so much fun that we were bad about taking pictures, but we had an incredible trip seeing everyone!

Snowpocalypse!

We survived Hercules! 7.5" of snow and plenty of news coverage later, there were some very happy people on a snow day...Mike and all the children of the Philly school districts. :)

It really was crazy seeing the preparation and then watching the highway out our window last night. There was a huge accident where a car caught fire and we saw a small explosion! We're just hoping that all passengers involved were safe.

Stay warm everyone!

Christmas In New York!

Mike and I have had a wonderful whirlwind December...and I can't believe it's over already! Our Christmas gift to each other this year was a long weekend in New York. What a gift it was! The city is so incredible, and we could spend days just walking through one neighborhood. The first night there was the tree lighting in Rockefeller Center, so we stayed away (the NYPD was setting up blockades blocks away due to the crowds!) and instead walked to a fabulous little French bistro, Matisse.

 

We did get to see the tree later into the trip!

Thursday was the only day we had a plan. We booked a walking history/food tour of the Lower East Side. We were the only ones that signed up, so we had a really personal tour with our guide. We learned a lot about the immigration into NY (and therefore the whole country - really interesting!), and also the culture and foods that are in these awesome neighborhoods. We stopped for dumplings in Chinatown, Dutch waffles, Yonah Schimmel Knishes, a deli in Little Italy, the Essex Street Market, Katz's Deli, and ended with pretzels and beer at a German beer garden. We were so into the immigrant history that after the tour we went to the Tenement Museum where we were able to walk through a preserved tenement building and learn about two immigrant families who lived there in the 1870s and 1930s.

Mike had posted on Facebook that we were in the city, and through that we found out that his cousin, Erin, and her family were in town from Boston as well. We were able to meet up and spent the evening with their beautiful family. Many thanks to the gracious hosts for inviting us up to their apartment for a glass of wine! We're going back for more gyros next time we're in the city!

Dinner at the Halal Guys - the best food truck in town!

On our rainy Friday we went up through Central Park to the Frick museum - a personal home and art collection that is now an incredible museum. It's not a huge museum, but has one of the best collections of art I've ever seen! We also got tickets that day to go to Phantom of the Opera - amazing! It really solidified itself as one of my favorite shows. We also ended up with souvenirs: Mike went to get us a glass of wine before the show, and $45 later showed up with 2 glasses of wine in the theater required souvenir "sippy cups". Only in NY can you get away with charging that much for vino!

Our tour guide had recommended a fun walk, so we tried that on Saturday. Starting downtown we took the Staten Island ferry on a scenic round trip to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. What views! We then hiked northbound to Greenwich Village. During lunch we reserved tickets for a midnight comedy show, so we had the whole night to enjoy ourselves before that (we knew we couldn't go back to the hotel, or we were going to fall asleep!) We ended up having dinner at a small restaurant and befriended the bartender. She suggested we go up to a place in Times Square where her boyfriend worked: Jekyll & Hyde. What a crazy/kooky place! It's "haunted" and has all sorts of special effects - like bar stools on hydraulics that move up and down, and a "hidden" bathroom. We had fun waiting for the comedy show...and it was worth the wait too - 5 hilarious comedians - and one we recognized from The Daily Show.

At Jekyll & Hyde - the front entrance/exit included this library full of...odds & ends.

Sunday we spent walking the Highline Park before taking the train back home again.  Even with all that touring, we have so much more we want to see in NY. What an amazing city!