Kayla and David Visit London!

Being that Kayla is my one and only sibling, that she lived with Brian and I for awhile and we also worked together at the same company for a period of time we saw each other A LOT when we lived in Minnesota.  We are really close sisters so when we moved to London it was hard to leave her behind and be so far apart.  Luckily we have FaceTime to survive... but still not seeing each other in person for 8 months is a LONG time! So when she was finally planning her trip I couldn't have been more excited!  Then she even got it arranged through work to tour and shadow at her UK office for 2 days which is located in Cobham (about 1 hour from London.)  This meant she could be here for longer (5 days more than originally planned with the way the weekend fell) plus use less vacation time AND it meant we would see each other for a FULL 2 WEEKS, we were THRILLED!!! Poor David had to stay home and work a few more days before coming but we were SO excited for him to arrive too!

I thought I was going to burst with excitement waiting at the arrival gate for Kayla to come through on April 26th... 

When she finally arrived we were so happy to see each other! 

 Here we are riding the tube back to our place...

So Kayla has an obsession (ok actually quite a large obsession) with the Royal Family.  After we brought her to our flat to drop her things and find something to eat she was ready to set out to see the sites.  Once the initial excitement of seeing Brian and I had leveled a bit she was then focused on what "Royal" places we could see! 

Our first stop was Kensington Palace where Prince William, Kate and Prince Baby George live.  Kayla was in awe and convinced they were probably in there since they had just returned home from their Australia trip.

Once Brian was finally able to convince her that we should move on and that we "can't just stand and wait for them to come out" we rode the tube up to Paddington Station which was not far away.  We walked to Saint Mary's Hospital from there... you are probably wondering what is so special there?  Well if you love everything about the Royal Family you know that the Lindo Wing in the hospital is where Prince William, Harry and of course the newest Little Prince George were all born!  The steps outside the Lindo Wing are also where they were first brought out of the hospital and shown off to the world to hundreds of news cameras and paparazzi.  Kayla (and I) both thought this was pretty cool to see!    

Then from there we went to show her Buckingham Palace where the Queen lives! She hadn't even been here 5 hours and she already gotten to see 3 of her highlights.  She was in her glory after her first day in London!

The next day, Sunday we started out by walking Munch.  Normally I don't walk him on the weekend but his owner had plans so I said I'd help out.  Plus Kayla didn't mind getting to see him extra, she was so excited to meet him because she loves dogs too!

After our walked we enjoyed afternoon tea at the Ampersand Hotel.  It was fun to introduce Kayla to this great British tradition.  

Once again we struggled to finish everything but eventually polished it off.

Just as we were finishing the end of our tea something unpredictable happened!  They have a certain type of "science tea" that you can order and the desserts are interesting shapes like a moon, dinosaurs, etc. Kinda strange but then the waiter pours dry ice over them and it looks really neat for about 30 seconds.  Kayla was in the process of getting a picture of the dry ice smoldering at the table behind us while we got instead we got this...

A FULL MOON!  This girl was standing up like this forever while everyone else in the room had been watching the dry ice so they all clearly saw too! Seriously?! How could she not know?!  We were laughing so hard! Definitely haven't seen that at tea before!!! 

On the way back from tea we were at the tube station and Kayla found it funny that, "I must look British or something." The two of us were standing on the platform and a french family came bee lining up to me to ask for directions and didn't even pay any attention to her.  She took this pic as I was trying to explain to them where to go, they were pretty confused so hopefully they made it! 

That night the two of us went to Cobham to stay at the hotel she was being put up at by her company since she was going to work on Monday and Tuesday.  I went along to make sure she got there on the train then just hung out by myself while she was working.  

One of the nice things about having visitors is they take pictures of all the things I don't think to take pictures of anymore.  Here are a few of the street we live on...

And a picture of one of my favorite bakery/coffee shops on our street called Gail's.  I took her there to grab one of the delicious dark chocolate cherry scones for breakfast.  

Since there was a tube strike on Wednesday, the day David was arriving we had to ride the bus instead of the tube to Heathrow to pick him up.  His flight was scheduled to land at 12:00pm and on our ride to the airport I was tracking the status of his flight on my phone.  As we got closer and closer and planes were flying right over head we realized the timing was going to be really close to us being able to see his plane come in! Just as we were at the bus stop right before the runway area my phone said his flight was, "on approach."  Since we were sitting on the top level and front row of the double decker bus we had a perfect view!  We had a plan that one of us was going to video and the other was going to take a picture.  Soon the plane was right above and behind us!  We couldn't quite tell but as soon as it was in view and we saw that it was a Delta plane we knew it was his!  I'm not going to post the video of us since we sounded like huge dorks with our excitement, "There it is!  That's his flight! Hi David!"  Everyone was looking at us funny as we squealed with excitement but we didn't care.   You could never plan the timing of it that way again if you tried! 

We made a "Ted Schnack... Please report to the snack bar" sign to hold up for him at the arrival gate.  It's an inside joke from one year when we were on the way to Hawaii and in the airport they came over the loud speaker and said that.  Ever since then one of his nicknames became Schnack!  

After a LONG time Schnack finally appeared through the door.. We were starting to get really worried when it had been 2 hours and he still hadn't come through.  Turns out there was a technical problem at customs and they were having to manually enter everyone's passports!  We found out the next day some people waited 4 hours!

Brian got to our place the same time we did and was excited to see David too.  After having a quick bite to eat and it was time for David to meet Munch for his afternoon walk!  They liked each other...

From there we left to head into Central London so they could see Big Ben and the Eye and feel like they were really here!

Then finally it was time to find some drinks and toast to  the four of us being in London together! We walked down to the SouthBank area along the river and tried an outdoor garden rooftop place I had been wanting to try.  What better way to cheers to the trip with a huge jug of Pimm's (popular British drink) and an excellent view?!

The next day Brian went to work while I took Kayla and David to see another of her "Royal Highlights" Windsor Castle.  It ended up being a pretty wet rainy day.  This is us getting ready to head out (yes the entrance to our flat is actually in an alley) 

This was my third time going to Windsor but I didn't mind because it was worth seeing how excited Kayla was to tour one of the Queen's residences! 

 

After we toured the castle we took the train back to London and eventually met up with Brian who was done working mid afternoon.  We checked out Harrod's then hit up another pub for a drink...

The following day we started out by touring the Tower of London where Kayla (& David) were in awe by the Queen's Crown Jewels!  From there we walked over Tower Bridge on our way to the Borough Market for lunch.

After lunch at the market I took them to another place I love to bring visitors, the top of the Shard for a drink.

On their final day in London we had a busy one planned. Started out by going to the Royal Mews (connected to Buckingham Palace) where you can see the royal horse carriages. The guys didn't think it was quite as exciting as Kayla and I did...

They were hoping to see more of the royal cars but there was only one Rolls Royce that the Queen rides in during certain events.

Kayla and I were pretty impressed by the Gold State Coach which was built in 1762 and has been used at the coronation of every British monarch since George IV!

It takes 8 horses lined up to pull it...

Next we saw the Changing of the Guard and toured Kensington Palace (we obviously didn't get to see where Will, Kate and Baby George actually live, bummer!) Here we are in the gardens after the tour...

The last place we visited to check off on Kayla's Royal stops was Westminster Abbey.  We went to the 5:00 service and Kayla was so excited to be where the Royal Wedding had taken place.  Her favorite part was getting to walk down the center isle after the service where Kate actually walked on their wedding day!  

Then before we headed off for their last dinner in London we were able to get some pretty nice shots with Big Ben...

We packed in quite a lot and the next morning we set off for Italy! (Separate blog on that part of the trip later...)

Easter Weekend in Portugal: Part 2, Lisbon & Sintra

From Faro we took a morning train which left at about 10:00 AM to travel north to Lisbon, which is the capital of Portugal. As the ride started out it took us through many orange groves...  

As the journey went on the landscape got more mountainous and there were many beautiful wild flowers.  The trip was supposed to last about 3 hours however about an hour into the ride we started slowing way down then eventually came to a complete stop.  Then shortly an announcement came over the loud speaker in Portuguese, so of course we could not understand it.  Judging by everyone's frustrated looking faces and body language we made the assumption that there was going to be some sort of delay.  We ended up sitting in the same spot for about 45 mins so we ended up finally making it to Lisbon about 2:00 pm.

After we checked into our hotel we set out to find some lunch.  Then we bought tickets for the Lisbon hop on hop off tour bus to take us around and start getting acclimated to the city.  Lisbon is definitely quite a bit different than Faro as it is much bigger and more of a commercialized city.  There is still a lot of old uniqueness to the city (pics to come later.)

After riding one route on the bus we headed back to our hotel to check out the panoramic view of the city from the bar/restaurant located at the top floor.  The sun was setting over the hills and it was beautiful to see the light hitting the red roof tops.  The pictures don't really do the view justice...

but below is a link to a short video clip.  Still much better in person but helps get the idea... 

After enjoying the view and it got darker we took a cab into one of the main squares we had seen on the bus tour (we were staying a bit further up the hill).  When we got dropped off we just happened to catch the end of a light show that was going on.  The colors lighting up one of the buildings were really fun to watch.  Check it out in the video clip that we took below...

The next morning was Easter Sunday and we started out by  having brunch at our hotel.  Next we set out to do the other route on the bus tour.  This section was to show us the newer areas of Lisbon.  We have really enjoyed the hop on hop off tours in other cities but this one we both agreed was a fail! Both times we had to move around seats to get our headphones to work in the outlets and once they finally did it didn't give us much history of the city, etc.  On the second route we felt like we just rode around on a city bus for about 2 hours not really seeing or learning anything.  It even drove us to the airport, not sure why... We might be done with the bus tours for a bit. 

Like Faro, Lisbon also had some graffiti in some places that are real works of art... 

Lisbon was a little cooler then Faro and a bit rainy for a short time, didn't stop us though... 

Eventually we made our way down to the marina area along the river. This is also where there is a huge bridge that resembles the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco! When we came into Lisbon from Faro the train actually went across the bridge. 

Across the river there is also a huge Christ statue (you can see it in the distance in the far left in the pic above.)  We never actually got close to it, but got this shot with our zoom lens, it is huge...

In the marina area we found a great restaurant called 5 Oceanios for a nice Easter lunch.  The large prawns and sesame seabass were excellent! 

After lunch we set off for more exploring of Lisbon.  Here we are in the square during the daylight of where the light show had been the previous night...

From there we set out to wander through the Alfama neighborhood.  This is a very hilly part of Lisbon with very narrow and unique streets.  

 

We found the cutest little beers we had to try out too, they were less than 1 Euro!

Since Lisbon is so hilly in some places there are street cars. We didn't ride one but they are another resemblance to San Francisco!  

From the Alfama area we continued our way up the hill to  Castelo De Sao Jorge (a castle).  Here is a view of it in the distance...

The exterior as well as interior is made up of brick walls and open spaces to explore...

Our favorite part was that it had great views overlooking the city...

 
I've mentioned before that one of our favorite things about traveling to new places is trying out each countries food specialties.  In Portugal they are know for their amazing custard tarts! They were so good...

The event that began that night I struggle to even describe how it happened and what it was actually like...There really is no way to because it was so crazy in person but I'll do my best with words, a few photos and a short video clip! So we were walking back to our hotel around 7:00 pm and we noticed big crowds of people watching a futbol game on TV and could hear people chanting and cheering.  Eventually we got to a point on the sidewalk where there was an area with a big screen and probably around 100 people watching the futbol (soccer) game.  They had air horns, scarves they were waving around and there was lot of yelling with excitement.  We stopped on the side to watch for a bit and Brian said, "we pretty much cannot go back to our hotel right now because something big is about to happen!"  Turns out it was Lisbon's hometown team Benfica about to win the national title which they have been chasing for several years.

 There was only a few mins left in the game and when they won the entire city went NUTS!!! This is where it gets hard to describe... EVERY car on the street was honking and waving things out their windows (this didn't stop for more than 6 hours) People came flooding from EVERYWHERE and began running to one of the main squares in Lisbon which happened to be near our hotel.  This turned out to be a HUGE pep fest that last way past our bed time! It's funny because we had a picture of me earlier in the day with the empty square behind me...

Then this is what it looked like shortly after the game ended and just continued to fill up as the night went on...

See the statue of a man in the center and the crane? They used the crane to put a huge team jersey on the man! As the night went on people were climbing the statue and a few people made it all the way up to the top, so crazy (and dangerous!) 

Watch this short video clip we took to help get the idea of what it was like! 

It was such a crazy experience to just happen to be in Lisbon during this exciting time for entire city.  We had to buy one of the scarves they were selling all over to remember it! By the time we made our way back to our hotel around midnight you literally could hardly walk in the streets and people were climbing street signs and traffic lights! Just as we were falling asleep at 12:45am a huge fireworks display began that you could see from our room! There is no doubt the party (and car honking) lasted all night!

The next day we set out to explore the village of Sintra which was about a 30 minute train ride from Lisbon.  It is nestled in the Sintra Mountains and had very lush tropical looking vegetation and spectacular views.  

 

Since we didn't want to walk all the way up the mountain we thought it would be way more fun to have a driver take us in a "tuk tuk"... 

We learned history of Sintra and saw great views as we wound our way up to the top...

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Eventually we arrived at the beautiful Palace of Pena!

 

The palace had so many interesting shapes colors and tiles...

After touring the palace our tuk tuk driver picked us up and brought us back down the mountain.  We got some lunch quick then went to explore the Quinta da Regaleira (old royal summer residence).  

 

There were some underground tunnels we were able to explore and one lead to what is called the Initiatic Well.  The bottom of the well is 88 feet down into the earth and has a spiral staircase that leads you back up to the surface.  The well is supposed to represent the relationship between heaven and earth and when you move up towards the light at the top of the well your sins are said to have been washed away.  Here is the view from the bottom looking up, water was constantly dripping down slowly...

Midway up...

 View from the top looking down...

On our last day (we didn't leave until that evening) we took the train about 30 mins to the coastal town of Cascais.  We had breakfast and just walked along the pretty coastline...

All said and done we LOVED Portugal!