Greetings from London!

Hello!

When I last left you, we were in San Francisco and bound for New York City to await a flight to Europe. BOY-OH-BOY was New York ever EXPENSIVE!!!! $25.00US for bagels and Coffee!!!! Shiiiiiit! Good thing that we had a couple of places lined up to stay for free. First stop was my Cousin Walter’s house, where we spent 3 days with him, his wife, and two lovely daughters Stephanie (8) and Samantha (2). Before I left, my brother Chris said that if I didn’t fall in love with Walt’s daughters when I was there that there was something wrong with me; Well Chris there’s nothing wrong with me.
Next stop was at a friends of SaraGrace’s from college; Chris. Chris lives at the top of an apartment building next door to the Empire State building. Way Cool. We did the usual tourist things; Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, took in a play (Les Mis) and what not. We also connected with a fraternity brother of mine, Chadwick Sinclair Norton III, (Hi Chad) and a cousin of SGK’s. And guess who else? Remember Ko, the intrepid Japanese traveler who we met in Guatemala, then again in Panama, then again in Ecuador and Peru? Well, we bumped into him in NY again as well!!! Small world!

The next stop was JFK airport for our flight to Europe, where we waited for HOURS! (like 6) for a flight. 6 hours after that we land in Paris. The City of Lights is still full of rudeness, but we managed to have a good time anyways before boarding the TGV for Brussels. I’ve always been fond of Belgium (They do have the highest Brewery to Population ratio after all) but SGK positively loved it! The Food, The Architecture, the Chocolate, and especially THE BEER! She now has a new favorite; Hoegarden, a wheat beer brewed by a bunch of drunk monks in Ghent-Sint Peters. After a quick stop in Brugges, we were off on the Eurostar through the Chunnel to London town.

London has not changed; it’s still expensive, overcast and chock full of tourists. The circle line was out of commission which caused havoc in the tube, but we survived a weeks worth of tourism relatively unscathed. As it was SGK’s first trip to England, we did it all; Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, The Royal Observatory in Greenwich, The Tower of London, Salisbury Cathedral, Old Sarum, Stonehenge, Vale of the White Horse, Avesbury, and even a crop circle. Our only regrets were not being able to see more of our friends here, just Dave and Claire, we just never managed to connect with Mandy, Steve, Bernie, Greg and Nicole, Nick, Russell, Roy, Nick and Abi, or anyone else! After spending a bazillion dollars a day (Total shock after Ecuador, Bolivia and the Honduras) It was time to go.

Where do we go from Here?

There was a change of plans involved here; You see my company offered me a job in Oz, and we weren’t sure if it would come through in the end (The HR person in CA kept blowing off the telephone appointments) so, if it didn’t come through, we were off to South Africa, but the boys down under pulled it off, so now we are headed to Australia instead! So look out Randall, Jim, Dave, Kym, Alison, and Mac, You will all be forced to drink beer with us in your homes!!!!!
Cheers!
MRA