Sunday, September 1, 2013

Our Trip to London England

Jackie and me in London
Well, well, well, what a month of August it was for us….Jackie and I. As I posted in July we had a party for our 50th anniversary. As part of our celebration, we had planned for over a year to go someplace we have always wanted to go and that was England.

Both my genealogy and Jackie’s have many roots in England. We had heard of all these famous places like Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London for example. Well we saw them and much more. What a wonderful time we had during our time there which was only 8 days but that was plenty and we saw everything we had planned on seeing.


We had a formal tour ran by a wonderful company called Globus. The tour guides were more like college history professors. I think I learned more about England than I had ever expected to know. They were just wonderful and the accommodations were top notch.


The only thing we did not like was the English cooking. Someone has to introduce them to some of the spices of the world. To be blunt, it was as bland as could be and some of the food was just not eatable.


A funny story happened while we were there. We had both wanted a good English meal of Fish and Chips. Well our first day there we went to a pub and ordered F&C. What came was pretty good chips, but the fish, well let me say was like an old thin piece of road kill, very flat with the skin still on it. It was as hard as shoe leather. The batter on the fish was not even done and very bad tasting. I could not eat mine and just had a few chips.


Well along our tour we ran across another place and again ordered F&Cs. But we did not pay enough attention and did not notice that the fish was going to be fish patties, not what we had expected. Again the coating on the fish was hard and burned, but the actual fish or what ever it was kind of ran off the plate. It was awful and we again ate some of the chips but left the rest.


Well we were getting the feeling we were not going to find any good F&C in England after all. We got to a city by the name of Salisbury, They have a very old and big cathedral there that we visited. It was very impressive. As I was leaving one of the people who worked there as a greeter asked me how our tour was going. Now I know this man had know idea who I was other than I was an American tourist. I said great we just loved what we were seeing, except we were disappointed that we were unable to find a good F&C dinner. He said well I can tell you were you can find the best F&C in the world. I expected him to say some restaurant there in England. But no he said, the best I have ever had was at Ivor’s in Seattle Washington. He said I have been there many times and believe me they are the best. I could not believe what he said. I told him I have had that dinner many times and expected to find some better in England. He said to his knowledge there is non better in England.


But on our next to last day there we did find a good F&C dinner at a restaurant in the Hilton hotel we were staying in. Kind of expensive, $100 counting the tip but at least it was good. Actually more than I could eat.  I did my best to stay on my program and I have not weighed myself yet, I plan on doing that next Tuesday as that is my normal day to weigh, but I don’t think I have gained anything. Jackie put on about 3 pounds but it is already coming off.


I am just so happy that I had the WLS so I could walk and enjoy the tour. A little over a year ago I would have never been able to take this tour without skipping many of the tours because I would have been too heavy and my legs and feet would not have been able to carry me along. This time, I had absolutely now health problems, and I was not tired or sick at all.


But we want to stay home for awhile now and work on our home and get it in shape. We plan on taking another tour in a few years but for now we just love looking at the 529 photos I took and the hours of video so we can remember the great time we had.


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