London

[July 13 - 16 and 19 - 20]

We arrived in London about a week after the Tube (subway) bombings. I wasn't really worried because we've managed to avoid the tsunami, Asian bird flu, and various train crashes this whole year.


Dean at Big Ben with a million other tourists

Our friends Rog and Harriet offered us space in their adorable house in Loughton, about 40 minutes east of London by the Tube. They feed us a nice dinner and introduced us to the addictive world of sudoku puzzles.

Here is an example of sudoku. We took the picture so that we do the puzzle later on paper.


Sodoku, the "number crossword"

Feeling domestic, we took a trip out to the England equivalent of Home Depot. (It was even painted orange.) There, Rog and Harriet found their dream barbecue, a huge thing with side tables and a grill large enough for a raging party. The best thing about the store was the fake policemen by the door. They were simply large cutouts of cops but I guess it must work to deter thieves.


Marita and the Cutout Cop

We crammed the four of us into the car, along with the barbecue, a gas tank, and several large house plants. But it was worth it for a grilled dinner later on!

We also made it into London a few times. Once, we went with Rog to sneak into the Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum. The general admission is free and I had no idea that I'd found the back entrance to the not-free exhibit. We saw Cleopatra (mummy) and preserved alligators and cats. Quite cool.

The rest of the museum was way too crowded and there was too much territory to cover in a day, so we left after a few hours.

Another day, after pulling ourselves away from the sudoku book, we went to the Tate Modern to see some more art. We had arranged to meet each other every hour, but had a miscommunication and wandered around for a full hour trying to find each other. I don't know how we missed each other, but by the end, we were annoyed and just wanted to go back to Loughton.

Rik and Sharon came over one night. They had visited us for an ultimate tournament one summer a few years ago. We had a nice dinner and played a funny game called Chairs. Basically, you have to stack up one chair at a time and hope that you're not the one to knock it all over. Good fun.


Rik and Sharon play Chairs

We had a little break from London and headed out to Norwich (and Brundall). Then we came back to London and spent our last day of the World Trip back with Rog and Harriet. When we were leaving, we realized that we didn't have any pictures of Rog and Harriet together, so we made them pose on the couch.


Rog and Harriet get cuddly

Hope to see you guys in Seattle!