Okay, folks, I'm  going to come right out and admit it.  I don't get vampires. Well, I mean, I get them -- immortal dudes, sucking blood, pet peeves include garlic, wooden stakes, and sunlight -- I just don't get the appeal.  And by appeal, I specifically mean this weird romantic appeal that they seem to have with females. I'll come out right now and confess the obvious in telling you that I'm a geek, so I can completely understand the weird fanboyisms that I and those of my ilk have.  Star Trek was easily the coolest thing I've seen all year.  Last year, I was excited about Iron Man and the Dark Knight.  I got a kick out of 300, I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, and even though it was a horrible, horrible movie, I saw The Phantom Menace more times than I'll admit to when sober. So, yeah, I understand having a thing.  I just don't get what it is with the ladies and their vampires.  I bring it up now because of all this Twilight stuff that's getting the teenage girls all aflutter, but it's hardly unique to this movie.  For years, the vampire has been this romantic figure, be it the Anne Rice novels or the old black and white movies where lady swoons so the caped immigrant can chow down on her jugular. But what I don't understand is why vampires.  I can explain all of my geek loves in pretty simple terms.

• Star Trek: What doesn't it have?  Spaceships!  That fly in space!  Exploring worlds that have never been seen!  Bold and brash heroes brandishing their laser pistols against the enemy!  An optimistic future where everyone can succeed and there's no race or class system.  Star Trek is a geekboy utopia where you get to blow stuff up once in a while.
• Superhero movies: Pure fantasy.  Every man dreams of being invincible, of being stronger than strong, of being admired.  It doesn't matter if you have real superpowers like Spider-Man, or are just someone with really cool toys that make you nigh-invincible like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne -- who doesn't want to be the hero?  And this extends to things like 300, the Bourne movies, and the Bond stories.  All about men not endowed with super powers, but keenly able to take advantage of their every sense and ability to appear to be able to do anything.
• Lord of the Rings: Magic!  Heroes with infallible aim with a sword and a bow (and my axe)!  Evil rings than can make you invisible!  A hidden and unknown king who knows how to kick ass when necessary!  These are things that many young boys dream of, and you don't necessarily grow out of it.  Awesome is timeless!
• Star Wars: Take all of the above, and add magic ninjas with laser swords.  Dude.  Magic ninjas with laser swords!

Any man reading this is going to understand it.  They will nod.  And possibly say "Hell, yeah!" depending on present company.  We get this. But Vampires?  Sure, I get the appeal to a guy: immortal superhuman cannibal monster!  It's from that place that you get movies like Blade and Underworld.  Even The Lost Boys has a kickass vibe to it, despite the abundance of Coreys. But I just don't get Twilight.  I don't get the female romanticism of the vampire.  What's romantic about an immortal superhuman cannibal monster? Meh, maybe I'll never understand.  Maybe they think they can change him or something. I'm just thankful I stopped getting bitten by vampires on Facebook.

Our last day in London, and in Europe. We did on this day something we'd been planning on doing since the first day -- take the double decker narrated tour of the city.  Pricey, but fun if you have a good guide, and we had a good guide. Traffic was horrendous, so it took us about 2.5 hours to make our way around.  But we got to see all the sights we hadn't yet seen, and had fun doing it.  I think I got a sunburn -- it was windy up there on top, and I couldn't wear my hat without it blowing off. After the tour, we wandered down from Piccadilly Circus to Westminster Pier and hopped on a boat to Greenwich (a round trip boat tour is included in the bus ticket).  It was a nice relaxing ride on the Thames to Greenwich, but it was about 4:30 by the time we got there.  That meant many things were closing. We wandered into town, and made our way slowly to the top of the hill with the Royal Observatory (where the Prime Meridian is marked).  We took some goofy pictures with each of us standing at 0.00° longitude, we wandered the museum looking at telescopes and other astronomy artifacts, and visited the gift shop.  For reasons I'm still not 100% clear on, I felt compelled to buy a pocket watch.  So now I have a neat pocket watch with the "Royal Observatory Greenwich" mark on it.  It's very nice, and I quite like it. We then wandered back into town and had a quick supper.  By the time we'd finished, we'd missed the last boat home, so we took the tube back.  I'm glad we did, the DLR line provides some great views of the newer parts of the city!  I also discovered a new favorite tube stop. Previously, I'd decided Elephant and Castle was my favorite tube stop name.  It seemed nicely random to me.  But then I discovered Mudchute, and a new favorite was made! We made our way back to to the Bree Louise so I could have a few more excellent ales at an excellent pub before we left this city.  The beer I fell in love with last night was already out!  They have such a turnover there -- I think if I lived here, I'd have to go there every day to try the beers they get. After a few pints, it was the Tube back to Victoria Station, and walk to the hotel.  As soon as I finish writing this little summary, I'm packing, since we have a rather early flight in the morning.  I expect we'll be leaving the hotel around 5. Before noon Chicago time, we'll be back in the US, having spent 16 full days in Europe.  Pretty damned awesome, if you ask me.  And you didn't ask me, but I'm pretending you did, because I'm the author and it's my prerogative.  So there. Good-bye, London!  We'll miss you, but I'm sure we'll be seeing you again.  Right after we visit Moscow, Rome, Milan, Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Prague, Edinburgh, Stockholm, Oslo, and maybe Copenhagen. 'Night, all!  Pics will be posted when I get back. Finally posted the pics.

You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best. I've been gone for a month, I've been drunk since I left. These so-called vacations will soon be my death. I'm so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest...

Ahh, Spirit of the West, you wrote it well! I can't believe it's been over two weeks now since I left the fair city of Chicago. Make no mistake, we're still having fun, and still checking out sights. Today, we spent the afternoon at Westminster Abbey. At our stop in Belgium, meeting up with Pat in the Delrium Cafe, he made not of the fact that he had pretty much seen enough cathedrals. I can understand where he's coming from -- I think I'm museumed out at this point -- but I'm glad we went to this cathedral. The included audio tour is read by Jeremy Irons, so it's like being led around the cathedral by a charming Brit with a fantastic voice whispering the details in your ear. I definitely recommend it. The Abbey itself has a fantastic history, and you see so many tombs, memorials, and shrines, it's impossible to recall them all without cheating. The ones that stand out in my mind are:

• Mary, Queen of Scots
• Elizabeth I
• Edward the Confessor
• Oliver Cromwell (sort of, since his body was, a few years after burial, removed, hanged, decapitated, drawn, and quartered.)
• William Shakespeare (memorial)
• Handel
• Sir Lawrence Olivier
• Sir Isaac Newton
• Charles Darwin
• Winston Churchill (memorial)
• Franklin Roosevelt (memorial)

I wonder how many anti-science zealots would be surprised and appalled that Charles Darwin is buried adjacent to an altar in a holy Christian cathedral. After the tour, we braved the on-and-off rain, made our way up to a shopping district for tea, and so Tisha could check out some of the stores that aren't in the US.  We had lunch/tea at Selfridges, then she did a little shopping while I wandered. Following that, it was off to the pub.  We stopped in at the Doric Arch again, since we knew it had free WiFi and I could find the next pub from there.  The place was packed, due to the Ashes being shown.  No, it wasn't a cremation, or anything, just the biennial Test Cricket contest between Great Britain and Australia.  And, I've tried very hard, but I still have no sweet clue what the hell is going on in a cricket match.  All I know is that there's a ball, a wicket, and it takes days. Still, we looked up and found the pub I'd read about earlier in the week, the Bree Louise.  This pub won the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ales) pub of the year award for 2009/2010.  And rightfully so! 16 real ales, 11 of them gravity, 5 on pump!  8 ciders on cask!  Fortunately, or possibly unfortunately, I discovered my favorite beer there on my first pint!  I tried some others, but I kept coming back to Dark Star Old Chestnut.  Sooooo good. We stayed for supper, then made our way back to Euston Station.  Unlike in the song above, the train journeyed south, taking us to Victoria Station, and a short walk to the hotel. Love this city! Our last day begins tomorrow.  I've no idea what we're going to do, but the safe money is on some more beer. 'Night!

Our 14th day on this European excursion was not one filled with adventure.  It was not filled with museums. It was not filled with beer.  Okay, I lied about the last one. Day 14 was a sedate one. The past few days were so full and so tiring, we gave ourselves an off day, so to speak. For me, the danger sign was that I was starting to look forward to home.  While I like home, don't get me wrong, looking forward to getting home and relaxing while you're on vacation is a sign that you're pushing yourself too hard. Today was the cure for that. We slept in, caught a late brunch, then caught the Tube to Marble Arch, and wandered into Hyde Park.  We rented a couple of chairs and just relaxed.  Practically an hour, just soaking up the atmosphere.  It was serene, it was relaxing. Then, we wandered around the park, stopping when we got to the lake.  To do otherwise would get us wet. There, we snagged some more chairs, wince our rental was food for two hours. We watched people feed the birds, watched people lounge, we watched people riding in paddle-boats... we people watched. Eventually, we made our way around the lake, stopping to watch the birds along the way. Before we knew it, it was 3:00, and we'd planned to be in Oxford by 4:30 to meet our friend and coworker Paul and his family at a pub. So we hastily made our way to Paddington Station to catch the train to Oxford. We were a bit behind but made it to the Turf Tavern by 5-ish, where Paul and Jean were enjoying a beer.  Unless you've got a hard deadline, I don't believe you can be late to a pub, since there's good beer to be had by the people waiting ;). After Paul's family showed up, we made dinner plans, landed on visiting another Oxford pub for beer and dinner.  I can't recall the name of the pub right now, but I do know it's a White Horse pub. Following dinner, Paul's family went back to the hotel (no kids in pubs after 7), and Paul, Tisha, and I embarked on an Oxford pub crawl. We first went to Far From the Maddening Crowd, then the Bookbinder (IIRC), and another whose name escapes me.  I'll research this before publishing (or soon thereafter) and get the names straight. By 10:00, it was time to head to the train station to catch the train back to London. It's from the train that I write this update. No pics today.  For some reason, I didn't take any. Two more days, the. We fly home!

(I'm going to use the word "amazing" too much, I'll clean this up in post-trip editing.) Guess who is exhausted, again! What a full day. After a quick breakfast at a local cafe (since we overslept and didn't make the breakfast at the hotel), we made our way up north to the British Museum. And that's what we did today. The end. Well, okay, I'll expand on that. The British Museum is huge. Remember, folks, Britain has been around for a looooong time. And, once upon a time, it ruled over a quarter of the planet. In this time, treasures were accumulated from all over. Well, much of it ended up in this museum. It's quite amazing! First up, you're greeted by the enormity of the great hall. This gigantic domed room is just amazing, with a glass roof that lets the light shine in and lets you watch birds relax on it. From there, we wandered into the Egyptian hall to see the one and only Rosetta stone. This giant pics of stone with a story printed in three languages (ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, medieval Egyptian, and Greek) allowed scholars to finally decode the ancient hieroglyphs. And it was there, sitting in front of me, in a glass case. Just amazing. On top of that, we saw:

• The head and torso of a statue of Ramesses
• A fragment of the Sphinx's beard
• Ancient sarcophogi

We moved on to the ancient Assyrian rooms to see many wall carvings, and then onto the Greek rooms to see so many ancient artifacts, including actual marble statures, friezes, and metopes from the Parthenon (as well as reading up on the controversy surrounding the acquisition of those pieces). It was simply awe-inspiring to see things that old up close. To see the detail put into the sculptures, even the parts of them that nobody would see (as they'd have had their backs against a slab, high atop the structure). I'm really glad we went to see this. The museum is simple huge. We spent over 4 hours there, and we saw but a fraction of the collection. It will definitely be something we visit again on another trip here. Following the closing of the museum, we wandered to a nearby pub (The Princess Louise), then made our way south to check out some other pub recommendations, namely the Royal Oak (most excellent pub) and the Market Porter (great selection, huge crowds -- see today's pics). We topped off the day with a middle-eastern meal near the pubs, then caught the tube back to the hotel. And now I'm beat. Pics from today here. Also days 12, 11, 10, and 9.

Another super full day for the Staceys in their marvelous western Europe adventure, the final week of which is in London. Once we got breakfast out of the way, it was on to our first stop of the day, the British Library. We only had a couple of hours there, so we played in their digital exhibit, The Sound and the Fury: The Power of Public Speaking, featuring audio clips of famous speeches you can listen to. Following that, we visited the Treasures, including:

• A possibly original Shakespeare manuscript
• An original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland
• Original copies of Magna Carta
• A Gutenberg Bible
• Original music transcripts from Mozart and Handel

It was quite fascinating, but our time was short, as we had a tour at the BBC at three. Well, that's a lie. I was convinced that our tour was at three. It wasn't. More on that later. Making our way to the BBC via Tube, we needed to grab some lunch, so we hit a food court in the nearby Westfield London Mall -- what a groovy mall! It was just opened in October, and it's huge, ultra modern, and bears a striking resemblance to a cross between an Apple Store and the bridge of the Enterprise in the new Star Trek. I took advantage of the fact that I was actually *ahead* of Newfoundland time (3.5 hours, to be exact), and got to call Mom to wish her a happy birthday in the morning (for her). I picked up a little pre-paid SIM for my unlocked iPhone in the train station this morning, and it worked like a champ. Now, I have a UK number, too. :) We left the mall, duly arriving at the BBC at least five minutes before our tour at three, we sat and waited. And waited. And waited. At 3:20, Tisha asked me if I was sure it wasn't at 3:30. Guess what. It was at 3:30. We began the tour in the BBC news center. The newest building in the complex, it comprises seven floors, houses all of BBC News (Television, Radio, and Internet), and employs over 2000 people. After a brief overview of the news operations (for example, we learned BBC is the biggest news organization in terms of viewers, with CNN trailing behind), we made our way to the Television Factory, as it's called. Here, we learned about the construction of the buildings (from a bird's eye view, it resembles a question mark), interesting history tidbits (only three people have been allowed to drive in the center of the circular complex -- the Queen, Jennifer Lopes -- because she was being a cantankerous diva and time is money, and Jeremy Clarkson in a tiny car. We saw a real working studio, Studio 6, which was being used to rehearse Mock the Week, and was home to many other shows, including Doctor Who in the Tom Baker days. In fact, we discovered our tour guide was Rosalind Lloyd, who starred in one of the Douglas Adams Doctor Who stories, The Pirate Planet. Very cool! We visited a dressing room, heard some stories, played in an imaginary TV studio, and visited the BBC shop that's not open to the public in general. The complex itself employs 8000 people! It's got a W. H. Smith, a dry cleaner, a beauty salon... all inside the building for the employees. A great and fun afternoon. By the time we were done about 90 minutes later, we made our way to Westminster to visit the Parliament. There was a bit of a wait, as this is the last week Parliament is in session, and a bunch of people were queued up to visit their MP on appointment. Once it started drizzling, they let those of us who just wanted to see the galleries to go in as well. The process reminded me of my visit to the Canadian Parliament back in 2003. I have a lot of thoughts on that, but I'll jot them down later when I'm not so tired. We climbed many, many, many stairs and sat in the gallery overlooking the debate in the House of Commons, and then, after some time, went back downstairs, across the hall, up not as many stairs, and visited the gallery overlooking the House of Lords as they debated. It was 9:00 by the time we left Westminster Palace (where the Houses are housed), and I was feeling the need for beer, so we hopped a cab up to Euston station to visit a recommended pub. Yes, we could have used the Tube since we were right there, but I hadn't ridden a cab yet this visit, and I just love those London cabs. We made our way to the Doric Arch and enjoyed a few pints and some crisps. At 10:30, we called it a day and made it back to the hotel. And, once again, I'm too tired to bother posting the pics from my phone, so it'll happen sometime soon. On Thursday, I'll be going to Oxford, and they have WiFi on the bus, so maybe then. Nighty night.

What a difference a full night of sleep makes. Our bed is wonderful, and we both woke up around 8 on our own. So we took our turns in the shower (it's a shared bathroom a half floor down), and hit the breakfast downstairs. Wow, that was a spread. The English Breakfast is a bit... huge. I think tomorrow I'll have him omit a few entries. By 10:30, we were out of the hotel, but not quite out on the town. First order of business was dropping off our laundry. We found a place after a bit of looking, and by 11 or so, we were finally under way, mindful that we had until 7 to pick up our clothes. Unsure on what we wanted to do first, we chose the Tower of London, so we hopped the tube and made our way to the tower. Heed my advice, buy your tickets in the Trader's Gate next to the tube stop, or in the Welcome center just west of the long, long ticket lines. In the Welcome center, you have to pay by credit card, but at £17 a ticket, you're probably going to want to charge it anyway. We walked into the main gate around noon, just as a guided tour with the Yoeman Warder (more popularly known as the Beefeater) guided tour of the tower. This was great -- our Yoeman Warder was fantastic, entertaining, and informative. The hour flew by. I highly recommend visiting the Tower, if only for the tour. After the tour, we visited the White Tower for an exhibit on Henry VIII's armor throughout the years. It was quite interesting (and quite full of stairs). After three floors of armor, and one floor of gift shop (that's how they getcha), we wandered outside in time to see a guard change at the Crown Jewel house. The line for the jewels was tremendously long, and we knew it was twice as long inside, but it seemed a shame to not go in, so we got in line. Well, while the line may be long, it moves steadily, and before we knew it we were inside, moving through the serpentine queues watching videos and eventually making it to the moving sidewalk that gently glides you past the jewels. They're pretty impressive, for a bunch of shiny metal and glittery rocks. After a quick lunch at the cafe, we made our way out of the tower and onto one of the Thames river cruises, this one taking us from the tower back to the Westminster pier, in front of Parliament and Big Ben right around 5. We stopped off at a pub across the street from the Parliament building (St. Stephen's Tavern, full of businessfolk just getting off from their workday) before ultimately catching a bus that took us to within a few blocks of the laundry. We got there just in time, and lugged the clothes back to the hotel by way of a dingy pub with mediocre beer that simply isn't worth mentioning, and a cute little park that took up half a city block. After a brief period of panting on the bed (no, not what you think, it was from lugging all out clothes up all those stairs, we headed back out and just down the road to the Ebury Wine Bar and Restaurant for supper. Pricey, fancy, schmancy. Good meal, though -- the wine was quite nice. Tomorrow, we've got another full day. We plan to visit the British Library, we have a BBC tour at 3, and hope to spend the evening at the Parliament building. Also, we'll mail out postcards that have no chance of arriving before we get home, but it's what we do. :) Will post pics another night, I'm just beat and it's after midnight now. Cheers!

Our first day in London was fuller than expected. The ferry arrived at 6:30 local time (wake-up call came an hour prior), so we had a pretty early start to the day. We cleared passport control, made our way to the adjacent train station, and rode the train into the city. It was an uneventful ride, though you can tell that England's rail system isn't as nice and smooth as in the rest of western Europe. I was more reminded of the train rides in Chicago, with rocking and rolling noisy tracks, instead of the smooth and quiet glide. After transferring to the Tube (and getting on the Circle Line in the wrong direction, making our ride a bit longer, but we ultimately made it to the Victoria Street Station. From there, it's about a 10 minute walk to our hotel. I'd like to take a moment to voice my disapproval of this European concept of the ground floor being "G" or "0", and not "1", because while a second story walkup sounds tolerable, when it's really a third floor room with loooong stair climbs (the ceilings here are quite high), it takes its toll. My thighs are burning, especially on the trips where we're lugging things. Still, I suppose it's good for me. Everyone needs to go into cardiac arrest once or twice a day to feel alive. Since we arrived before noon, we ended up just dropping the bags and heading back out. First stop, Fleet Street and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a quaint old pub that was a favorite haunt of Charles Dickens. I enjoyed a pint of Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Bitter (from cask, of course), followed by a Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Extra Stout. Nice stuff, on both counts, and the atmosphere was great. We then walked from there to the Millennium Bridge (a pedestrian bridge across the Thames), past the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre, ending up at the Borough Market, which we thought would be still going, but it was dead. I guess our innkeeper had some bad info. (Though, he's great, and super friendly.) Since we were in the area, we stopped for lunch at the Brewer's Wharf, since it appeared they did their own beers. Alas, no, they didn't have any on tap at the moment, so I instead tried a Meantime Maibock. All in all, it was a hip, trendy, overpriced bar. Meh. Beer was good, though. After lunch, we hit Vinopolis, a wine museum that teaches you how to taste wine, and includes 5 tastings. Interesting, overpriced, and not quite as great as I was hoping. (Overpriced is going to be a theme here. This is London.) We also got the upgrade for the whiskey tastings. Don't bother. They had three whiskeys, and one of them was a blend. Dalwhinnie 15, Talisker 10, and Johnny Walker Black. The Dalwhinnie was great (I have it at home), the Talisker was quite peaty (I expect Tisha will want us to get some of that), and the Johnnie Walker was, in my opinion, absent any character whatsoever. I don't go for blends. We caught a series of tube trains back to this part of town, fighting station closures and line disruptions, and went back to the room to recover. After an hour or so, we hit a mall attached to the train station ti get some supplies. Alas, contrary to the mall's website which indicated stores were open until 8, they'd all closed at 5, so we just ate some supper and made our way back to crash for the night. Busy, full day, pics will come later. We are exhausted.

An abbreviated report today for an abbreviated day. The rave last night ended at midnight, but the commotion went on until well past 3. There's a downside to having such a great view. :) It was a weird experience, watching the square go from its normal self (with people sitting in the cafés around the perimeter, and a handful of people walking through the center), to a throbbing mob dancing to dance music with flashing lights and smoke, to near empty again in the middle of the night, to what we woke up to this morning -- a huge market! The whole square was filled with booths, people selling everything. Cheese, meats, fish, snacks, clothes, toiletries and other drugstore products... you name it. We checked out of the hotel, made our way to the train station to drop off our bags and buy our train tickets to Hoek Van Holland for our ferry ride to the UK. Then we walked back into town for some breakfast/lunch and to explore the market. We also visit the Teyler's Museum, the oldest museum in Holland. It's also quite an eclectic collection -- everything from fossils to early electric experiments, to telescopes, to rare books and old paintings. It's unique, and certainly worth a visit. After the museum and market visit, and a little stop for an afternoon beer, we made our way to the train station, and finally to Hoek van Holland. Our ferry starts checking in in an hour, and we'll spend tonight on the boat. Tomorrow, we'll arrive in Harwich, England, and take a train from there to London for our week in that fine city. Should be fun! No pics today.

A full day in Haarlem began with our breakfast at our hotel, the Hotel Amadeus. We had known for the past few days that the weather was going to be rainy today, but we've dealt with our share of rain. So, after breakfast, we loaded up the umbrellas and made our way to our first stop, Grote Keurk. This huge, old, church sits right on the square. The unique features inside include some impressive stained glass windows, some model ships, a cannonball embedded in a wall, a floor made of headstones, and a pipe organ that rises to over 30 feet tall. This beast has eight octaves, and was once played by people such as Mozart, Handel, and (for some reason) Albert Schweitser. After the church tour, we wandered the streets of Haarlem some more, making our way south to the Frans Hals museum. The museum is nice, dominated by the work of Frans Hals, natch. It's a lot of portraiture, but with the guidebook at my side to show me what to look for, I found it pretty enjoyable. There's also a very impressive dollhouse exhibit. Following the museum tour, we made our way to a streetside cafe to have some lunch, settling on a nice sandwich place. Great food, reasonably priced, friendly service. Tisha's sandwich was an awesome concoction featuring ciabatta bread, goat cheese, honey, and walnuts. It really worked well! We eventually returned to the hotel to figure out our evening, then went out again walking all over town, enjoying frites, sampling beer, walking through the red light district (yes, Haarlem has one, too), and eventually heading to dinner at an Indonesian restaurant. That was also a feast fit for a king. I'd had high hopes I might lose some weight this trip with all the walking, but man, the food... Anyway, following dinner, we made our way back to our hotel to find a street party/rave going on that's supposedly going to last until midnight. Remember, our hotel room looks right out onto the square. No early sleep for us tonight. :) Tomorrow, we explore Haarlem a little more in the morning, then make our way south to Hoek van Holland to catch an overnight ferry to Britain. Yay! Pics here.