Please mind the gap

Hello all,

Day two can be characterized by sore feet and horse droppings. Break-fast included croissants,pastry,and hot chocolate. Our first stop was Buckingham palace and the incredible staterooms. There were many chandeliers,throne-like chairs, beautiful gowns and a secret door (not so secret any more). We then ran to the front of the palace for the changing of the guards. But I was the only one to see anything because I was sitting on Dad's shoulders so that I could take pictures. Everyone else only saw fuzzy black hats! It wasn't really that interesting, just a lot of marching with extra yelling included. The police horses were actually more interesting. Next we went to the Royal Mews which used to house falcons (the mews part) but now stables the horses for all the carriages. The carriages were spectacular,the best one was the Golden carriage because it was made of wood but covered in gold. There were only 4 horses there at the moment because the rest were on holiday at Hampton court!! We had fish and chips for lunch, that wasn't that great because we put malt vinegar on the fries...ugh. We then found some grass to flop on, and mom and dad had a nap and Josephine and I wrote in our journals and made notes for our magazine. On our way to Westminster Abby we found an expensive toy solider store. They had some really cool dioramas of different wars during British history. They even had the African war with camels and the war in India with elephants. Unfortunately, the stop made us 8 min. late for the final tickets for Westminster Abby so we went on the London Eye instead. We went super high, but it was really slow...mom didn't get sick! The view was amazing and it was fun to see little red double Decker buses driving along. We passed through Trafalgar square on our way to Notting Hill, where we got our picture taken with an enormous Lion. The statue to Lord Nelson made Josephine's neck sore it was so high. Sadly we were too late for the carnival, but it was probably a good thing because it was crazy there. There were so many cops in the subway, and people in the streets that we got out of there fast. We went back to the Mediterranean place for dinner and I had the chicken curry that mom raved about yesterday. It made my eyes water because it was spicy but it was good.

P.S. The title refers to the constant warning from the subway voice - basically watch your step!

By Emily (with some help from mom)

We made it!

Wow, what a crazy couple of weeks! I have to thank my mom for having the family goodbye party and Jennifer for the fun final party. She made up a jeopardy travel edition that was a lot of laughs. We didn't sleep much the last couple of days, lying awake thinking about all the things we still had to do. But we made it to the airport, and weighed our bags. Emily - 13 lbs, Josephine- 16 lbs, Jane- 30 lbs and Mike- 35 lbs. When I put on the day pack I'm sure I added another 5 lbs and I almost fell over! I tried to be a minimalist! I will definitely be stronger by the end or have severe back problems. The flight to TO was uneventful, we then had 6 hours to kill before we left for London. We had supper, read etc and then boarded at midnight. Unfortunately I got stuck beside the 15 year old who was constantly bumping me, putting his bag on me, telling inappropriate stories to the guy in the isle, heavy breathing into his barf bag and making the sign of the cross frantically as we landed. Needless to say, even with Gravol I didn't get much sleep! We all said a little prayer of thanks as we landed and got off the plane. We got through customs, donned our backpacks and made our way to the hostel. There were a few hick-ups when we got there, but we ended up with a better room than originally booked....our own bathroom and shower!!!! Josephine came up with the quote of the day, she said, "Hick-ups make the trip seem real. If it all worked out perfectly, it would just feel like a dream". I love that kid's positive attitude. We all have a "keeper" designation for the trip and she earned hers Keeper of Sanity. Mike is Keeper of the Cords (all the electronic stuff), Emily is Keeper of Fun and Happiness and I am of course the Keeper of the Book of Everything (the itinerary, maps etc). At this point we were very tired and flopped on our beds for a bit, but with a little food made it to the tube again and off to Buckingham Palace. We got there a little late so we viewed the Queen's gallery and will go back tomorrow to see the Palace, changing of the guards and the Royal Stables!!! We dragged ourselves back to the hostel, ate the best chicken curry ever at a little Mediterranean place and now I'm ready for bed! Been an exciting day, I'm sure we'll all feel better after some sleep. Oh a couple of horse pics for Jen....can you believe that they have a crossing sign just for horses?!

Wed

Only 3 more sleeps till we leave. I am not getting much sleep thinking about all the things that still need to be done around the house, as well as things to do before we leave. I/we are running out of time. Spending a lot of time with family and friends this week, it has been awesome. Thanks to everyone who are praying for us! Okay when I say I, I mean we so please remember that. I just received an email from another forum and they had great ideas like going to Andalusia to see the horses there, as well as doing some geocaching (sp). Sounds like a great diversion from going to see castles and the like. As well I am hopefully going to see a cyclocross race in Belgium so if your into that, I am going to try to do a great lunge out onto the course so that people can see me. If I have enough to drink maybe I will even do it more than once.... We don't have enough room in our backpacks to carry anything extra like flags so I might have to paint my face! Oh and I am getting my bike painted while I am gone. It will be air force blue with some red and white lines on it. Take care all, thanks for reading our little blog.
Mike

One week to go

What a great day we had today. It was my last group ride with fog and it was fantastic! We have started to pack our backpacks and we will have a picture of them soon on the website and you will see what we will be caring. This week will be super busy, have to pick up some contact lenses and call a whole bunch of places to tell them that we will be gone and who the person who will be staying at our house. Trying to get rid of some of our food so that we don't have too much left. Also this week will be busy visiting friends and family and eating a whole bunch of food.
Well the next post I hope will be on Sat. before we leave then another post when we get to London and have some pics to put up on the site.

Yikes

Less than 12 days before we go, where is all the time flying to? Getting more excited all the time. The trip is becoming a reality. Can't wait to leave with all this bad weather!

Places where we intend to visit

Hi again I have been asked a few times where we plan on going, here is a general idea of where we will be traveling to.
England for about 3 weeks
Northern France including Paris 2 weeks
Belgium, Netherlands 1-2 weeks
Germany 3-4 weeks.
Krakow, Prague, Budapest not sure how long.
Austria
Switzerland
France again
Spain
Portugal for Christmas
Spain
Morocco
Southern France
Italy till the end of Feb
March 1st Egypt, two weeks or so
Turkey and end off in Greece. We should be home around the middle of April. If anyone has suggestions, ideas on any of these places or where you can recommend to stay, eat for a family of 4 let us know. Email us.
Thanks

August 13, 2009

Not much new to report today except that we have confirmation for our car, yea. Our cell phone arrived, yea! So so far so good. We also received our tickets to the Globe Theater in London, the play that we will be seeing is As You Like it. I hear it is pretty good. Also we are going to see the horse trials in Burghley, can't wait to see the grounds it is going to be awesome. Was hopping that the Tour of Britian was going to be in the same area we were in but it is not. We will however watch some cylco-cross when we are in Belgium and surrounding area.

I took a picture of some of the stuff that we will have to fit into our back backs, it does not look like a lot but stuffing it into the packs is going to be fun. Basically we are taking 7 sets of clothing, like seven shirts, underwear, socks, 2 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of pants, rain coat, winter coat, sweater, cycling shorts and jersey, pedals and shoes. Runners and flipflops. Sleeping sacks, towels etc. There is more but at this time of the evening I can't remember everything off the top of my head.
The other website you can locate it here at Telestial not sure if you can get to that website from here but give it a go.
If you have anything that you want to say leave a comment or send me an email to me. For those that want our telephone number send us an email and I will send it too you.
Oh yea only 16 more days.
Ciao for now.

Only 25 Days till we leave

Today is Tuesday Aug 4th and we now only have 25 days till we leave. We all are getting excited about leaving and seeing the sites of the world. Just had confirmation that we will get the car that is in the previous post, and the phone did make it to Winnipeg, however Purolator/Canada Post could not deliver it to us?! Not sure why since most of you know that I buy a lot of stuff on ebay and get it sent to our house, I now have it going to my mom's place in the city. I hope it makes it on time.
We are working with a guy named Eric in Egypt who is planning our trip there, it sounds very exciting, once I have his webiste I will put it here on the blog and if you are interested in using him for your next trip to Egypt.
We are still running around trying to find things for our trip which I hope will end soon, I think it will end on the 29th.
I have changed the settings on our website where anyone can add comments to so please feel free to add comments or suggestions to our site. As you can see this website is a work in progress.
Ah I forgot to mention that a good website to go to for travel informaition is slowtravel if you click on the forum name it will take you to the form page.
That is all for now. Hope to update this site soon.