Baby Jett Does London

A post in pictures.

These 2 were due 4 days apart and ended up with birthdays 3 days apart...and Jett discovered his hands in London...we think he's teething as his hands are ALWAYS in his mouth now.

Babies with their mamas!

It was bloody cold in London!

 To prove to Baby Jett that he was in fact in London when he was 3 months old =)

Baby Jett in his first pub. 

Having his first shandy ;-) 

First ride on the Tube.

And the best thing to come out of London...we've finally figured out how to get baby to sleep on his own.  He looks like he's passed out drunk doesn't he?

We're coming home today.  One more 10 hour flight and we will have successfully completed our first international trip with a baby!  Who says having children means you have to change how you live?

Liverpool

I just realized that I got halfway through telling you about my UK trip...and then I just stopped.

That's because I get bored writing about trips and I also get bored reading about other people's trips.  

Sorry, but it's true!  Thus I assume that no one REALLY wants to read about my trips, but just in case they do...

Here's Liverpool.

In pictures.

Because who wants to read about it when you can look at pictures?

 A Cathedral

 The Caverns District...otherwise known as Beatletasticlandia.

Where the Beatles used to play before they were famous, used to be a music venue, now it's a cafe.

 Does this need an explanation?  If it does...it's Penny Lane.

And then, just for shits and giggles, we drove back to London and stopped in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's hometown.

 This is where Shakespeare is buried.

And this is a teeny tiny door to the church where Shakespeare is buried.

Yeah, titillating...I know.

Getting My Tudor On

I love all things Tudor.

Seriously.

Tudor England is my favorite time period in history.

Not only because of all the castles and kings and princesses and fairy tale shit.

But because real life history is so much more interesting than fairy tales sometimes.

Henry VIII married for love 4 times out of the 6 times that he was married. And those same 4 marriages were to English women. Kind of unheard of in times where royal marriages were all about political alliances and thus kings almost always married foreign princesses.

And even though he chopped off 2 out of those 4's heads, it is still SO ROMANTIC that he married them for love and not because it was beneficial to England.

So, in honor of my love for all things Tudor and most especially my love for Henry's ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn we stopped off at some Tudor castles as we drove around the countryside.

First up:

Hever Castle - Anne Boleyn's childhood home.

Obnoxiously we were not allowed to take pictures inside the castle, BUMMER! But I must say, if you ever just happen to be in Kent, stop off at Hever Castle, it was well worth the 15 pounds and has an awesome maze/labyrinth out in the garden as well as just being uber cool to be in the same place as Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII once were.

Drawbridge over the moat into the castle and that's as far as we were allowed to photograph =(

Next up is Hampton Court Palace.

Henry's lavish 2nd palace he used as a residence after Whitehall.

My initial impression was...underwhelming.

I think I was expecting it to look like Versailles...and it didn't.

Much less extravagant, much smaller, just not as lavish as I was expecting.

That being said, it was still unbelievable and I'm so happy we took the time to visit.

Please disregard the craptastic nature of these photos as I stupidly left my camera in the car and was left with just the iphone to document the awesomeness of Hampton Court.

Much to my chagrin there was scaffolding everywhere, so this is the only bit of the outside I managed to capture that didn't have scaffolding covering it.

In this craptastic photo we have an H and an A entwined. After Henry had Anne beheaded he ordered these all to be removed but somehow one was missed. What? You can't see it? That's because it's an iphone photo...you'll have to just trust me that somewhere in that darkness is an H and A entwined.

Very famous portrait of Henry VIII.

The other wing of the palace that was designed for William and Mary, thus not Tudor and much more modern and...ornate if you will.

A fantastic photo of ourselves.

Verdict: Hever and Hampton Court Palace both get a big thumbs up from me!

Conwy Castle

I love castles.

I find it sad that America missed out on the whole castle building era of history.

There's something romantic and awe-inspiring about them...even though their original purpose was as a military stronghold I prefer to think of them as romantic fairy tale residences. Not accurate but who cares?

My castle experience is limited. I have seen a few in Ireland and...well that's it, that's all I got. Though I have to mention I did stay one night at the fantabulous Ashford Castle in Ireland. Beautiful 13th century castle once owned by the infamous Guinness family.

Anyway, on to Britain.

Most impressive on my list was Wales, did you know that Wales has like millions of castles in various states of decomp? I did not.

But they do, they have like over a hundred still standing today...IMPRESSIVE.

We tried to stop by several but for one reason or another ie. raining, not open, etc. we really only had a chance to tour one properly.

But holy hell, I think we picked the best one.

Conwy castle, built by Edward I in the 13th century. The exterior of the castle is almost completely preserved as well as the walled city surrounding the remarkable castle. You can still walk to the top of any of the 8 towers of the castle as well as walk along the wall that protected this ancient city.

SO AMAZING THAT THIS THING IS STILL STANDING!

Stairs up to the wall walk. Taking a little stroll along the wall that guards the city. This wood is OLD, I felt like I was going to fall through it.

Small doors!

Wall walk.

This would have been the great hall, fireplace is at the end and a floor is missing which would have been just below the fireplace, where all the holes are along the wall would have been wood beams to support a floor.

Some of the wall that surrounds the city.

Prison Tower! So creepy, they just threw people down here and left them there...there's no way out.

This is Edward I's quarters, he would of had a gorgeous view!

Rest of the castle from the King's quarters.

Close up of fireplace.

A small bit of the town. Such a cute little place, it's like time stood still here!

Oldest house in Conwy, built circa 1300 and still standing!

LOVED visiting this castle. If you're ever in Wales make sure you visit Conwy or some of their other remarkable castles!

Wales

For some reason that I have yet to understand the Welsh get a bad rap from the English.

They get made fun of, all in good fun of course, but are generally thought to be a bit backwards by the rest of the people in the UK.

I only know 3 Welsh so my experience is limited, but they are all lovely people...I don't get it.

But regardless of one's views on it's people I think most will agree that Wales has some of the most beautiful countryside in the whole of the United Kingdom.

I had never been to Wales before and since we were driving SO close to it to get from Bath to Liverpool we thought why the hell not dive over to the west and drive up through Wales.

So we did.

We started in Bath, drove north through the Brecon Beacons, stopped for one night in the middle of nowhere and the next day drove through Snowdonia before hitting up Liverpool.

My thoughts on Wales:

Beautiful, breathtaking scenery...but I wouldn't want to live there...and I wouldn't purposely make a trip to the UK just to see Wales.

What does everyone else who's visited Wales think of it?

And in other news I started my period 2 weeks ago which was good news but now I am STILL spotting.

Longest. Period. Ever.

Back in Town

Well, we're back.

And let me tell you a secret. The combination of jetlag and Fall Back sucks ass.

We did Fall Back twice this year.

The last weekend in October was Fall Back in the UK.

Much appreciated by the way after a long full day of drinking, ie. a wedding, last Saturday. That extra hour on Sunday morning was heaven when you have to get up and check out of a hotel.

But after landing this Saturday here in San Francisco and the clocks fall back again! It was already a struggle to stay awake until 8pm and THEN the clocks fall back.

Not appreciated.

Ugh. We were up at like 3:30 in the morning...which used to be 4:30, so really we got 8 hours of sleep, but UGH! Nobody wants to be wide awake at 3:30 in the morning!

This morning we were up at 4:45 after once again going to bed at 8:30...it's amazing the power of jetlag.

The only thing working in our favor was that Dom had a very early morning flight and was getting up at 5am to catch his plane anyway. But 4:45, really? It's 7:30 and I've been up FOREVER.

So aside from being completely exhausted by all the driving and traveling that we've done over the last 2 weeks the trip was wonderful.

I did a lot of this:

And saw a lot of these:

and drove through a lot of this:

And I have come to the following conclusions:

Beer is fattening.

Castles are awesome.

And Wales is beautiful.

More piccies to come.