Blogs from Barnes, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

The number of times Ann and I have looked at each other and said this time in 2009 we were in X or doing Y is incredible. Looking back on our travels in 2009 they were incredible. South America is a huge and amazingly diverse continent and we really on scratched the surface….heck we didn’t even make it to the East Coast and that was in nearly 9 months of travelling. The plan was for Ann and I to come back to the UK and work for a year or so, get married and then head back to South/Central America. We loved Colombia so we were going to start there, get on the Gringo trail and charter a boat to Panama and work our way up to Mexico, but life intervened! About a month after we ... read more

6:10 ROME CIAMPINO GATE CLOSED We sprinted through the doors to security and flung ourselves in the front of the line. Despite the protests of the people behind us, we pushed our way up to the desk. The lady stamped our boarding passes and we raced off across the room to the line for security. For being in England, many people didn't speak English and we sign languaged our way to the front of the security line with arm flaps and multiple points to our watches. Within 30 seconds we were through and racing to Gate 54. With 59 gates total, we dodged people carrying luggage and babies for at least 10 minutes. Barely breathing we made it to the final desk and were literally one of the last three people on the plane. Even with ... read more

I woke up late.. once again. 1pm. I really need to get over this jet lag business. It’s starting to drive me bloody mad. I went on the Harry Potter tour and got to see some of the filming locations. It was rather neat. I then proceeded to go into a red telephone booth to call Blaine but the payphone wouldn’t take my money. I heard it going down the “return” chute but there was nothing in the bin. So, I did some investigating just to find the some bloke shoved a pen up inside there to wedge it shut. I unwedged it and became 9.22 pounds richer. So, no I did not find five dollars, I approximately found nine pounds, which is way better given the conversion rate. I’m not even sure what it is.. ... read more

Hello all. Sorry there won't be photos, but my camera cord is in Cork, and I am now safely ensconced in a friend's flat outside London. How I got here is a long and complicated story. In the last six days I have been in: Verona, Italy Venice, Italy Bardolino, Italy Milan, Italy The Swiss Alps The French Alps Paris, France Calais, France Dover, England London, England Here is what happened: We were all happily singing away on our four-day holiday in Verona and Bardolino and Fumane (lovely town; amazing wine), having grand nights out, expecting to be home on Sunday afternoon. You can find clips of our performances on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VLZOwEu0Hk will take you to one of the contest pieces, and you ought to be able to find the others from there. On Thursday, someone ... read more

We are going to look for vans today. We explored a few options such as long term leasing and Euro rail, but all either lacked the freedom we want or were too expensive. Actually the long term leasing was outrageous...one quote for the six months was $70 000!!!!!!!! Either way after some more internet detective work we found some good sites for buying vans and even got a reasonable quote for insurance that is good all over the UK. We found out today that Jenn, our intended travel buddy, wont be coming on our trip. We were disappointed but understood. We are going to have to re-evaluate our itinerary as our first 1.5 months of the trip we were trying to cover the paces Jenn wanted to see at a more break neck pace then we ... read more