Dover

Thanksgiving weekend we road-tripped to the White Cliffs of Dover. It's about 2.5 hours from our house, but the drive went by fast and the scenery was beautiful - much prettier than the drive from Tucson to Phoenix ;) Once we got to the cliffs we hiked along the tops of them, explored the town a little, and found tons of stuff we want to do next time we go there :)

First time I've had to scrape ice off my car!!

The beautiful drive

The port

Castle

Thomas and the dogs on top of the cliffs

I think France is out there somewhere!

On the drive home we thought our GPS was taking us the way with no toll roads, but...we were wrong. We ended up in central London in line for a toll booth, with no British money. Well, we had 1 pound and 20 pence, and the toll was 1 pound and 50 pence. We had Euros, U.S. money, British checks, and all our cards, but we were 30 pence short and they wouldn't let us through. We didn't know what to do, we would have turned around if we could and found another way but apparently that wasn't an option. The supervisor came over and said they take Euro bills, but not coins (we only had coins of course), but he eventually let us through for only 1 pound and 20 pence :) Lesson learned: Always have 5 pounds in the car, just in case! 

Which one is not like the others?

This isn't relevant to anything, but I saw this on base and couldn't help but laugh:

Someone brought the Hummer from the U.S. to the U.K.! I was worried about bringing my car over here, thinking it might be too big, but I couldn't believe someone would bring their Hummer! The roads are so narrow here, plus if you buy gas off base it is about $7.50/gallon...can you imagine filling that bad boy up?!

NFL at Wembley Stadium

October 30-31

Back in March when we found out we were moving to England, we took it as a good sign when we discovered the San Francisco 49ers were going to be playing in London right after we got here. Game day finally arrived, and it was definitely a good time.

We headed into London on Saturday morning - we parked at a town about an hour from our house and took the tube into London - it was much faster that way, plus we didn't have to pay for overnight parking in London! We picked up our football tickets in Leicester Square then walked to some of the big sights in London - Parliament, Big Ben, London Eye, 10 Downing Street, and Picadilly Circus. However, we didn't really go in any of the sights...we figured we would save those for when people come to visit, hint hint ;) Are you guys picking up on my subtle hints to come visit? Good. We found a 49ers rally in Traflagar Square, so we went to that and got to see Roger Goodell (NFL commissioner), Mike Singletary (49ers head coach), some of the 49ers defensive players, and...Jerry Rice! The defensive players and Jerry Rice were really funny, they were the highlight of the rally. It was different because people weren't as excited as they would have been in the U.S., but it was still fun.

Me in front of Parliament

London Eye

I know you can't see it (neither could we!), but 10 Downing Street is in there somewhere - where the Prime Minister lives

Picadilly Circus - their version of Times Square

Westminster Abby

Trafalgar Square where the 49ers rally was

Jerry Rice!

Sunday we headed to Wembley Stadium and went to all the pregame festivities - they had quite the set up there! It was interesting because we probably saw every NFL team represented - we realized they don't necessarily care for a specific team, they just like to watch the game (even though many didn't seem to actually understand it). We could see everything from our seats, and enjoyed the elaborate pre-game show they put on - it seemed more like a playoff game than a game between two pretty mediocre teams ;) The 49ers scored a field goal first, and the crowd went crazy! We were excited because they were cheering for our team, and it really seemed like a home game for the 49ers. But then the Broncos scored a touchdown...and the crowd went crazy again!! We couldn't understand who they were cheering for because they cheered for both teams all the time! It turns out they just like big plays and didn't really have a team preference. That was a little disappointing because it definitely wasn't like going to a game back in the States, but it was still very fun :) Plus the 49ers won, so I had a happy hubby at the end of the night. And he was double happy when the Giants won the World Series that night also!

Wembley Stadium

Tailgating at the Golden Gate Bridge ;)

We loved our first taste of London, and can't wait to explore it more, especially now that we know the easiest way to get there!

We chose house...

NUMBER 2!


The many pros far outweighed the commute, so we signed the paperwork and moved in on Monday! We are so glad to have the dogs with us, and all our our household items from the U.S. should arrive within two weeks. Everything is coming together nicely and we couldn't be happier :) Thomas started back to work this week, but we're going to explore our cute new town this weekend!

P.S. There's plenty of room for visitors, hint hint ;)