London!

Søren and I just got back from a wonderful trip to London. We had a week long fall break from school and work so we decided to get a cheap flight out of here and see another part of the world. We chose London and have not regretted it in the least.

We left Tuesday morning for the airport, a short 6 hours later we were at our hotel in central London. We stayed at a small bed and breakfast and had just a small room but it was all we needed. The day we arrived we already jumped on the tourist wagon and saw lots of things. First we were hungry so we ate at Subway, okay maybe not so authentic England, but we don't have them here in DK so the American in me was very excited! Then we walked to Buckingham Palace and through the park.
Buckingham Palace.

Then we decided to check out Piccadilly Circus (just a mini timesquare, weren't sure what the fuss is all about :)) and the West End district where there were many theaters and restaurants. They also had a China town and a fun atmosphere. Then it was time for dinner and we found a quaint little restaurant serving a 3-course meal for a reasonable price. The portions were small but yummy! Søren ordered the Fish and Chips and there were only about 8 chips..ha! Then we wanted to get a beer at a real English Pub. We found one near our hotel and stopped in. We went to the bar and ordered a local beer, but by the time we recieved our drinks, all the tables had been filled and that left us standing in the middle of the pub. Then we saw a table for 4 with only two men at it so we asked if we could borrow their chairs. Nice as they were they delivered them to our little corner and preceeded to chat with us. The talk then moved outside and lasted the next 1½ or so. It was fun to hear the English accent and talk to some locals. One of them was a bit "strange" but we had an enjoyable conversation anyway before our feet finally said, take us home!

Day 2: Harrods, Changing of the Guards at Buckingham palace, Camden market, Primrose Hill and walking some more. We started our day checking out the huge shopping center, Harrods. It is a 7 story or so department center with everything you could think of. It was quite pricey so we just looked but it was a cool experience.'
Harrods

Then we ended up back at Buckinham palace to see the changing of the guards. There were so many people there it was hard to see but we did enjoy the large royal marching band that came by.
Changing of the guards.

Next we headed to the northern part of London where we had heard about this interesting market area. We bought a day pass for the Underground and took a trip. The market was very festive and cultural with stuff from all over the world. But as any market is, it was a lot of the same stuff, and well stuff we didn't need, so it got a little mundane after awhile. However, there was this cool area with lots of different ethnic foods which we were able to check out for lunch.
Camden Market

The rest of the day went by with a lot of walking. We walked up Primrose Hill and could see out over the entire city. It was very beautiful.
Classic red phone booth.

The day wrapped up with a visit to Wembley Stadium where we had gotten tickets to see a National soccer game between England and Belarus. The stadium is huge with room for 90,000 fans and it was almost full, so you can imagine the atmosphere of that many English soccer fans. It was a good game and we got to see David Beckham play, which was the only English player I knew!
Huge stadium
An English fan?

Day 3: London sights. Yes we saved on the classic tourist attractions for our last day in London. We started with seeing Big Ben and Parliament Buildings. They are so beautiful and massive, it was incredible! The highlight was however being able to go into the Parliament buildings and hear debates in both the House of Commons and House of Lords. It was very interesting to hear that debates but also to get an inside look at what goes on there.
Big Ben

Afterwards we stopped by Westminister Abbey and just admired the size and beauty of it (we didn't want to pay the 17£ it cost to come in!)
Westminister Abbey

Then we took at ride in the London Eye a really huge enclosed ferriswheel that takes tourists up above the trees to have a look over the city. It was absolutely gorgeous with a panoramic view of the entire city with all the beautiful architecture as far as the eye could see!
The London Eye
View over London from the London Eye. Here you can see the entire Parliament building and Big Ben.

Then it was time to see the Tower Bridge and London Tower. Again very beautiful and cool just cause you've seen so many pictures of it before. We had some Ben and Jerry's icecream and enjoyed the fantastic weather.
Tower Bridge
London Tower

Our final trip was to see St. Pauls Cathedral. WOW! It is so huge and absolutely gorgeous inside and out. I also read that it is where Princess Diana and Prince Charles held their wedding ceremony!
St. Paul Cathedral

By this point we were absolutely exhausted so we went back to the hotel to get rejuvinated for the evening event! THE MUSICAL HAIRSPRAY! As you can tell this was my highlight of the trip! It was so incredible. They were all so talented and the story is just funny with lots of energy and great music. I enjoyed every minute of the 2 hour production!!
The Shaftesbusy Theater advertising for Hairspray!
Excited Mary with her playbook.

Then it was Friday and time to come home again. We were ready though as we had such pains in our feet and legs that we could not imagine walking another day. We did take a quick stroll through Hyde Park though before taking the bus to the airport. It was a great trip with fantastic sights and weather but most of all a fun way to spend some quality time together!

Now we are back into the swing of things back in Denmark with a pretty quiet week here. Hope all is well where you are!

When the Police came knocking..

Okay I got your attention.

This morning while Søren and I were enjoying slowly waking up to a new Sunday we heard the doorbell ring. We were still upstairs in bed and in our pj's so we didn't feel like answering the door. We knew that the Red Cross people were coming around to collect donations today so we figured it was them. Well a few seconds later there was a loud pounding at the door, which was followed up by another door bell ring and round of pounding. We thought, wow these are persist volonteers and thought they were gone. When a half minute later we heard one more knock at the door we decided we would check it out. Søren went to the window and saw a police car in our driveway. He immediately went downstairs and opened the door asking the police officer what he needed. The police man said he needed to speak to Mary and Søren could see he had a piece of paper in his hand and in bold block letters he could see it read "Confiscation of Visa" His heart immediately sank as he wondered why I was losing my right to live in Denmark. Next I came to the door and the officer explained to me that were hand delivering a letter to me where it said that they had to cancel my work visa...We thought a little bit about it and realized that all that was happening was that the work visa I had before we recieved our family reunification visa a month ago was no longer valid because a person cannot hold two visas at the same time. So I was not getting kicked out of the country, but we thought it was pretty crazy that the police had to hand deliver this message. Luckily we were able to calm down again before the The Red Cross volonteers came a little later.

So yeah, that is the drama as of lately. Otherwise things are going well for us. We are loving the balance and stress free daily life we have and how we are able to be spontanous every once in a while. Like just this past weekend. Søren was looking at buying an electric guitar using the online classified ads. As he was browsing around he saw that there was an incredible price on a very very nice electric piano. It was the same kind that I had looked at a year ago when I bought the piano I have now, but it was way too expensive. Anyway, this dream piano was now at a very reasonable price and we couldn't help but hear more. We found out that we could get the seller to come down 25% from his asking price which was already almost half the price of a brand new one and it was in great condition being only 3½ years old. So we decided to drive the hour and a half to go look at it and left there 15 minutes later with a new piano. We laughed the whole way home about how crazy we were but I am particularly happy for this spontaneous buy!!