London and Lara's Birthday
Andrew drove us to Dayton airport for our flight to Paris via Washington. We lost a few hours along the way as we left Washington at 5.30pm and it was a 7 hour flight but it was 7am when we arrived in Paris!Nicholas was the only one who got a few hours sleep and Iain a little bit. We had 4 hours at Paris airport before we got our flight to London and we needed it! It was hard to find our way around and even when we asked at one point, we were still sent to the wrong section. We had to catch a shuttle bus to another terminal and it gave us a good chance to fully understand how large the airport is.
Our flight to London was a chance to have a quick nap – the flight is only 45 mins so we just got our cup of tea or coffee and it was time to land. Reminded me very much of our flights to Melbourne although they are longer.
Big Ben & Big Ben
Outside Buckingham PalaceWe were expecting extra security checks at Heathrow as has been reported but everything was easy especially as there were no customs officers to check on items being taken into London.
The hotel we stayed in was perfect for us – right next to the Thames and London Eye. We walked to “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” and spent a few hours there and attempted the Mirror Maze. The boys – especially Nicholas enjoyed Ripleys.
Our real reason for including London into our holiday was because “Love Never Dies” – the sequel to “Phantom of the Opera”- had opened in March. We didn’t tell the boys that we had tickets for the show until the Wed night – thankfully they were both very excited about it. It was also the way that we chose to celebrate Lara’s 13th birthday! Happy Birthday Lara, we thought about you often during the day……….
Can you see how high Ben climbed to hold the sign? Look on the left hand side of the photo - of course he could have gone even higher???!!!
We thought it was such a nice idea that deckchairs were provided in the park areas - until someone came to collect money for them - they are charged by the hour! We just hadn't seen the signs.
We had a quick dinner before going to the Theatre – Iain had really wanted to eat at one of the small London pubs but we didn’t manage to find one that wasn’t full and overflowing onto the pavement. We laughed at the restaurant when the waiter said he didn’t understand English very well (when Iain was trying to explain that we were going to the theatre so needed to be finished in time)and then proceeded to speak very fluent English to the table next to us!
Our last day in London saw us doing a Harry Potter Tour – visiting places that featured in the Harry Potter movies and learning how they did various scenes and effects. We had a very knowledgeable “Cockney” taxi driver, who told us some extra stories and took us to a few more places of interest as it was our last day in London. Ben & Nicholas was able to recognise a lot of the places that we visited and could recount which movie it had featured in.
Our driver dropped us off at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. We enjoyed it but it was extremely busy and it was hard to do more than shuffle around. Next stop was shopping! The boys went to Hamley’s – a 250 year old toy store for all ages, whilst I visited “Anthropologie”. Melissa & Sue – there were mother of pearl button chandeliers (no lights though) outside the changerooms for only 375 GBP and also button necklaces with “gold” links at 78GBP !
The "Quote of the Day" belonged to Nicholas on seeing the guards outside Buckingham Palace"That guard has his own porta-loo"!
(more photos soon)
We saw our first squirrel – sorry Lochie we didn’t have our camera on us at the time! Also lots of pretty birds.
I had never realised that they sell groceries as well, so it was interesting to wander the aisles, check out prices and types of food available. Bananas were 49c per pound, iceberg lettuces 50c & 16 inch pizzas $8.49.
We set off early to drive down to the Amish country – Ohio has the largest Amish community in USA. It was really cold – 0 C. The country side is beautiful but also varied. Some areas are flat and others hilly but very green compared to what we have left behind in Australia - and beautiful trees. The flowering pear is particularly beautiful.
There are so many primitive styled shops, country homewares and food shops in Berlin.
We lunched at a restaurant run by the Amish and whilst in there, waiting for our food, it started to snow lightly. Like 4 idiots we ran outside to feel and taste it while everyone in the dining area watched us through the windows. Someone explained that we were Australians and don’t see snow! 
After having snow on the Friday, Saturday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day - still cool and perfect for having a buggy ride, more shopping and enjoying looking around.
Andrew had actually made some snowballs from the last snow that they had and them in the freezer for us to throw at each other. They were no longer soft and fluffy but frozen hard so we threw them at the tree. 
Andrew and Nancy invited a few friends over on Sunday afternoon - to hear our accents! Now there is one thing we know for sure, is that we don't have any accents at all - everyone else does! Iain has had quite a few problems with people not understanding him at all. Of course it doesn't help when he uses terms like "it's a thumper", "starving lizards" or "go for your life"!
Not very many houses have fences around their yards - the neighbour is an exception and that is because they 'dog sit' at times for their family. It is easy to check out what your neighbours are doing in all directions. The lawns are lush and GREEN and at the moment, they will mow 2 or 3 times a week! Iain doesn't know how he would get on without a fence, you wouldn't know when to stop mowing!
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Ben and I were on the Matterhorn roller coaster when the earthquake apparently happened. We'd commented on how it seemed to be a bit rough and that it felt like our bottoms were scraping on the ground at times. The rides were closed down for about 90 minutes while they did safety checks. 
The four of us went on the teacup ride, something that I think anyone in the 
We should have had an hour at the Auckland airport to swap planes but we were immediately ushered into a check-in line. As part of the extra US security plans we had to be 'frisked' and our bags checked so the males and females were separated into 2 lines. Iain, Ben and Nicholas were completed and on the plane ages before me. Either there were a lot more women flying or maybe women have a lot more 'stuff' in their bags that need to be removed and checked. Our line moved about 2 steps every 20minutes until we were eventually through and boarded.
