St. Paul's Cathedral

After a LONG walk, I made it to St. Paul's Catherdral at the top of the hill. It's strange to see such a beautiful domed cathedral after walking through what's considered the financial district. But there it was in all it's glory. St. Paul's is where Charles and Diana got married and where Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington are buried.

No pictures were allowed inside the cathedral itself, but I was able to sneak in a few shots (no flash, of course) when the priests turned their backs.

You can climb the steps up to the whispering gallery where if you whisper something at the wall, someone can hear it perfectly all the way around on the other side. Since I was by myself, I couldn't test this out, but I hear it works.

I then climbed the steps up to the very top, the Golden Gallery, for an awesome view of London. All total...530 steps. And they go in circles. I was so dizzy after I came down so it was nice to be able to sit for their evensong service at the end of the visit.

We're off to see the Queen!

We're leaving this Friday for a 2 week trip to London, Paris and Amsterdam. VISA is sending a team of 11 people from the US office to VISA Europe located in Basingstoke, England for a week. Our original departure date was July 8th, one day after the bombings in London. So VISA rescheduled the trip for 2 weeks later. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about traveling to the site of the bombings so soon after the incident. Especially since John will be working for the whole week and I'll be sightseeing by myself. Uhh.... can you say, "TAXI!" ?

After London, we're taking the Eurostar across the Chunnel for a few nights in Paris. I'm so excited to tour Versailles and see how the other half lives! I read that Louis the XIV had a whole river redirected for his gardens.

After Paris, we're off to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. And if I can fit it in, you know we'll take a detour on the way and stop in Brussels for some waffles and handmade chocolates. Rachel Ray can do it on $40 a day. Ummm....No guarantees here....

Picnic in the Park

We had our annual church picnic at Boothbay Park last weekend. It's always a fun time to gather with our friends and enjoy the sun. The kids had a great time and loved the playground. There were also crafts and songs thanks to Dave and Beni. And the desserts were a hit! Uh.... didn't get any pictures of Lauryn. She was running around having too much fun. We all had a GOOD nap afterwards.

Turtles!

We strolled through the Miami Bayside Market downtown and found tons of tiny slider turtles for sale. John has always wanted a pet turtle and we were so tempted to buy one or two or six....but imagining ourselves carrying them in a tank on the plane made us think twice. I don't think the other passengers would've appreciated that. I'm sure that the kids would've loved them, but I also discovered that turtles carry salmonella so it's not the cleanest pet around. I had a brief image in my head with some turbulence, turtle juice down my shirt and baby turtles wandering around people's feet. Not good.

Clam Chowder To Die For

While we were in Miami, we visited Joe's Stone Crab as planned on Miami Beach. It's a busy place with lots of people eating lots of seafood. While we were there, our waiter, who looked a LOT like Wayne Brady, pointed out 2 other tables of tourists from California. Our meal consisted of the following:
Assorted bread and butter
Shrimp Cocktail (they were humungous!)
Clam Chowder (Oh My Gosh - the best I've ever had. My mouth is watering just thinking about it right now.)
All You Can Eat - Medium Stone Crab
Large Stone Crab
Hashbrowns

Since the stone crabs are out of season, they weren't as good as when John was here in March. Our Wayne Brady waiter said that they have a huge warehouse on site that is filled to the ceiling with stone crab, flash frozen. It's enough to cover them for 3 years worth of business without ever having to go fishing for them again.

But I must rave about the clam chowder. Have you ever had something taste so good you think to yourself a day later, "It was awesome, but it can't taste that good again the 2nd time around, now that I've tried it." Well, we tried it again. We went back the next night solely for clam chowder (and decided to try their steamed crab, which was pretty good, too). But I have to say that the 2nd bowl of clam chowder was just as amazing as the 1st. I'm so craving it right now. It was creamy, but not too thick. It had a good amount of potatoes and clams and not too much to be overpowering. Yum! I'd have to recommend that over the stone crab. If I can order it and have it shipped, I probably would.