It is good to be home. We arrived back in Pittsburgh last night at almost 21:00. Our flight left a little late from Cincinnati due to some congestion there. One would think that, since the place is an international hub for Delta and they have a lot of connecting flights, maybe scheduling six flights that all leave from the same area of the terminal--five of which that use the same departing runway (36)--within ten minutes of each other would be a bad idea. Well, apparently that didn't occur to anyone there, so we had to wait in line behind five other planes. Oh well. It really wasn't a big deal--it just isn't a lot of fun to be crammed into those tiny puddle-jumper seats while sitting on the tarmac waiting to get on the runway for any longer than is absolutely necessary.

We stopped at Fatheads on the way home for some 'merkin food. Then we got home, got our suitcases lugged upstairs, and collapsed into bed.

Today is a work day for us. I bought some cheese and bread for lunches and breakfasts here over the weekend and into next week. By daylight, the yard is a mess--I think I'm going to end up spending all day tomorrow getting things back in shape. The grass needs to be mowed, flower beds weeded and trimmed, bushes trimmed, ornamentals pruned, etc. Our shelter in the back yard blew over in the storm while we were gone, too. We knew that wasn't going to make it another year, so it isn't all that tragic. We just have to clean up the disorderly array of cloth and metal that is lying in a heap in the back yard. heh.

jonathan

Astute readers will have noticed that I had some of the kings confused in the entry about the Tower of London. I intend to fix these later. I was tired when typing that, and interrupted myself a few times, so I wasn't being as careful as I should have been. Sorry about that.

The principal mistake is that I swapped Edward I and Henry III. Oops. Sorry.

jonathan

Well, today was our last day in Rotterdam. I'm getting a slight cold (of course). The work event went well today. I came back and relaxed with Jenny for a bit. She got a Subway sub for herself for lunch, and another one for me or for a snack later. I had some of that when I got back to the hotel, then I rested for a while as we listened to the financial markets continue to crash. Yay!

Later this evening, we went out to get a good dinner on our last night here. We found a neat little place near the hotel in a line of other bars and restaurants. I picked this one because it didn't have a menu in English. :) Seriously, it looked good and not too crowded, and the prices looked good. I can pick up a few words of Dutch here and there now, so I could tell that they had some stuff that we'd eat. I ended up getting their chicken sate with peanut sauce with a side of traditional potatoes. Yum. Jenny got tortellini that was in what tasted like a basil cream sauce. We enjoyed some "coke light" with our meals, then headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our trip to the airport and then HOME tomorrow!

So you might find this talk of Subway sandwiches and the like odd, given that we are in a foreign country and all. As I was talking to a Dutchman at one of our events the other day, I asked what might be considered "traditional" Dutch food, as we had some difficulty finding things in Amsterdam that seemed unique. He explained that cheese and bread was a traditional breakfast, but that everything else was pretty diverse. The wide mix of cultures and nationalities here has led to a wide variety of dishes and styles becoming popular in Holland. Potatoes are traditional (and are available in many interesting and good preparations), and some original Dutch "fast food" are things like meat croquettes. Most places have some varieties of potatoes available, and they are always good. Jenny and I found a few places with croquettes in Amsterdam, but we didn't see any here. Of course, we didn't have time to look that hard.

Jenny got out to do some other exploring today. She walked to one of the harbors near the Maritime Museum on the Maas Road and took some pictures in that area. The camera battery went flat on her, though--I didn't realize that it was that low yet. I had the chargers, but it didn't make sense to charge it tonight just for the trip home, so the camera is packed and ready to come home. I'll grab the pictures off of it when we get home.

I'm a little sad that I didn't get more of a chance to explore Rotterdam. We knew that was going to be the case coming in, though--we elected to spend our available time exploring London this time. There are really so many places to see in the world--I'm sure we'll get back here sometime.

We're planning to catch an 8:00 train tomorrow morning to Schiphol Airport from Rotterdam Central Station. We have a back-up train at 8:28 in case we miss the 8:00. Our flight leaves at 12:10 (UTC+2), and arrives in Cincinnati at 15:15 (UTC-4). We then have a three-hour layover in beautiful Cincinnati, and eventually arrive back in Pittsburgh at almost 21:00. We'll probably get some dinner from there and then crash when we get home. We both intend to work on Friday. Going that way is easy, time-wise--we just need to force ourselves to be awake longer than usual, then sleep when we finally get home. By the next morning, we'll be pretty much back on track again.

Next time we write will probably be back in the 'states.

jonathan

Today was an all-day work event for me, so I wasn't out and about to do anything with Jenny. Jenny did get out, though, and explored Rotterdam a bit, walking along one of the canals and getting some pictures of the wildlife and a few interesting buildings. I'll be posting those tomorrow, I hope.

After my work event today, there was a social event. We were able to choose from a number of small-group activities. I chose a boat tour of the Maas River. We explored the main part of the river that enters Rotterdam, and several of the harbors and piers here. We then returned and re-grouped with all of the other small-group groups to have food and drinks provided by the event organization. The food theme was "barbecue", and they had a bunch of stuff that we might consider standard summer barbecue fare, including salad, ribs, and potato salad. They also had some stuff that we might not consider, including shrimp and calamari skewers, and chicken sate with peanut sauce. It was all quite good, and I enjoyed an evening of networking with a bunch of these folks.

I learned this morning that today was the opening of the Dutch Parliament session, which includes a lot of pomp and circumstance, the Queen, and a bunch of other dignitaries. They had it on big televisions in the hall where we had our breaks and lunch. It is a big deal here.

I got back to the hotel a little while ago, and I'm catching-up on some work-related stuff at the moment. Yay work.

That's about all for now. Sorry that today is kind-of boring compared to other entries, but not all that much happened. :)

jonathan

We made it to Rotterdam. As I mentioned in the last entry, we were able to get a train to Brussels as planned. fortunately, we already had our tickets--they told a few people ahead of us who didn't have tickets that they weren't selling them anymore, so they were pretty much out of luck for the day.

The ride through the English and French countryside was fun. The Chunnel itself was pretty uneventful--there's not much to see in a tunnel. :) Customs on the London side were easy--the French border patrol pretty much stamped our passports and sent us on our way. Here in Europe, we didn't have to pass through any other customs agents, so I suppose we're all finished until we leave. Our train left at 13:25 from the beautiful London St. Pancras International terminal, and we arrived at somewhere near 16:30 in Brussels. We ended up getting through to an information desk to check on the next train to Rotterdam in time to find out that one was leaving at 17:15, which was about ten minutes away from the current time. We ran up to the platform and jumped on the train about two minutes before the doors closed. That ride lasted a while, too. It stopped in a few major places along the way from Brussels to Rotterdam, on its way for a final destination of Amsterdam. After getting lost trying to leave Rotterdam Central Station (the area outside is under major construction right now), a friendly person on the street helped us to get moving in the right direction, and we got to our hotel at around 20:00. I think our train deposited us in Rotterdam at around 19:00 or thereabouts.

We got checked-in and up to the room to collect ourselves a bit before heading out to dinner. We found a good Thai place which, unfortunately, had everything in the ultra-spicy variety. I like that, but it made it tough for Jenny to eat her shrimpy goodness. The dinner was good, though. We then explored Rotterdam some more looking for a "night market" (that's what they call convenience stores open at night here--I seem to remember that from the last trip, too). Rotterdam seems to have most places close-up pretty early, so we had to search for a while to find this night market. We eventually did, got some good stuff (including "Cool American" flavor Doritos--I'll let you guess what we might call them), and got back to the hotel at around 23:15.

There are more stories there, but I'm tired, so I'm headed to bed. I need to try to get Thunderbird working on my machine here so that I can read my work email, and then I'm going to call it a night. I have to be at the conference center tomorrow at around 8AM to register and get my sessions picked. It's 02:00 here now, so I need to clean-up and sleep!

jonathan

We were a little worried about the train to Brussels today. We had tickets, but with the reduced schedule, not everyone was getting a train. We arrived early, thinking that we might have a better chance of at least getting any train across the channel. They put us on the next available train at 1325, which is earlier than our original tickets. They aren't even selling tickets anymore, so we feel fortunate.
Now we're waiting in St. Pancras int'l station. I think we'll be boarding at 1300 or so. By the way, french border security here was easy. I don't know if we have to do anything at Brussels or not. I guess we'll find out in a little while.

We're getting ready to depart for the train station. Our train time isn't until 14:53 or something like that. We're going to try to get to the station and see what train they can get us. Because of the fire in the tunnel before the weekend, they are still running reduced services. Our train time isn't listed on their reduced timetable, so we'll either get a much earlier train, or a much later train. Fortunately, our tickets from Brussels to Rotterdam is an open ticket, so we should be OK there, as long as we don't arrive later than the regional trains operate. I think that there are regional trains running into Rotterdam until after midnight, so hopefully we'll be OK even there. It should be an adventure, in any case. :)

jonathan

Hi readers. Jenny and I are sitting here enjoying some "official" Champagne at the moment, courtesy of my co-worker who couldn't take the bottle with him on the way to his interim destination. He received it as a gift for speaking at the work event I was attending, and he promptly gave it to us to share. Yay. :)

Jenny and I just got back a little while ago from the fireworks at the Thames Festival. We started off today with Mass (Roman Catholic, of course) at Our Lady of the Rosary near us in the Marylebone area. It was literally only a couple of blocks from us, so it was an easy walk. Interestingly, there are only a few churches that survived the Reformation, survived World War II, *and* reverted to Roman Catholicism after it was permitted again in the mid-19th century. One of those, St. Etheldreda, is the only one that I could find that was near a Circle Line stop. The church was originally built in the 13th century. It had a long and tumultuous history after the Reformation in the 16th century. It had previously been part of the estate of the Bishop of Ely, who had massive palace-like grounds that included the church. Through a series of Bad Things(tm), including a 300+ year-old property dispute, the church was the only building left from the estate, and was up on the auction block. Parliament had only recently officially permitted the practice of Roman Catholicism again. There were two RC groups trying to bid on it. The one who won ended up doing so almost by mistake--the other group thought that the agent bidding on the church was theirs, and so they stopped bidding themselves. The church went through some massive restoration at that point, and again after World War II. It is still an active church, buried among other buildings built up around it.

Unfortunately, we couldn't make that one. They had a 9AM Mass, but the trip to get there would have required an exceptionally early start, and we just couldn't do it. Instead, we opted for Our Lady of the Rosary near the hotel. The parish was founded in the mid-19th century, but the current church was built in the 1960's. It isn't all that bad inside, actually. Its exterior definitely looks like a typical 1960's London brick building, but the inside is not the gaudy mess that one might expect from that time period. It looks rather nice, actually, though it clearly is not "old".

After Mass, we came back to the hotel to change into jeans and have some quick breakfast, then decided to head out for a few relaxing afternoon events. First up was a trip to St. James Park. Jenny had been there, but I hadn't been there yet. We intended to walk through the park on the way to see St. James Palace and the remains of Whitehall Palace (the only remaining building is the Banqueting Hall--the rest of the Tudor-style wooden palace burned to the ground in the 17th century). From there, we were going to attend Evensong at Westminster Abbey.

Well, by the time we got down to the park, it was getting close to the time that we would want to be at the abbey church, so we walked along the park towards the church. The service started at 15:00. Evensong is seated in the Quoire section, forward of the main seating section and in front of the high altar, right inside the Lantern. This was incredibly cool. I had hoped to attend this particular service, as it also included the granting of surplices to the new choir members from the abbey school, as well as acceptance of choir members into the abbey choir society. The organ and music were phenomenal. The service was really quite cool. It had that feel of something quite old but still relevant. There were lots of different types of staffs (I always thought that was "staves", but all of the spelling things are yelling at me about it, so I'll go with "staffs") used. I don't understand the meaning for each one, but different ones were used to present the two different classes, then there was one used to escort one of the ministers (I don't recognize their clothing details, so I'm not sure what his rank was, but he gave the final blessing--he may have bee the dean of the abbey school), one used to escort one of the ministers for the two "lessons" (we'd call them "readings"), one used to escort the preacher for the sermon, and what looked like yet a different one to escort the celebrants and choir out of the church. I couldn't understand all of them. They also had guys in red cassocks with military medals on them that were part of the celebrant party, but I don't know who they were. They didn't do anything other than process with everyone.

This was a great experience. We got to sit and experience the abbey church up close and personal, and we had a great time. It was also free, so double-cool. If I was not a Roman-variety Catholic for so long, I would seriously consider the Church of England. :)

We had initially intended to also hear the organ recital at 17:45. It was only about 16:30, though, so we actually had to exit while the staff prepared the space for the organ recital and subsequent evening service. We got another look at many of the memorials and areas of the church on our way out, and it was good. After we left the church, we decided that we were getting a little tired. We wanted to see the fireworks at 21:45 that were part of the Thames festival, so we headed over to St. James Park again to grab a bench and watch people and wildlife. Jenny worked on some writing stuff, and we both watched people for a while. The wind was picking-up, though, and it was getting chilly, so we both put on the sweatshirts that we had with us in case we got cold.

We were getting a little hungry after a while at the park, so we walked up to the "Inn the Garden" restaurant that was inside the park. We had a great dinner. It was a little on the expensive side, but not too bad. Also, since it was the only "big" meal that we had all day, it worked-out well for us. There was a self-serve and take-away section that I had intended to visit, but I walked right past it without noticing. I thought it was closed. We sat at the restaurant side, where things were somewhat more expensive. Oh well. It was quite good, and we enjoyed ourselves. We had to sit outside, though, and it was getting even colder.

When we were finished with dinner, we started to walk down to the Thames. We were on the Westminster side of the Thames, and intended to stay there, near Westminster Station. This would provide a good view of the fireworks (if the internet was to be believed), and a quick exit via Westminster Station on the Underground. We found a bench and kept each other warm for a couple of hours of people-watching along the river. Soon enough, we heard Big Ben toll 21:00, then heard the 21:45 bells, so we grabbed a spot along the wall. At 22:00 the show began, and it was absolutely fabulous. It was only about 20 minutes long, but there was a lot of pyro in the sky at one time. There were typically at least four big shells going off at once, with a multitude of smaller shells and/or jets/sprays at the same time. Awesome.

We headed down to the Underground, only to find out that the only line we could use from there to home (the Circle line) was running what they called "major" delays. It turned out that we had to wait about 20 minutes for a train to arrive in our direction that would take us where we needed to go. It was practically empty, too, which was odd. Good for us, though, and it got us home quickly.

Once off the Underground, we wandered up to the nearby grocery to get some soup-in-a-cup to enjoy with our Champagne (ha ha, yes, I'm serious), along with some hummus and diet coke. On our way into the hotel, we stopped at the bar to get some ice (no ice machines here), dumped the ice into the bathroom sink to cool our bottle, and enjoyed our soup. Now it's getting time for bed.

Tomorrow, we're scheduled for the Chunnel train at 14:30 or so. The current guidelines after the fire last week are to show up at the correct time for the train, and they'll accommodate us as soon as they can. Our transfer is an anytime ticket for any train from Brussels to Rotterdam, so we should be OK there.

Tomorrow morning, we'll finish packing and then be on our way to stop #2: Rotterdam.

jonathan

Yesterday was Day #3 for us in London. I had work events to attend all day, so I didn't get out to see much of anything. The work event was great, though. I finished-up with the group with a few drinks at a nearby pub. Well, we started to go to a nearby pub, and it turned out that pub was running out of beer. Oops. So we ditched that place and went to the same one we were at the previous evening. I enjoyed a few drinks with the guys there, then headed back on the Underground to see if I could meet Jenny for dinner.

Our plan from the morning was that Jenny was going to go out and explore some places on her own. I wasn't sure if I was going to be doing a work dinner with the guys, or if I was going to be free. We agreed that if we were both at the hotel between 19:00-19:30 and we didn't meet-up, we would have dinner on our own. I got back to the hotel at right around 19:00, so I waited around until just about 20:00, when Jenny came in. She ended up out a little later than she had expected, and had not had dinner yet. After talking about her adventures for a little while, we headed up the street to a nearby gastro-pub for some good (but expensive!) dinner and a couple of pints. Yum good.

Jenny had been exploring Westminster, visiting Buckingham Palace for a tour, walking around the outside of Westminster Abbey, walking around Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and enjoying a nearby park. She took a lot of pictures. You can find them here:

http://www.jennyandjonathangetmarried.com/gallery/v/London_September_200...

Today, Jenny and I set-off to tour the Tower of London. This was high on Jenny's list. It was on the expensive side (16.50 Pounds/person), but it was one of those things that was just so intriguing that we had to do it. I was initially worried that it would be something like a one- or two-hour tour, and then we'd be done, so I had a few other things planned for the day. Well, the Tower of London is easily an all-day affair. After we got moving this morning, took the Underground to the right place, and bought tickets, it was probably close to 11AM. We got moving with what I think was the 10:30AM walking tour with one of the Yeoman Warders (these are the guys in the funny navy-and-crimson uniforms). The tours run for about an hour. He took us to a few of the major spots, gave us some interesting historical information, and showed us what was where along the way. We started at the tour at the Middle Gate entrance, which is currently the main entrance to the Tower grounds. This was the side of the medieval Lion's Tower, so-named because of the menagerie nearby that included lions and tigers, who I guess would growl at incoming guests. Wow. The ruins of that tower have been excavated and can be viewed from the walkway above Middle Tower, which is pretty neat. When crossing from Middle to Byward, we walked across what I think was at one time a drawbridge (it was in the days of Lion's Tower, at least) that crossed the moat. In the mid 19th-century, the moat had become so full of sewage and garbage that it consistently stank, and was rumored to have been the source of multiple cholera outbreaks at the time. It used to rise and fall with the tide on the Thames, but even that was no longer enough to flush it clean. It was drained and filled, leaving a lawn and gravel ditch around the Tower's outer wall. Today, the lawn is used for some residents to exercise their pets and for demonstrations by what we would call re-enactors.

From Middle Tower, we were led inside Byward Tower and onto the outer grounds, which is a roadway named Water Lane. When the Tower was first built, Water Lane was, well, the Thames on the south side of the tower grounds. We saw the curfew bell, which was (and I think still is) rung every night. In the days of executions on Tower Hill, it was also rung immediately before every beheading. Fun stuff.

From Byward Tower, we continued on the south side of the grounds along Water Lane to Traitor's Gate, the Bloody Tower, and the medieval tower palace of Edward I and Henry III. Here we heard about the palace's construction--including that the original structure collapsed twice during construction. The king at the time blamed it on a mistake that had been committed during an earlier king's reign, where Archbishop Thomas Beckett (one t or two? I can't recall) was murdered by a few people who thought they were doing the king a favor. Oops. The current construction people swore that they saw Thomas' ghost at the site levering-out the bricks from the wall with his crosier. The king decided that they would build an oratory dedicated to Thomas inside the palace. This was done, and there were no further issues during construction. Cool again.

From Traitor's Gate, we walked up through another vault through the inside wall and into the inner grounds of the Tower. Up the ramp here was the actual Tower of London (circa 1100 or so, with lots of changes through the centuries), the Barracks building that houses the Crown Jewels vault, the Royal Chapel, the Queen's House built for Queen Anne Boleyn, the Beauchamp Tower, some other residences, and other associated outbuildings (and, of course, don't forget the ubiquitous tourist-trap gift shops).

From here, the tour took us into the Royal Chapel. Here, our warder told us about the 1500 bodies that had been buried under the chapel. This is the third chapel to be built on the site since the 1100's. I can't recall the year that this chapel dates from, but I believe it was the 17th century. At one point (I think under Queen Victoria), there was a massive effort to restore the chapel. When they were doing this work, they exhumed the bodies buried under the chapel in haphazard fashion, and reburied them in one of a few places. One place where a majority of them were re-buried was in a tomb in the one wall. Queen Anne Boleyn, along with a few other queens whose names I don't recall, were buried under the altar. I believe that they remain there. Another interesting story was of a tomb sitting in the middle of the chapel. It was built by someone who worked at the Tower by himself, as he loved the chapel and wanted to be buried in it. At some point after it was built, he upset the king, who tossed him out to live in the countryside. He was not permitted to be buried in the tomb that he built, so it still sits there today, empty.

Here's where things get really good. After the tour, there is still a ton of stuff to do and see. The tour really just gives an entertaining picture of the long history of the tower, and shows one the major sites and how to get to other interesting things. We literally ended up spending the rest of the day there. We were inside the gates until they closed at 17:30. To top that off, we actually didn't even have time to see everything. We never made it into the Beauchamp Tower or the tower across from the Bloody Tower (I forget what it was called). There was also the Fusiliers Museum that we had to skip. We did get through all of the floors of the White Tower (the actual, original Tower of London) where the armory collection is kept. We went through the Jewel House in the old Barracks building, where the Crown Jewels are on display in their vault, along with other antiques of unimaginable value from the tower and royal family. We toured the Bloody Tower, the medieval tower palace of Edward I and Henry III, did the South Wall Walk that actually walks around two sides of the tower, terminating in a display titled "The Making of the Crown Jewels," where multiple former crowns are on display (minus their jewels), and information on how the jewels were mounted and where they are now was presented. This ended with a walk through the life of the Cullinan Diamond. The largest piece of that stone is called Cullinan I, and is in the royal sceptre. The second-largest piece, Cullinan II, is mounted in the Crown of State. As it turns out, all of the other major pieces (there were nine all-told, not counting fragments) are also owned by the royal family. If I'm remembering the story correctly, some of them are currently in a brooch worn by Queen Elizabeth II. By this time, it was nearing 17:30, and the Tower was about to close to the public, so we made our way for the gates.

One of the highlights of the day was seeing a wedding party arrive by carriage. When Jenny and I came out of the White Tower (I think that was what we had just visited), I was watching the changing of the guard in front of the Barracks building. I then heard a Warder moving the crowds back, and heard horses. Around the corner came a carriage with what looked like two bridesmaids, plus a young girl and young boy dressed in high style. It was around 15:30, so we thought that the wedding might start near 16:00. We decided to wait to see if a bride showed up in a carriage, too. Sure enough, at just about 15:55, another carriage arrives with the bride and her father. We grabbed a few pictures. It was really pretty interesting. We're not sure if it was the child of a warder or one of the royal guards, but it was likely someone who lives at the Tower. Speaking of that, did you know that all of the Warders (and at least some of the royal guards who guard the Jewel House and Barracks) live on the Tower grounds? I didn't. They all live in the residences there, including the Queen's House and residences on the inside of the outer wall.

All in all, today was a great day. After we got outside of the gates, we realized that we had only eaten cups of soup for breakfast, and were really quite hungry. We walked up a nearby street to find a gastro-pub called The Hung, Drawn and Quartered. Their kitchen was still open for a little while, so we grabbed some food and beer that turned out to be awesome and pretty inexpensive (for London, two full meals, two pints, and an appetizer for 26 Pounds seems to be a really good deal). It was good to sit down in a comfortable spot for a while and watch some football (soccer) while enjoying some good food. I had their fish and chips, and Jenny had a artichoke, pesto, mushroom and cheese sandwich that she really enjoyed. We also had an order of nachos. We were more than full by the time we were finished.

After that good meal, and the long day walking around the Tower grounds, we were pretty much done for the night. We decided to walk down in front of the Tower and sit by the Thames for a while before heading home. A little while later, I thought I remembered hearing that there were fireworks for both nights of the Thames Festival, which celebrates the yearly election of the Lord Mayor of London (different from the Mayor of London, the Lord Mayor is elected yearly and is primarily a ceremonial position, whereas the Mayor of London is elected for a term and is mayor of the Greater London area). We decided to stay where we were to see if we could see them. At about 21:30, one of the Warders comes by and starts telling everyone still down at the water that the West Gate was about to close, which was the only exit from where we were. We left and headed up towards the Underground station at Tower Hill, figuring that we would wait on Tower Hill for a little while to see if we could see them. Then Jenny suggested that we head over to Westminster station, since that deposited one right at the water next to Big Ben and across from the Eye, which is where the fireworks were supposed to be. We went down there and waited for a while. Then I remembered that I had my Blackberry, and it was working again internationally, so I looked-up the schedule. Of course, the fireworks are only on Sunday. Oh well. Back on the Underground and back to the hotel, after a long and completely awesome day.

Recommendation from today: Definitely do the Tower of London, if you at all into history. You'll have far more questions about how things work when you come out of it, but it is really pretty awesome. There are special passes available if you want to do multiple events over a few days that would save a few quid per ticket, and these are recommended. We weren't sure what we were going to do when we got here, so we didn't get them. Knowing what we do now, if you want to visit the palaces, you'll probably want to get these passes. Yes, it is pricey, but we spent the WHOLE DAY there. Really. We could have spent more time if we had it. The hours on Sunday are shorter, so definitely plan to do this on a weekday or Saturday.

Pictures? Of course. Here: http://www.jennyandjonathangetmarried.com/gallery/v/London_September_200...

Today was our second day in London. It's too bad that we can't get assigned here for a little while (with a suitable adjustment for cost of living :) ). Today was a work day for me. I had an afternoon meeting, so we spent the morning sleeping-off the last of our jet lag and talking about the day, then I went off for my meeting and left Jenny to her own devices. She did a little exploring around the area, found a small grocery nearby and got some food for herself, and then read and did some cross-stitch until I got home. After my meeting, a bunch of us went to the pub, where we were treated to a bunch of drinks. Then one of the guys from the Netherlands suggested that we take a group and get some dinner, so some of us asked one of the Londoners we were with about local food, then walked across the street to the recommended curry place. There we were treated to heaps of good Indian food. Yum. By this time, it was rounding-up to 21:00, so we parted ways at the Underground and went off to our separate hotels.

Tomorrow is another work day for me with an all-day meeting. Jenny is planning to head over to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster and do some exploring over there during the day. I'm not sure what tomorrow night holds yet. I might be dining with work-related folks if any are getting together and it is appropriate for me to be there. If not, I'll meet-up with Jenny and we'll head for a local gastro-pub or somewhere to get some good dinner and kick-off the rest of our little mini-vacation.

Pictures from yesterday have been posted here:
http://www.jennyandjonathangetmarried.com/gallery/v/London_September_200...

jonathan