Moving to Holland is not easy, but it's worth the effort. This blog tells the story of shifting from American life in Pittsburgh to Expat life in the Netherlands,
and all of our European adventures that follow.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Londontown, Round Two

- March 13-16, 2009

A second trip to London? Yes, please! Chad and his boss, Arjen, had a conference in London over the weekend, so they decided to "bring the wives," and make it an extended weekend holiday. We actually traveled by train through the Chunnel, which is the tunnel that runs under the English Channel. I was always curious about how that worked. We took the train to Brussels (2 hrs), and switched to the Eurostar train that would go through the Chunnel (2.5 hrs). You had to go through a cursory security screening before boarding the Eurostar. So it was a quick trip, just about 5 hours, and you end up in the city center of London. I was surprised that we were only under the water for about 20-30 minutes. I thought it would be much longer, maybe an hour.

It was fun to explore the city again. We found some nice places to eat dinner and have some good UK beers. On Saturday, Chad and Arjen were at the conference all day, so Linda and I set out on our own. We went to London Tower and Tower Bridge, then to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a huge cathedral with beautiful sculptures, and high ornately painted ceilings. We walked up several hundred stair to get to the inner circle of the churches dome. And, a nice surprise, we were even able to walk outside on top of the church and see a beautiful 360 degree view of London.

That night we met up with the guys again and went to the dinner with the rest of the people from the conference. It was at a wonderful Italian restaurant, and the food & wine was fabulous. We then moved to the hotel lobby, where we proceeded to drink and talk until about 3 AM. It was amusing to me to see this group of people up drinking so late, and to see where the conversations went. It was fun for everyone, though.

We had a lot of fun hanging out with Arjen and Linda. They have always been so helpful to us since our move to the Netherlands, and it was nice to get to know them even better. London is one of those cities that you can visit time after time, and always find a new interesting part of town. I'm sure this won't be our last trip to Londontown.

-S

Pics from London:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kanickmoses/sets/72157615583401330/

No comments: