The rest of London.

We did the usual touristy things in London. Here they are...

We took an 'enchanted tour' of Kensington Palace in Hyde Park that was a little strange at first but more informative than we thought by the end. Princess Diana (among many other Princesses and royal figures) lived here.

We crossed London Bridge...

Instead of touring Shakespeare's Globe, we busked outside. This is my 'anger' act.

The old harbour that the tall ships used to sail directly into.

A pretty part of Chelsea, near Notting Hill.

We toured the Imperial War Museum, I definitely recommend it. Lots of information, posters, fashions, articles, movies, re-enactments, etc etc etc. Here are some photos and a couple of articles. You should be able to click on these photos to read the print a little easier...the first one is how to make your bomb shelter homely and doubly useful as a garden.

...the 2nd is an article on identifying German aircraft

...and the 3rd, Hitler.

On our last day we toured the market on Portobello St (also a famous part of the suburb Notting Hill...and basis for the movie).

Marc and his Mom shop for a flask...

This was an awesome street with so many different shops and stands...here's one of the first ones you see...

...And Denise at the door they used to film the scenes from the door of Hugh Grant's home in Notting Hill.

These last two pictures are for you Diddy....it's a wealthy neighbourhood...

Royal things.

We arrived in London on Easter weekend and stayed until Tuesday - I can't imagine staying any later than that as the city was already packed with tourists, media, and crazy people with Royal Wedding fever. Here is a picture tour of our Royal Wedding extravaganza.

We started with the Changing of the Guards...

...along with thousands of other tourists from all over the world. In the end, we never saw the changing of the guards...

...and I don't think most other people did either, the police were pretty strict on "corralling" the tourists. The green stands in this picture are for the media during the wedding.

We took the obligatory photos infront of Buckingham Palace (here Marc and I attempted a jumping high 5...look at the face of the lady in white).

Then we walked the mall and the route the wedding party took between the Palace and Westminster Abbey. Marc made a friend - his friend made the news.

The media stands outside Wesminster Abbey...

...the media were stationed anywhere and everywhere around Westminster Abbey. They've covered every possible spot of this building, which faces the Abbey.

Here I am infront of the Abbey were Will & Kate entered single and left married. It was closed to the public as preparations had already begun.

All of England seemed to be decorated to celebrate the wedding. When we took the train from the ferry port in Wales to London, we passed through one town that had some sort of festival happening, which included huge inflatable replications of Will & Kate.
Lots of shops had decorated windows...

...and all the tacky tourists stands had these 'beautiful' tea towels...

This sports pub in Manchester was even decorated...

...and at a restaurant near our hotel in Chelsea, London, they had a special Royal brew on tap.

And near Notting Hill, London, this shop used the Royal couples' heads to promote.....dog tags? ski masks? Hey - whatever works.

After we did our Royal tour, we crossed the bridge to the London Eye, infront of the parliament buildings. Maybe some of you saw us on that bridge, on TV! That's right, we were on TV. We got stopped by a CBS news crew and they interviewed us about being in London for the wedding. Marc and his Mom Denise did a pretty good job of exaggerating our excitement for the big day, what our plans were for camping out, etc etc etc. It was hilarious and a great end to our Royal tour.

DUB. and Cork.

We were oh so happy to arrive in the land of the pub! The Irish people are so friendly and the culture is a little more familiar to us. Odd side note, when we first arrived from France, the Irish seemed fat. That's the best way to put it...it was the oddest thing. Now, having been here just about a month, we're fully acclimatised and everyone is happy and healthy!

After a late flight from Nice to Dublin, on what we found out mid-flight was the dreaded airline Ryanair (and was confirmed on the scariest landing of my life...complete with arms bracing the seat infront and screams from everyone) we safely made it to meet Marc's Mom Denise!



There's a funny story with this picture, it was on our first full day in Dublin. There was a homeless man sitting on a nearby bench with a couple tall-boys (beer). He gave great advice that smiling makes the best picture, mumbled something else very friendly, then let out a loud burp. It made us giggle, but immediately afterwards he apologized for being rude. It was a great welcome to Ireland, how many times have you meet a friendly, respectful drunk bum?! Only in Ireland...

...at the end of the must-do Guiness brewery tour.

...and noticing that Marc's hair is soon to surpass Denise's hair in length.

Our first taste of Irish pub food, with mushy peas.

After one day in Dublin, we took the train to Cork to scope out the city before Marc starts working. We found a great place to live and did the usual touristy things.














...Cork City Gaol tour - a fun experience with walkman tapes to guide you and wax statues to complete the experience.
























Cork city view.















The tour books make the surrounding towns sound like they all have charm and special experiences to offer. So, we picked a day trip to Midleton. This is when we realized the tour books slightly exaggerate. This little town didn't have much going on. But we did find a pretty stream with 2 fluffy white dogs, a crane, and a duck with her ducklings, all just hanging out. Here is Marc and his Mom checking out the scene.
















































After Cork we took a ferry to the UK and toured London, Manchester and Birmingham (all posts of their own). After that, we took the ferry back to Dublin and spent a couple more days with Denise before heading home to Timmins, and Marc and I settling in Cork.

The National Leprachaun Museum - we learned the truth behind the magic!

...and we got to create a picture at the end of the tour. Here is Marc's...

...and here is mine. They were put on a wall of the museum for the day, then uploaded onto their flickr website, so technically, we are published artists!

One last Irish pint with Denise!

We did tons of great things in the England and have lots to post...they will be good!

When in France...

France is a really great country, tons to offer, great food, beautiful sights, and a really different culture. Actually, we were surprised how different and may now argue that the French are, in fact, the most civilized in the world. Here are some things we observed (but that don't necessarily argue for the best lifestyle)....and may be totally wrong (sorry Cecile!!).

• Everyone dresses really nicely, keeps themselves well groomed and poised. Everyone wore black in the colder months (making Marc easy to find wearing his big red winter jacket) and they continued to wear lots of clothing long after we were in our tshirts.
• There really is doggy doodoo (keepin' it family friendly on here...) everywhere. It is cleaned early in the mornings before people start their day by gushing tons of water down the streets.
  
• There is always someone walking down the street carrying a baguette. Always.
• The vast majority smokes.
• 99.999% of the French look fantastic! Not too skinny and definitely not overweight and not one man has a beard (again making Marc easy to find).
• ...there are 5 pastry shops on every street (which we still haven't figured out how the French stay so fit).
• They only drink wine with meals and rose seems to be the current choice (and tastes so good! Especially the local one's we had from Provence, highly recommended!).
• They really enjoy their cafes and drinking them outside. Every little cafe/shop and all restaurants have outdoor seating (with heaters for the cooler months), it's fantastic. They drink coffee with milk (ie. cafe au lait or latte type) only in the morning and espressos through the day. It took me awhile to figure out the proper lingo for a good coffee. As soon as they know you're English speaking, they seemed to send the biggest (and worst) cup of coffee.
• The double cheek kiss actually happens ...and was really awkward for us.
  
• They are not all snobs, especially in the smaller cities and towns, like Gonfaron, where one man offered us his baguette when we found out all the shops were closed for the day. But don't expect many smiles in bigger cities, especially Paris and Nice, even if you speak fluent French Canadian.
  
• You can gauge an area by the price of a Nutella crepe...a great strategy for getting out of a tourist trap type of area.
• There is a huge North African population throughout France, which was great for us as there was then tons of kebab shops to choose from at any time of day. Besides the pastry shops and McDonalds (or Quick burger the French equivalent), there wasn't anywhere to grab a cheap meal/snack throughout the day. The French take an hour or two to enjoy their lunch. We found it odd that many shops were closed just after noon for any amount of time, depending on how lunch is going I guess...who wouldn't love a leisurely lunch with wine every day!
  

Denise & Helen.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

JOYEUSE FETE des MERES!

To our two favourite Moms, hope you're having a great day.

Casanque.

At the beginning of April, I spent eight days at another HelpX with an awesome British couple, KJ and Debs. They literally live in the middle of nowhere, no roads in sight and only a faint light visible in the distance at night. It was really nice (...for eight days...after that I think I'd go a little bananas).

The closest "major" town is Condom. It has a lot of cobblestone streets, daily markets, cafes, etc etc. and English celebs. The most famous one being Siouxsie, of Siouxsie and the Banshees (an old punk band). We saw Siouxsie one Sunday when KJ took us into the market, she was looking like she still likes a good mosh-pit. This is just one pretty spot in Condom.

With KJ & Debs and their dogs, Tess (the sweet and slow one), Boots (Tess' wild brother), Biff (sick, stinky and fat, but my favourite!), and Maggie (Biff's mom and the queen of the group).

I was there at the same time as another Helpx-er Robijn from the Netherlands. We worked on clearing the trees/shrubs/rocks from this spot beside their house. There's a big pile of rocks to the left of the truck in this picture, and there was a few snakes in there too, yikes. Robijn was a little scared of the snakes so somehow I became the brave one to move and lift the rocks...

The after picture, right before I left.

Some pictures of the views from their house...
Who doesn't love a hammock? Especially in Gascony, with views of rolling fields of Grapeseed.

Their neighbours vineyards, used for terrible red table wine and armagnac (this is the region where Armagnac grapes are grown).

The kitchen window and laundry line...

Maggie and an old building where the dogs sleep at night. It's pretty cute, after they cuddle with everyone on the couch after dinner, the dogs head down to the lower loft in this building and hop onto a big straw bed for the night.

A big barn on the right for storage and the pellet stove. They once had a German Shepherd (not the dog, but an actual man from Germany, roaming the countryside looking for work) help them. His name was Tim and he insisted on sleeping in the barn. He also insisted on yelling up to KJ & Debs window in the morning "Good morning my Lord". On the left is a nice dining area where we ate every night I was there.

Poor old Biff, this is where he spends all his days.

After the dogs had their dinner, I took them for long walks through tiny villages, rolling hills, vineyards, farm fields, forrests, the views are endless here.

The pictures above and below show the wild orchids that are growing everywhere.

The first night Maggie came with us for a walk, it was really really hot. On the way back the dogs jumped in this stream to cool off, but it was too steep and slippery for old Maggie to get out, so here's Robijn trying to get her attention. She was quite disoriented and it took us awhile to finally get her to a place where she could climb out. It was pretty cute though, the other two dogs were just as concerned as Robijn and I.

I went for a couple bike rides around the area, which includes this old Chateau, famous in France for some reason (I forget!)...could be the Armagnac they make.

There were a lot of hills to fly down...and then walk up.

These two pictures are from another neighbouring town called Gondrin. It had this pretty street with old, old buildings...

...and lots of flower gardens.

And back to Condom. KJ told me this region is very typical French, with berets and all. I told him I'd seen almost every French stereotype (ie baguettes, dog poop, etc) but no Berets. Then low and behold, this group of men, wearing berets, poses infront of a 3 Musketeers statue - couldn't really get more French!