London

Spent one of our days in London with Mark Walis, at the tower one day, got a behind the scene look at some of rooms. Mark is running a reenactment show at the tower nowaday, and he sic'd his actors on me. Probably knowing I was the ham from hell. We had a lot of fun. The crown jewels were incredible, imagine wearing a fortune on your head, we saw gold tureens, that would probably need 4 men to lift, and giant, egg sized diamonds. He is a fount of information on English history, very fun. We also spend a day with Martin Harris (Scrooge), saw his town where he grew up at Graves End. He knew all the history of the town, including the places where Dickens hung out, got married in, and lived in.

He also took us to many wonderful sites including beautiful churches, fun pubs, and the back way in to see Leeds castle, unfortunately the woman who runs the tours was peeved, but couldn't really do anything because the public paths are the public paths.

We got to see Martin and Anna's beautiful house, that they have remodled into a cozy comfortable home. You could hardly believe it was the same house, when we saw the before pictures!!!

It was really nice hanging out without costumes and characters. We got to hang out and have dinner and chat for quite a while. While in London, we also saw their version of Chicago, from nose bleed seats. Be careful of those ticket sellers in London, and make sure you get what you paid for.

We had a great time in the market at Camden Loch, although the crowds were a bit unsettling thru the literal warren of twisty sellers, of new, used and hand crafted items. We also saw wonderful performers at Covant garden. The best was a juggler who stripped down to his underwear (gold speedos),

and climbed all over this poor audience member. I took a lot of picts of him of course.

The weather the whole time was pretty hot and muggy, with lots of clouds, and some sprinkles. Alot like Florida. Saw the Palace from outside the gates, and got to travel in a ferry down the Thames. We later took the Eurostar to Paris. Very fast train, could hardly watch the scenery go by, it was sooo fast.