no queues at kew

L2's cousin came to down last weekend. As she had been to London numerous times - we didn't take her on any traditional tours. Instead - we broke it down at our fav Thai place, took her to the temporary pavillion at Hyde Park by Frank Gehry (will post on that later!) and the next day took her to this awesome free exhibit on bones in London and then to Kew.


Kew was gorgeous. The Royal Botanical Gardens did not disappoint with it's wide open spaces and carefully manicured lawns. However, the treetop walk is nothing like the one at Cap Suspension Bridge. This one swayed. I was not happy.
I love visitors - they force me to get out and do some new touristy things!

Image via

Pictures and sunflower farms

Just not enough space or desire today to blog about everything in Romania - however, if you would like to take a look at all the pictures, be my guest. Beware L2 thought the sheep were cute.

On our drive to the coast we witnessed miles and miles of sunflower farms. We couldn't figure out what they were harvested for besides the seeds and oil. I guess that could be enough.

Needless to say - the next few post pics are L2 and my originials.

nothing will ever top this hike

So our second day into Romania - L2 and I wanted to hike. We had a grand plan of hiking for four hours across the ridges of the Fagaras mountains and ending up at a cabana that would cost 10 euro.

Instead the ridges were more like straight up and down a mountain. Our path was blown out due to snow and it was so icy that we had to go down on our rain jackets for about 100/200 feet. That was actually fun. In the end we got about half way (what we discovered was half way) and found out the cabana was still four hours away. We had been hiking for 3.5 by then and was purely exhausted. Romania hikes were not for the faint of heart. Also, we only had about an hour and a half of sun left.

So we slept in a rescue shelter with three romanian boys and an avid hiker. Slat wooden boards really didn't help with my severe sunstroke and most likely altitude sickness. Feel bad for L2.

L2 dubbed it the death march of July 2008.

introduction to Lenny and Carl.

So in Heathrow Terminal 5, Liam and I had some time to kill and were starving. What did that mean - smoothies and pain chocolate! In addition - we got these great giraffes. And it was love at first plastic. Now named 'Lenny and Carl' - they are going on every journey with us. We hope to take their picture at every place we go to (a la Amelie gnome style but without the weight of a garden gnome). Here are Lenny and Carl at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest. The second largest building in the world. It's just thick with concrete.Next picture - the swiss alps