‘Travel | London’ Posts

not everybody has the patience to sort through 800+ photos from a family vacation, so i have distilled out about 70 of my favorites from scotland, london and paris. there is more commentary on the trip to come (UPDATED: it’s here now) but wanted to get the pictures up quicker than my weary brain can draft real blog posts.

Explore the Photo Set:
Photos: The Best of Europe (Slideshow)

on the flight over here from the U.S., i gave my father two goals for his tenure in Britain — either he was going to learn to drink scotch or he was going to learn to drink beer.

he chose the latter.

my father really hasn’t done much with alcohol at least since i’ve been around — there is a childhood story about mixing day old empties together which still gives me the heebs — but each meal i’d pick out something for myself that i thought he’d like, give him a sample and then he’d either order it or something he had earlier in the trip.

i have to say he’s built himself a respectable palette for the darker stuff — mostly brown ales and stouts. the effort was made a bit easier by English beer’s milder taste than it’s American microbrew cousins, but a beer is a beer and now he’s fully prepped up to tie one down at work functions and the like.

i’m so proud 🙂

Between Kensington Palace and the Tower of London, i think it’s safe to say that I’m a complete monarchist. Granted they are capricious, and constantly cutting off peoples (and more specifically, wives) heads — but God, the palaces, the histories, and the intrigue. It’s like crack. Or more importantly, it’s like the 17th century equivalent of reality TV.

In fact, i’m working on my elevator pitch for a Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace as we speak.

I went to the College of William and Mary, and grew up in Williamsburg before that — and in all my time, i never saw a portrait of Mary II where she looked female, much less attractive.

I’m suddenly feeling much more supportive of my alma mater.

i have to give props to my now three month pregnant wife — we walked down to buckingham palace late tonight, and it’s the first thing in the entire trip that she’s opted out of for want of sleep. she’s a trooper.

we’re nearing the end of the trip — just one full day left tomorrow, and then my parents fly out the following afternoon. i can already hear my parents talking over the next hundred family gatherings about how perfect the trip was (and it really did go off without a hitch) and i’m really glad to have ticked something off my things-to-do-before-i-die list and picked up some great family memories to boot.