Lunch in Amsterdam

Two years ago, we took an extended holiday and spent 3 months in Europe.  The travel bug has bitten us big time, and we're heading back over the pond again. In January, baby Clare joined our lives, and we weren't sure if she would be as keen about traveling as we are.  A trip to BC to see Granny and Grandad Brittain showed that she's a pro.  Planes were a breeze and she gets so excited about the back-pack carrier that she dances with joy when we bring it out. Take off and landing  The flight crew knew Clare by name, for her charm, not her screaming, and the people sitting with us were visibly relieved at the end of each flight. Food trucks in Vancouver Mamas spent a lot of time in Vancouver sampling the amazing food trucks! On Monday, we fly try out British Airways.  We have a night in the UK before heading under the "chunnel" to Beligium - then back for over a week in London. And we're planning to do it all in carry-on luggage a...

 It's been 2 years, and baby Clare has joined our lives, but we'll be on the move again...London and Belgium this summer!  We'll need more than 2 backpacks for this one.  

Can somebody please confirm that while we have been away, the following product has arrived and is available in Canadian stores within the GTA. What about this one?

Since neither of us can read much while in vehicles, we've been listening to a podcast series broadcast by BBC 4. It's called "A History of the World in 100 Objects". The head of the British Museum has taken 100 objects from this museum and done an excellent series about the evolution of human history and society based around them. There are interviews with artists, cooks, historians and all sorts of people, and each segment is about 15 minutes long. They are almost done the series, object #100 will be unveiled on October 22nd. There is a big mysterious box in the middle of the grand room of the library. We know this, because we were so inspired by this series (ok, we just really wanted to be in an English speaking country again, read an English newspaper, order food our food in English) that we are now in London again. And loving it! And will be here for a week. Co-incedently so is the Pope, which scuppered our plans to go to evensong at Westminster Abbey tonig...

After Venice, we headed to the other side of the Mediterranian, and spent a weekend in Barcelona. Palm trees, sand, sea and lots of Gaudi architecture. Unfortunately we fell down on the picture taking here. Actually we haven't taken a picture for the last week....you'll have to use your imagination!

We finally brought ourselves to leave lovely Ljubljana and hopped on a bus that brought us to Venice. As we were wandering around lost, looking for our hotel, we noticed that a lot of people were wanding around barefoot and carrying their shoes. Turns out that it rained heavily that morning and St. Mark's square (and a few other lower lying places) were flooded. We tried to take a drier route to the hotel (now armed with a map), but still ended up a little soggy. Venice is great. It was warm and sunny while we were there (but the square still flooded the next day and we thought we were trapped inside the Doge's Palace for a while!). What can we say - canals, gondolas, bridges and boats. We did enjoy riding the "bus" around - the Vaparetto boats that sail up and down the Grand Canal. Strangely we felt right at home, especially at this table... Oh, here's one last photo from Ljubljana.

We were supposed to leave Ljubljana 2 days ago. We love it so much, we scrapped our plans and have stayed on. We `ll be here until Wednesday, then we move on to Venice.