100 Days

We only have 100 days left in London! It's hard to believe. But since we had to buy our plane tickets last week (we wanted to make sure to get the "good" seats and a flight landing that gave us time to head to Cafe Rio upon touchdown in Salt Lake), the countdown to August 4th is officially on. We've had lots of fun and great experiences, and one major one coming up, of course.

But now we need to make sure that we've done everything on our London "to do" list. So those of you who have been here, thought of coming here, or know cool things to do here, we need your suggestions. Leave a comment suggesting what we need to make sure we do before we leave this sceptered isle. Who knows when or if we will return...

PS And for those of you counting down to the baby, the fly home date is just 21 days later: 79 days left before the baby is due!

PPS Internet still down... :( This post is brought to you by the free wifi at the Science Museum, just across from the Hyde Park Ward.

Internet down!

These past few months in London have been made much easier by the fact that we have had internet access in our flat. However... since a rainstorm last week, our connection has been down and we haven't been able to fix it! It makes you realize how much you use it to keep in touch with people, and in our cases track down everything from bus schedules to articles to help with our dissertations. Hopefully it will be back up and running by next week, but if you hear less from us in the meantime, at least you'll know why.

PS The weather in London has been lovely this week!
PPS Heather is officially into the 3rd trimester!
PPSS Maybe by the next post Ben will have decided which law school he's attending!

La Dolce Vita

Only 1 day after Lisa & Dallas returned home, we welcomed our next visitors: Adrien, her sister Marianne, and her roommate Sariah. Here they are arriving on the Eurostar from Paris (Adrien, we're excited to see you, too!):

We went with them to all the major sights...

...and saw Oliver! and The Lion King with them. Oliver was fun, with Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) playing one of the lead parts. Adrien & co. kindly bought our Lion King tickets. Thanks, guys! Here's a photo of the Drury Lane Theatre, where we saw Oliver:

And, of course, when you have at least 4 people, you have to try "the picture"

We are particularly pleased that we got a red bus in the background, seeing as there were no white VW bugs around.

After a few days of Britishness, Marianne flew back home and the rest of us flew to Rome. Ben's wanted to see Rome for a long time, so it was a wonderful opportunity for us. We explored all the ancient Roman sites, like the Pantheon:

(That photo took a lot of attempts to get right!). We also visited the Colosseum:

(That's Adrien & Sariah on the opposite side from us.) The Colosseum is impressively huge. It seated from 50,000 to 70,000 people (for comparison the Delta Center seats 20,000) and had a retractable roof made of canvas-like material. That way the Romans could watch their blood sports and mayhem without getting rained on or sunburned. How nice.

Next to the Colosseum is the ruins of the Roman Forum - the downtown business/political center of ancient Rome. It was amazing to wander around these crumbling shells and imagine people in togas going about their daily routines. This is a photo of the circular Temple of the Vestal Virgins:

An "eternal flame" was kept going inside this temple by a selected group of girls. The belief was that as long as the flame burned, Rome would stand. Looks like one of the Virgins must have fell asleep on her shift...

The other great reason to visit Italy is, of course, the food! We enjoyed some great pasta:

And lots, and lots, and lots of gelato. Mmmmmmm.......

We had to leave Rome eventually, although Ben didn't want to leave the Pantheon:

Adrien & Sariah flew home, and we were off to Siena. It's a beautiful hilltop town with some amazing views. We stayed at a convent-turned-hotel, run by the sisters of St. Catherine. From a bridge on the other side of town, you can see our room:

Siena is a really well-preserved medieval city. The main square of the town (il campo) is fronted by a unique city hall with a huge clock tower:

Everyone hangs out here. It feels like a beach without the ocean. We had a great time enjoying the sun, the crowds, and even ran into some LDS missionaries on their way to a service project. And there was more fresh pasta and tasty gelato to be had. Our favorite restaurant: La Taverna di San Giuseppe. Amazing.

After a few days in Siena, we finished up with a few days in Orvieto, another hilltop town, but smaller, and even more dramatically perched on steep cliffsides. These little Italian towns have extremely narrow streets, so you get a lot of vehicles like this one (Ben's favorite):

The weather was perfect, and we spent our time enjoying the atmosphere and looking at all of the hand-made ceramics that Orvieto is famous for. At the entrance to the city is a ruined fortress with some great views of the surrounding countryside:

Whew! It was a great trip. Italy can be intense, but we found time to just relax and enjoy "the sweet life" with the locals, strolling around eating gelato in the evenings.

P.S. Heather adds: It was so great to see Adrien & Co.! I hope they all had a great time. I know I did. In fact, the first time I went to Italy in 2000 I was totally hooked. I was amazed that it "looked just like it was supposed to". There is touristy, tacky Italy, but past that is fabulous Italy, just right for a spring vacation!