New Forest

There's a national park within walking distance known as the New Forest.
It's full of wild horses and (not so wild) cattle.
Really quite strange to walk through a forest full of horses...

English Breakfast!

Yes! Worth every penny

Another sunny day on the coast

I didn't know England had such nice beaches! Cold water and no sand, but very picturesque (And yes, I am holding a beer...why not?)
This pic is from Calshot beach with the Isle of White just barely visible in the background (not so much from this photo)

Beach Weather!

Best thing about England so far? You can buy a pint from a pub and then walk along the beach and drink it! Awesome. (That and the no tipping thing...)

14 hours from YVR to Hythe, UK

After a few teary goodbyes we were on our way...
I had to take off my pants in front of everyone getting through security at YVR..Still not sure why.

British Airways was pretty good...Free booze and blankets etc plus 2 good meals. When we landed we had to bus to the terminal. I gave a plastic bag to a lady who had just enough time to reply "oh god thanks" before she barfed into it...I let her keep the bag.

Got the bus from Heathrow to Southampton then found the ferry to Hythe. The "coach" was alright...like a run-down westcoast express coach with a bathroom that was 200 degrees and dirtier than a construction porto-potty.

Everybody we asked for directions was really rude...Maybe they think we're American?
Arrived 6pm UK time, had a few beers and then went to sleep. Already adjusted for UK time...

New Blog tool...

Picked up this little netbook for $200...Char and I split the cost as we'll both be using it to upload pics to Picasa and blog. A pretty sweet deal...I'm amazed at how much computer you can get for a few bucks...And if it gets lost/stolen/damaged then it's not the end of the world...

Tickets bought, Luggage prepared

We've "finalized" most of our tickets. And not a bad deal at all! All flights and major trains are booked and including health insurance it was just a little under $2700 each return.

We'll arrive in London, England on the 22nd of May. After some brief Euro trips we're off to Singapore on July 21. We were looking forward to Prague, but it's so expensive. Anywhere you go for two weeks will cost about $2000 each... So we'll likely take a little break from England with a 2 week all-inclusive in Turkey. We wanted to go to Turkey anyway. It seems like a bit of a cop-out heading to an all-inclusive...But it's actually cheaper than a hostel and a plane ticket for two weeks... So nothing says we can't leave the all-inclusive and wander about?!?!

After Europe we'll spend 5 months around southeast Asia. I haven't been off this continent (North America) since I was 5, so I'm a little bit nervous. Maybe too much. I've even emailed myself the addresses of all the Canadian consulates around Asia haha! What if I lose my luggage? Lose my Passport? My credit cards? Thankfully beer is cheap so I likely won't give a damn most of the time