Ahoy Matey...AARRGGGGG

As I am writing this post I realized I did not make one pirate reference of speak with a pirate accent the entire boat ride which is very disappointing. John and I took a boat ride down to Greenwich on what started as a lovely sunny day and ended as most days here do cloudy and wet :o) Fun day out though and now we know what is just around the river bend (Pocahontas reference there if you didn't catch it haha)

I paid this seagull "un euro" to fly in front of my picture... well worth it
My photogenic husband with tower bridge....he was very excited to be on the boat but i didn't let him sit near the edge just as a precaution :o)

HM Belfast with Tower Bridge in the distance. Every day I look out my window and always think it is floating up the Thames...really it is docked as a museum tour... but it gets me every time :)

This is a picture of my office from the river. I work on the left side of the spherical section on the ninth floor (tenth floor for you americans haha)

The Line that Divides the Earth....

So bring yourself back to elementary school geography when we learned about longitudes and latitude lines....this is where it all begins. Or a little less dramatic this is where the system of GMT time zones and the related longitudinal lines what developed (or at least that is what i think i learned) It is the East meets West of the globe only 40 minutes by boat from Big Ben !!! Now if you thought the Prime Meridian Line was a sight to see take a look at this cue to take your picture...in the rain mind you.. with a sign pointing out that you are in fact standing in both the East and West hemispheres haha. Kinda like taking your picture at the Four Corners.



i thought it was a better use of our time to just take a picture of another family instead of hanging out in the rain haha :) Say Cheese!!!

USA USA USA!!!

Football match number two for the Piateks :) It was a rematch between Chelsea and Everton(Liverpool team) for the FA cup which Chelsea is the defending champs.

This was an official Team America outing and pictured above are the Team America Crew who were able to make the event haha... John, me, Kristen, and Karen.

Also from Team America was Everton's goalie and the USA national team goalie Tim Howard. Unfortunately he was unable to make it for pulled pork BBQ after the match :)

The game was 0-0 after 90 minutes and 1-1 after 30 minutes of overtime so it was all down to penalty kicks!!! Everton pulled out the win thanks to Howard (and chelsea player totally missing the goal) and the Everton fans went CRAZY (they are ranked 12 to Chelsea's 5 so big win). The best part of all the cheering was when all the fans chanted USA USA USA since Howard is American!!! It was a very exciting match and we had a great day followed up with Bodean's for dinner...a really good American BBQ place in london yummmmmm.

My shoes have CLAWS!!!

GRRRRRRR..... these were my bear claws for the day. Sarah was on her best behavior so that she didn't get CLAWED!!!! If only i ad some claw mittens too :)

Picture of Sarah up on the mountain. The views as we walked were amazing.. we were stopping to take lots of pictures. Next trip i will be strapping the camera to a helmet so that i can capture everything i see without impeding travel :)

Luckily there was not enough snow for avalanches but we had a never been opened swiss army pocket knife in the bag in case we ad to rough it a few days :o) And some snacks and warm hats of course