More traveling to come

On July 10th (this Saturday) I am going to pop over to London for about 10 days of, well, not exactly R&R, but more like "get out of Norway" escape time. It seems that summer has decided to bypass us in Norway entirely...it's been cold and rainy ever since I got back from my trip to Amsterdam and beyond. (Today is the first sunny day...so why the hell am I inside writing to this blog?????) Rich will join me for part of the time..he can't get away for the whole t ime, though.
I will be back on July 21, but there are internet cafes all over the place in London (my fave being on King's Road) so I can update this as the urge hits.

Of course, as I complain about the weather here, the UK has been hit by a "freakish July storm" with gale force winds and colder temperatures. And there is a threatened baggage handlers strike which I am constantly checking on, as I soooo do not want them to go on strike on Saturday! But just in case I will pack some essentials in my back pack to cover any emergency baggage issues.
My friend Norway Jennifer (I have three friends named Jennifer...I call them "My Jennifer", "Jennifer Cook" and "Norway Jennifer") said "Why don't you just carry on your baggage?".
To which I reply..."10 days of stuff in a small carry on? I have standards, you know."
She said, "But I thought on your recent big trip you did carry on the whole time?"
To which I again reply, "No...I could CARRY it, but it was not carry on". See the difference?

It's all semantics.

Anyhow, Rich has also planned us a trip to Prague for early August. After I came back raving about the beer and the beauty and the beer, telling him my stories about how much he would like it, well, he got a bee(r) in his bonnet and planned us a trip. Did I mention the beer?

When Colleen and I were there we had the great honor and opportunity of being guided and shown about by Milan Reban, my friend Milena's dad, who is from the Czech Republic. He really went all out for us. We really felt very pampered and special, being shown around by this true gentleman who knows everything there is to know about Czech culture and history and BEER! I do not have my pictures back yet to post here (they are in hock to the photo place while I get up the guts to pay the exhorbitant amount I owe for 8 rolls of film + CD) but I will get them after the trip to the UK. Anyhow, there are some of our charming host Milan and I am forever grateful to him for making that trip so special!

So now I am going outside to enjoy what sun I can before it goes away. Oh, shit. The sun already went away. The clouds are rolling in again. Why is summer avoiding me???? Did I piss off the sun god or something? I WILL do the naked sundance if necessary. Norway is empty, so no one will see me, they are all on vacation......