SAD :(

Becker is gone and now I'm sad :(

Stopped by Tortilla (british version of chipolte) on my way back from the airport so I could eat away some of my sadness :(

I have posted the pics online from his visit.

You can go to www.geocities.com/sarah_rennweg/LondonPics

It's going to be a long 6/7 months until I get to see him again at Christmas time.

Ireland

For anyone who has never driven on the opposite side of the road, it can be kinda stressfull at first, especially in Ireland where the roads are half the size and where there should be a shoulder the is a jagged rock wall. Luckily we had a little VW Golf. I still thought that was too big at first. I think Sarah thought I was gonna have a mental breakdown I was stressing out so much. (It's true. I offerd him a cookie and I thought he was going to push me out of the car!) When we finally arrived at the Cliffs of Moher I could finally breath, excegpt for the sight was breathtaking. After taking some pics and getting some foreigners to take our picture with the "I shot the minnow" shirts, (Sarah tried to get me to wear the pink one, but I kept my dignity) we hopped back in the car and made our way to our hostel in Doolin. That night we went to a local pub and I finally got a fresh Guiness and some food with flavor. The next morning we headed down to the pier and jumped on a ferry to head to the Aran Islands. The bed and breakfast we stayed at was really nice, though the pillows really sucked. The first day there was bright and sunny so we walked around and sat on the beach for a while. After going through all the little shops we grabbed a couple pints and called it a day. The next morning we woke up and got our authentic Irish breakfast, (the bacon was delicious, the pudding not so much). We were gonna rent bikes and do a little tour of the island but it was pouring rain. Luckily when we were at the grociery store a tour van was there so we hopped in and he took us around to all the hot spots. All the people on bikes looked pretty pissed off so I know we made the right decision.

The Island we stayed on, Inishmore, was the biggest of the three at about 8 miles by 2 miles. Originally the whole island was one big rock, but over the years the Islanders stacked the rock into walls and brought in seaweed and sand which makes dirt. On the island there was over 7,000 miles of stone walls. Needless to say their fields were pretty small. The roads on the island were even smaller than the ones on the mainland, so when we made it back to the car I felt a lot more comfortable driving, which was nice. The people of Ireland where all very nice and friendly, and the land was absolutely beautiful.

We arrived at the Shannon airport a couple hours early so we headed to the bar to grab a burger and a beer. The beer was great, the burger tasted like s**t. Our flight got delayed for a bit, but luckily they had the Simpsons on for a while and Sarah had some good comedians on her Ipod. When we finally arrived at the Gatwick airport I was a little pissed they didn't give me a stamp in my passport.(it looks pretty plain right now) After a hour bus ride and a couple tube rides we finally made it back around 12:30. We were both exhausted.

I'm going to be green now, because Becker gets to be blue, and black looks pretty lame next to blue!

So we slept in until about 11am on Friday. We were both pretty tired after our day of traveling back from Ireland. Around 2pm we headed to the Imperial War Museum. It's an awesome place! Jen Hall - you should be way jealous, it is right up your alley! You should buy a ticket to London just so your geeky social studies teacher self can hangout at the museum for a day, or week!!! It had planes, boats, guns, artillery, and submarines on the main level and then it had exhibits for WWI and WWII. In the WWI area there was a trench experience and in the WWII area there was a Blitzkrieg experience. It was cool! After the musuem we headed to the grocery store because we were both really hungry. At the grocery store we bought a gigantic bag of potatoes (it was on sale!), so Becker will be peeling and cooking potatoes for the rest of his visit! That night we met up with Aaron to see the new Indiana Jone's movie. It was pretty good.

Today we bummed around and then headed over to Aarons around 2:30. He wanted to test out a roast recipe and we offered to be guinea pigs! We brought mashed potatoes! The roast was really good. I think I might let Aaron cook for me more often!! Now we're just bumming around and waiting for the Detroit vs Penguins Stanley cup game to start. It starts at 1am our time. Hopefully we make it through the whole game!

Not really sure what else of London we're going to see. Becker has already seen a lot and it's suppose to rain tomorrow and Monday. The rest of Becker's visit may consist of just bumming around!

Stockholm Pictures

I know I'm a complete slacker and it took me a long time to get these pics online!! You can find my pics from Stockholm, Sweden at:

www.geocities.com/sarah_rennweg/LondonPics

Bus Tour

Today was actually sunny in London, so Becker and I headed out to Buckingham palace and Hyde Park. After checking out the palace we walked through the park and saw a Hop on, Hop off bus tour. We decided to take it. During the bus tour we saw pretty much all the highlights London has to offer. We also got a free river boat cruise with the tour, so we hopped off the bus at the Tower of London and headed up river to Parliament. When we got on the river boat we sat across from two ladies. I was wearing my Wild sweatshirt and they said something about Minnesota hockey. They were from MN (Farmington and Burnsville) and are here until Tuesday for work. What a small world! Once we hopped off the cruise at Parliament, I had Becker take a picture of me with my "I shot the minnow" shirt with Big Ben in the background.

Looks like all of you who head up to The Corral this summer will be able to see me!! I'm going to have mom bring the pic up there to put on the world map. She doesn't know that yet, but I'm sure she'll be honored to do it!!!! Might take a pic with Becker and me while we're in Ireland too! I have two "I shot the minnow" shirts, one is pink and the other is yellow. Becker will look lovely in a little pink shirt, don't you think?!!!! :)

After a long day of sightseeing Becker and I are sitting on the couch watching some TV. We bought tickets for the Easybus (the bus that will take us to the airport tomorrow). Looks like we have to leave the apartment around 11am tomorrow morning in order to get to the airport on time.

Tonight we are going to head down to Aaron's apartment to watch the Penguins vs. Fliers game. Go Penguins!!!!!

I Just Can't Wait to be King!

Becker and I just got back from the Lion King. It was a really cool show. Was a little disappointed that they didn't do the "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" or "Are you aching, yup yup yup, for some bacon, yup yup yup, you can be a big pig too, Oy!" I know some of you sang along, Cousin Jen!

It's great to have Becker here! I have next week off so we're going to hang around London and then head to Ireland.

I'm going to have Becker write a few words here, but first I have to tell you about my Wednesday night.

Becker came on Thursday morning and I was planning on cleaning the room and stuff Wednesday night, but Aaron called me at work and asked if I wanted to go to a show. He was feeling the need to get some culture in. I couldn't resist! He found a show called God of Carnage. It was hilarious and the best part about it was that Ralph Fiennes was in it. He's in a bunch of movies, most recently he was in "In Bruges" a very entertaining movie. He is also in Harry Potter. He is He Who Must Not be Named (aka Voldemort)!!! We waited for him after the show and he came out and signed autographs. I touched his hand and got a picture!!!! I'll put it up once I get it from Aaron. It was the coolest!!!!!! :)

Well anyways, here's Becker:

So I've been here for two days now and she isn't sick of me yet so that's a good thing! Thank god Sarah was waiting for me at the airport or I don't know if I would have made it to her place. The tube is an awfully busy, confusing place at 7:30 in the morning. After a short nap Mike(Tanya's friend) and I, followed Tanya's well detailed map to the building she works in and were able to go up to her floor and see her office and the view of London. Quite spectacular. There was not a single cubicle in the office, kinda wierd, it's just wide open with a bunch of desks pushed together. After that we went to a pub for a couple pints and then went and met up with Sarah for a drink at a different pub. The next morning Sarah got up a little late and had to rush out to work (I had to meet Anna downstairs at 8:10 to bring her to Canary Wharf, Tanya woke me up at 8:05!! Opps), so I slept in a little later, 1:00. After a shower I walked around her place a little bit and of course had to stop in for a bite to eat at the worst place ever, McDonalds. Around 5:30 Tanya took me to a tube station and gave me a piece of paper with the stops I needed to make and told me "good luck". Well I must have had a little luck because I made it to where I needed to meet Sarah. We grabbed some fish and chips and a pint at a pub then headed on to the Lion King. This was the first show I have ever been to and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. And now it is almost time for bed. Another ten days of this fun!!!

Dorset Weekend

This weekend was AWESOME!!

It started out Friday morning when I didn't have to go to work. all the mountbattens met up at the london bridge train station. we hopped on the train and three hours later were at a little farm in dorset. after getting settled into our rooms (tanya and i got our own room!) and lunch we jumped into our first team task, orienteering. we were given a map and had to find the answers to questions such as: what is unusual about this gate, there looks like there is something growing out of the tree by this gate: what is it, etc. My team actually sucked, but i still had fun wandering around the hills and woods.

after orienteering we had free time. there was a big field on the property so while the guys played some rugby i got some of the girls to play keep up/volleyball with a soccer ball. then after the guys got done with their rugby game i joined some of them in a soccer game. kicked some ass! well actually my team lost 1-5, but i scored the one goal that we got!!!

after all the sports and dinner, we headed out to the campfire pit. the rest of the night was spent drinking, joking around, singing, and watching the fire. it was lots of fun.

saturday we had to do some team tasks. one of them was getting cups out of the center of a circle. there was a pulley system with a hook in the middle. there were two people who could talk but not move, four people who could grab the ropes in the pulley system but not see, and three people who could move but not talk. i was one of the people who couldn't see. it wasn't too bad. except for the fact that there were quite a few people on my team who think that there is an "I" in team, if you get my drift!

After all the fun filled team tasks we were brought to a cliff along the shore of the channel to rock climb and abseil. it was lots of fun. after climbing we headed back and played around a bit more.

Aaron and i made up this game that we called Bounce. it started out with us bouncing a rugby ball back and forth to each other. then it progressed to us making two squares and making up a competitive game. you had to bounce the ball on the other person's side and they had to get it before it touched the ground again, but if you bounced it out of bounds then that person would get a point. we played up to five and played a 7 game series. it was probably really funny watching us because we started out being nice to each other and then our competitiveness came out. the games started to get pretty intense and vicious! we played a total of three 7 game series. i won the first two! Heck yeah!
that night we had another bonfire and joking around.

Sunday was the greatest day ever! we went to this high/low ropes course. our first task was to walk across these wires that were attached to trees about 2 feet above the ground. the wires were attached to 6 different trees and the distance between each tree continued to get further and further apart. my team members finally got it inside their heads that there is no "I" in team! one of the guys decided that we were all going to go across the wires on our own. he then proceeded to fall off the first one again and again! i then suggested that someone should get on the rope behind him and hold onto the tree and help him across. surprise, it worked!

another rope course that we did was called jacob's ladder. it was about 30 feet high and each "step" got further and further apart. The website below has the description and a few pictures

http://www.kellycollege.com/adventure/page83.aspx

we went in teams of 4 and we all made it up to the top! it was pretty intense. the top ones were soo far apart that while i was standing on the last log i could just barely reach the top log. it was sooo much fun.

one of my other favorite courses was one where you had to climb up this pole about 30 feet and then climb onto a platform that was about 2 feet by 4 feet. you then had to stand up while the pole was wobbling a bit and jump to a trapeze bar. you were then able to swing on the trapeze bar as long as you wanted and then the person who was belaying would lower you down. The rope course was great and a lot of people were able to overcome their fear of heights slightly!

needless to say, the train ride back was really quiet. we were all extremely tired from our physically active weekend and slept. was a little tired at work today!

this thursday becker is finally here!! i'm going to bring him out on thursday night so that he can meet a bunch of the mountbatten people. friday night we are going to the lion king, saturday we're doing some sightseeing, sunday we're probably going out towards the country for some bike riding and rafting, and then monday we're heading to ireland. its going to be great!

Bank Holiday Monday

today is a bank holiday so i'm not at work!! AWESOME! Tanya and i are sitting in our living room watching the movie The Holiday. we plan to later head to my gym. there is a spinning class at 1pm, body pump (lifting class) at 2pm, and pilates at 3pm. we plan to do at least one class and maybe all of them. we'll see how ambitious we are!

class wasn't too bad this weekend. it went by pretty fast. the weather was great! 70s and sunny on saturday and 70s and a little cloudy yesterday. today is nice and sunny. going to have to go on a walk or something!

guess i really don't have too much to say today! not much has been happening. last night i watched the penguins vs. rangers game. some of the guys downstairs bought a sports package for their tv so they get all the stanley cup games. going to have to use them to watch some of the other games!

thats about it. this wednesday we have class and then this weekend we head to Dorset (southern england) for a team building weekend. we leave friday morning, which means that i only have a 3 day work week. it's exciting!

becker's going to be here in less than two weeks!