European Vacation Part One

Unsurprisingly, my favorite part of my European vacation was not the food (for once)...mainly because British food lived up to its reputation of being godawful. Seriously, I don't mean to offend anyone, but the food was just not that good. To be honest, however, I didn't really have a choice of where we ate, so there is a distinct possibilities that we just ended up at not great restaurants.

We did have a couple of good meals--a roast baby chicken at a pub in Windsor, a delicious fillet of sole with tomato buerre blanc sauce at one of the business dinners -- but the highlight was definitely on the sights. I should warn, I am a BIG fan of historical sights. And history. I'm basically a huge dweeb (surprise to all, I'm sure). 

As you may have seen from my Sunday Meal Planning post, I actually ended up getting a chemical burn in my eye because I'm dumb and got the wrong contact solution. Luckily (kind of...) it happened at the end of my trip in London, so I had my lovely Belgian friends to help me with everything. Sadly, since I was blind out of one eye for a full day, we did not get to visit the cities we had planned, but we still had a lovely time (and a delicious dinner).

Here are some of my favorite pictures that came out of my 9 day extravaganza...

one of the gates at Buckinham Palace

token London shot--Big Ben + red bus. I mean COME ON.

the changing of the Horse Guard at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace

outside of Windsor Castle

interior of the Castle

More Windsor Castle (take a guess what my favorite place was...)

Tower Bridge

Tower of London -- the White Tower

The Eye

Big Ben & Parliament

Our Belgian friends purchased and remodeled (staying true to the original and even using the original wood!) a working water mill from the 1300s! SO COOL