I talked to Jamie last night and he was putting ice cubes in the cat's water bowl because it is so hot. Meanwhile, back in bad weather land, I was woken up at 6am by a loud boom that sounded like a bomb going off. About 2 minutes later there was a flash of lightning and another boom. Then came the rain again... It is going to rain the rest of the week and it is back down to the mid 50's. But (and I know you aren't supposed to start a sentence with but..) BUT!! I would actually rather be here in the mid 50's and rain than back home in 100 and putting ice cubes in Nicki's bowl!

Well on with my story... I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday and got ready. It was cold out but beautiful. It really is an amazing feeling to arrive in a new city at night so you don't see anything and then wake up to it in the morning. I had about a 20 minute walk to the meeting place for my tour and fortunately my map got me there in time. The tour was fantastic and took us to both the castles and the town that I took pics of. The tour guide was very nice and as we drove up these windy mountain roads in the rain, I was especially glad I had taken a tour instead of driven myself. I had made friends with 2 men named Jay and Brent on the tour and the three of us went to dinner right after. Jay had to be up by 4am to catch a plane so he left right after dinner and Brent and I went around the corner to the Beer house that is also in my pics. That was great fun to walk into. There are about 100 long tables and people singing, eating and drinking at all of them. Everyone smiling and happy, it was great! We were there for a couple of hours talking with some english guys at our table and then I finally went back to my hotel around 12.

I slept in on Sunday as I was still tired from coming home from LA the week before!!!! I got up around 9:30 and spent the rest of the day walking around the city. I took the tube up to the Olympic area and wandered around the BMW museum (how could I miss that?) Then tubed back down to the English Garden on the way back to my hotel. One of the best things was those surfers on the perpetual wave. That was fantastic! It sure looked like fun!

By the time I got back to Croydon, it was about 7pm and gorgeous outside. I walked from the train station to my flat in this wonderful sunshine and didn't even put my jacket on. I got to my flat and opened all the windows and enjoyed it. On Monday we all went to the park at lunch time. Here is a pic of Stephan that day (just in case you don't believe me that there was sunshine here!)