20070831 August Update

At long last, we have found a gap to update the website!!! The last update was after our trip to New York at Easter, so we now have four months worth of catching up to do. Where shall we begin…..

For my (Lawrence) birthday in April we went up to Stratford upon Avon for a celebratory weekend, and we got to see my Grand Parents who live 30 minutes away from Stratford. There was just one problem with Stratford, unbeknown to us it was bloody Shakespeare’s birthday too, so every Shakespeare nutter was in town… just imagine. Never the less we had a great time and managed to chill out. http://picasaweb.google.com/the.bowenz/StratfordUponAvon20070426. We got back to London on the Sunday, and had Megan and Rob stay with us for a couple days before embarking on their 6 week backpacking European tour. I take my hat off to them, I would not be able to do such an epic. http://picasaweb.google.com/the.bowenz/RobMeganVisit20070430.

In May I went to a week long Dove Conference in Barcelona, really cool experience but a bit too much work as I did not manage to see much of the city. Barcelona is such a chilled out place, you get the feeling that everyone is on holiday. Lots of nudist beaches, which I discovered by accident, really. The best part of this trip was the acquisition of my new camera, a Nikon D40x SLR, so watch out world, Lawrence is going to be taking more pictures (got a 4 gig memory card). http://picasaweb.google.com/the.bowenz/BarcelonaDoveConf20070517.

In June, Gwyn took up another hobby, Cake Decorating, learning how to ice and decorate cakes. Hopefully this becomes an earning hobby eventually. She is really enjoying it, learning a skill that is completely unrelated to work and she is buying so many gadgets that I am starting to feel jealous! She has finished the beginners course and has applied to attend the next one starting in September.

We also took the plunge and bought a car in June. After a lot of umming and ahhing, we eventually decided on a small Vauxhall (Opel) Corsa. Just a little run around to be used on the weekends. You cannot imagine the joy of being able to go to Tesco and buy more than you can carry at once! We have also discovered all sorts of places that are round the corner from us, but are not on a bus route, therefore we do not know about them! Of course, Lawrence had to buy the Sat Nav (called Tom Tom) to help us get around, boys and their toys. It definitely makes life easier as we usually have no idea where we are going.

Trevor and Margo also came over for a visit in June and spent some quality time in Birmingham with Trevor’s parents and a week with us in London. The highlight of their trip being a day at Wimbledon on the 1st court. We managed to catch the only day without rain, although it was absolutely freezing - but what an experience regardless!

It was also the first year that the Tour De France started in London, and we went along on the day to watch the time trials. Absolutely fantastic. The riders went past all the major sites (mainly all the monuments celebrating the defeat of France by Britain), and we picked two good spots, one in Green Park and one in Hyde Park. There were huge screens up broadcasting the live race, and there were so many people just sitting on the grass, soaking up the atmosphere. Now we have seen the first and last days of the Tour De France…closure

July saw Tessa’s (Gwyn’s mom) birthday and we met up with Mom and Bronwyn in Brecon, Wales for the weekend. We found a cute little B&B in amongst the Brecon Beacons. This was the first major test for the Tom Tom ands we came up against unexpected roadworks. The poor thing had to constantly recalculate. It is a wonder that it did not swear at us.

Already at August, and the big milestone for Gwyn at work was a 2 week trip to Asia to deliver SAP training to the BSI HR teams in Hong Kong, China, Japan and India. She spent 1 week in Asia delivering formal training to 8 delegates and then the next week was spent travelling with a day in Beijing, Tokyo and New Delhi. It was an exhausting trip, but beneficial and interesting. Not a bad thing to be taken out of your comfort zone and eat jelly fish and chicken feet.

We did get very bad news in August as well. Opa Klaas, Lawrence’s granddad passed away on the 13th August. Lawrence flew to SA that day to be with his family, but I was in Beijing and could not fly out. The funeral took place on the Friday 17th August and was by all accounts very touching and memorable. Opa will be missed by all who knew him.

After a very emotional and exhausting August, we finished off with a long weekend to Switzerland. We spent 2 nights in Interlaken where we went up the Jungfrau (highest point in Europe) where Lawrence got 3rd degree sunburn while wearing his Oakley’s (just imaging the mask of Zorro only funnier) and then moved onto to Luzern for 2 nights. What a beautiful and underrated country. Absolutely stunning in summer, it would be phenomenal in winter we think. Now we are completely motivated to go skiing.

Sjoe, enough waffling on, we will have to keep you all updated more often. Next on the cards is another conference for Lawrence, this time in Majorca, lucky boy. No travel plans are set in stone, apart from the trip back home in December, but we will keep you all in the loop!

20070411 Easter 2007

I am sitting here, marvelling at the fact that I am still awake and actually writing this update, jet lag and all. Lawrence and I arrived back from New York this morning after our Easter Getaway and what a trip.

Let’s start at the beginning. We left on Thursday morning at 08h30 UK time and landed in New York just after 11am, US time. This was great as we technically still had a half day available for sightseeing. After going through scary immigration, we decided to brave the subway from JFK into Manhattan. Lawrence, the boy scout, had already investigated how to get around, so an 1 hour and three line changes, we emerged into the daylight on 34th Street Manhattan which was the closest subway to our hotel. We were very impressed that we could navigate around, but I suppose once you have London‘s underground system down, you can navigate almost anywhere. Like I said to Lawrence, we managed in Paris where we following signs in French, so how hard could New York be?

Our hotel was chosen on a recommendation from one of Lawrences’ colleagues and it was the perfect location. One block from 5th Avenue and Macy’s with the Empire State Building the view out of the window. Once we settled in, we immediately took off to orientate ourselves. We strolled to the Empire State Building, through Macys (shoppers delight), down to Times Square and on to Grand Central Station with a view of the Chrysler Building, and this was only day 1! All these sites are so breathtaking, you feel as though you have stepped onto a movie set, complete with steaming roads.

Day two, we woke up to the coldest day imaginable. We felt like we were in mid winter with snow flurries occasionally during the day, but nevertheless, we made our way onto the hop-on-hop-off tour which took us through a number of sites. Our first stop was the Statue of Liberty. We stood in a queue for 2 hours before boarding the ferry to Liberty Island. The lady herself is awesome, huge. You can walk around the island having a look at her and the view of Manhattan Island. But, it was freezing and we soon found our way back to the mainland. In our quest for hot coffee we made our way to ground zero. This is just a large construction site now, and they are planning to build 9 buildings to replace the 7 that were destroyed on 9/11. There is a timeline of what happened on that day as well with photos and descriptions, but a very solemn place. Then, back to the bus tour where we passed the UN, Rockerfeller Centre, Central Park and all the main sites before rushing back to our hotel to get ready for the Basketball game at Madison Square Garden.

This game was awesome, how strange to be watching a sporting event that you see on TV and in movies. The game itself was 48 minutes long with an additional 1 1/1 hours of dancing girls, advertising and time outs. There were 4 timeouts in the last minute alone!

Day two saw us back on the bus taking a tour Uptown. This included the Bronks (I saw the playground where some scenes from West Side Story was filmed), Central Park (including where some of the stars live and where John Lennon was killed). We jumped off at Central Park and took a stroll back to 5th Ave through the park. We were put to shame with the number of joggers. There is one lake that is used extensively by joggers, and the rule is to jog anti clockwise around the lake…very organised. As we walked back to our hotel, we took a turn in Tiffany’s, 6 storeys high ladies. Lawrence was getting very edgy with my interest in the jewellery, so we only got through the ground floor.

Day three was a bit warmer, we thought, so we took the plunge and went to queue for the Empire State Building. The queue was about an hour long, not as bad as Lady Liberty and the view on the 86th Floor was quite something to behold. But, it was bloody freezing! Lawrence is convinced that his ears froze. We were forced to have a quiet day as it was Easter Sunday and lots of shops were closed (Sunday was earmarked my shopping day, so this put a spanner in the works). We did end the day off with a romantic evening horse and carriage ride through Central Park, so all was not lost.

Before we knew it, our trip was at an end, and the dreaded night flight was looming. I was once again ‘randomly’ selected for an additional search at the airport. That little green book is really a pain to go travelling with. But regardless, it was an amazing trip and an experience to treasure. Now for the unfortunate reality of returning to work and crazy deadlines, but I suppose we have to work to earn money to plan the next trip!

We hope that you all had a wonderful Easter and a relaxing long weekend. Enjoy the photos, and we will be in touch soon!

All out love

L&G

20070211 Q1 07

Hi Everyone,

Greetings from a lovely and fresh day here in London, sun is shining, birds are singing, skies are clear, ground is frozen and the two of us are all wrapped up warm. We are doing well as usual, work is keeping us so busy we don’t really know where to turn, but so far have two cool trips to look forward to. Will be going to New York in April where we have booked tickets to see a basket ball game at Madison Square Garden (New York Knicks vs. Minnesota Timberwolves) and then a Christmas trip to SA where we will be going down to Durban for a week on the beach.

Since our last update some 3 months back, apologies for that, quite a bit has happened. We spent Christmas up in Manchester and Birmingham with Gwyn’s Mom and Family and then with my Grandparents, Uncle, Aunt and their kids which was great. We the saw the new year out on Waterloo Bridge above the Thames watching the fire works over the London Eye, an experience not to be forgotten. Then we sprung a surprise visit to South Africa for a week which shocked a lot of people but was super to be home and catch up, I just wished we had a bit more time, one week is not enough. We went home specifically for Theresa’s 30th birthday party (or that was the excuse anyway). We all had a brilliant time, the best part was surprising everyone, you have never seen so many tears in one day.

Over December and January we received the excellent news that Shawn and Nadia got engaged (finally), Charlene and Wayne brought little Chloe into the world and Terence and Melissa were blessed with another little girl, Hayley. CONGRATULATIONS!!!, we are so pleased for all of you, not mention grateful that you are the ones with the sleepless nights and wedding plan stress and not us!

Winter in the UK has been mild, or at least was until we got back from South Africa. It has snowed twice in London, and we are not talking a token snow, we are talking traffic stopping and tube chaos snow. We were exemplary tourists taking photos of everything. It was gorgeous though, but a pity that it snowed during the week and we have still not had a chance to build our snowman.

Hope you are all keeping well, enjoy the pics http://photos.yahoo.com/the_bowens; and chat to you all soon.

Lol & Gwyn