Off to Camp!

I'm recapping my Girl Scout trip to London that I took during the month of August. On August 14, we went to Cambridge and camped for a week with 200 Girl Guides from the surrounding area.

Here's what I wrote after having slept at camp for the first night.

Sunday, August 15, 2010
First night camping in Cambridge

It is 7:00am and we are just starting to wake up. The three of us adults shared a tent and it was not bad. I slept a bit like a mummy but it worked out. We haven't seen the girls yet so I'm not sure how they slept, but they went on a 5 mile walk last night so they probably just crashed.
We had the best time yesterday chatting with the other women at camp. Two of them have promised to bring in a bunch of traditional food. These ladies were quite funny and a joy to be with.

Today we are getting a tour of Cambridge and then some time to shop or eat there. We are looking forward to that.

Time for me to get out of my sleeping bag, if I can.

Happy birthday Dad! I hope you have a great day! Love you!

Cheers!
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Below was our home for the next week - we are the tent on the far right. And by we, I mean that it's the tent that Melissa, Teresa and I shared. The adults got the nicer tents.




Here's a bit of the camp and that little person in the background is Melissa making a phone call.




Here's the tents that our girls slept in. They are helping putting up the last tent - or at least trying to help.

Here's Teresa in the front parlor of our tent. Don't you like what we did with the place? It's called camping chic. We achieved the look by spreading our suitcases all over. You can try this at home.

This was out kitchen for the next week. One of the most wonderful ladies had made some cake to share with everyone and some of the girls are in line to get some.

Melissa is patiently waiting her turn - notice the cup in hand.

After breakfast, we were taken on a walking tour of Cambridge. We started the tour on Castle Mound, where from that vantage point you can look out around Cambridge.

The days of traveling had caught up to our girls. They were exhausted. Can you tell?

Here we are walking through Cambridge.

We saw some of the colleges that make up Cambridge University. There are actually 31 colleges (I know that because our tour guide said so, and I bought a sweatshirt showing all of the colleges.)

The second floor window on the right is where Issac Newton once studied. How cool is that?

The river is quite pretty. The have boats that they call punts and people go punting down the river. If we had more time I'm sure we would have done this too.

The buildings were so pretty, and so intricately carved.

The women at camp had told us we needed to try a Cornwall Pasty while we were in Cambridge. Here's mine below. They said that in the old days the miners would get them and their dirty hands would hold onto the braided part and they could eat the filled part.

It was filled with meat and potatoes and it was quite good.

Here's a view of the white cows of Cambridge and some of the college behind.

When we got back, the camp was having the opening ceremonies. It was a Mad Hatter's Tea Party theme.

The Mayor of Cambridge came to cut the ribbon to officially start the week of camp.

Our three girls in their Alice in Wonderland shirts.

Nadine, who picked us up at the train station, had made these most adorable cakes for the opening ceremony.

Aren't these cute! They were so good too!

We even got to take our picture with the Mayor of Cambridge - she's the woman in the middle.

Later that afternoon, the ladies from the camp had planned a creamed tea for us Americans. It was wonderful!

Here's Caroline putting together the scones, with clotted cream and jelly.

Here's the finished product. It's probably not good for you, but oh does it taste good!

Here's Claire enjoying her scone.

And here's Caroline enjoying hers.

It was so nice of these two to make the creamed tea for us. It was quite a special thing. We had a proper table and tea with it. They were so nice to us the entire week. Such fun we had with them!

Here's what I posted the next morning, about the first day.

We have made it successfully through our second night at camp. The wind is relentless here so it was quite cold last night and this morning.

Yesterday we did a walking tour of Cambridge. We think we walked around 4 miles. After the tour we had an hour to shop and Bailey and I both got Cambridge sweat shirts which I was very thankful for yesterday afternoon. We also had a lunch of Corinish Pasty which was what was recommended to us. It was very good. Of course I took pictures which I will post later.

Yesterday afternoon they had the opening ceremony for the camp and the mayor of Cambridge was here. We got to meet her and get pictures with her.

I'm not real sure what the plan is for today, but I know we stay on site here at the camp.

Cheers!
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Still Recapping my trip to London

Another quick recap - I took a trip with Girl Scouts to London last month and I'm still reviewing all of the pictures.

Here's what I posted early in the morning on Friday, August 13.

It's Friday morning in London. We are on our way to the Tower of London. We decided to take the buses instead of the tubes because we can see more of the city on the way there. We have taken 2 buses so far and now we are on the upper deck of the second bus.
A very sweet lady took pity on us and let us follow her most of the way.

It is our last day here and we have another full day ahead, trying to pack it all in.

Oh, the girls really enjoyed meet other girl scouts from St. Vincent last night. They are also staying at Pax Lodge. We hope to get home early enough tonight to meet with them again.

Special message to D&P, happy house closing day!

Ok, I'm off for now.
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We knew that the day would probably mean rain, so we all wore our rain boots, or Wellies as the English people call them. Mary Helen didn't have a pair, so she's in the black sneakers.


They weren't the most comfortable shoes to do a lot of walking in, but it did rain a ton that day, so they were great at keeping my feet nice and dry.

Bailey and I left our Wellies with two wonderful ladies at the end of camp in Cambridge. Claire and Caroline, I hope you are enjoying them!

Here's a look at the London Tower (on the left). The grass you see there is the old moat. It has since been filled in with grass. The London Tower is not just one tower - it is essentially the old village where kings and queens lived, and where they were beheaded.


We had a great tour guide, the woman on the right.


Elizabeth (seen above on the far right) had written a paper about Rudolf Hess (Hitler's Secretary) last year in school. The tour guide mentioned that Hess had been imprisoned at the London Tower for a couple of days and there was a letter with his signature on it there. When Elizabeth told the tour guide about her paper, she took the seven of us to the off-limits place where the paper was.

The storey goes that Hess was put into prison, but he did not know where he was being held. A guard asked him for his signature and it was a piece of paper that said Tower of London. Hess said, "oh, so that's where I am." and signed the paper.

You can see the letter and the story in the frame below.

It was a very special treat to get to see that, and all of the other memorabilia that they had in this room.

Here's a picture of some of the Tower of London.



At several places at the entrance to the city of London, you will see a dragon. The bus tour guide said that they are to protect the city. We found one where we could get the girls picture with it.

After this, we decided to do some shopping. We went to Covent Gardens.

Here's what I originally posted that afternoon.

Well, my friend was just pick picketed here at Covent Gardens. Good news is that Melissa felt what was happening and made a fuss. The store is currently holding the lady and we are waiting on the police.

If the police ever get here we think all will be well. This will be a story we will always tell about this trip.

I will tell more about it later.
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Too bad we hadn't seen this sign outside the store where we shopping. We might have gone somewhere else.

What happened was a woman was following around Melissa the whole time we were in this store. When Melissa was at the check-out counter, she felt something and turned around to see her money on the floor. All of it was there except for 50 pounds. She realized that the woman behind her had opened her purse and pulled it out, she had just dropped it on the floor.

Melissa started saying, "you stole my money!" The woman denied everything and ran down to the basement. The store manager, after talking to the woman for a while, got her to admit that she had stole the money and she gave it back to the manager.

In the meantime, we waited for the police to arrive - and we waited for 2 hours.

Here's Bailey, Melissa and Tiffany waiting patiently for the police.

Finally they came and they arrested the woman. She's in this van.

Then we had to go to the police station and give our statements. Of course, we had to walk a ways to get there.

The whole adventure took at least 4-5 hours, and it was not how we wanted to spend Friday night in London. We had planned to get home early and do some laundry to get ready to leave for camp the next day. Oh well.

Here's all of us going down into the tube station, very late at night.

On the good side, Melissa received a letter from the London police department today apologizing for her ordeal.

We though that was pretty cool.

Cheers!

More Recap - London Travels

Hello. Again a quick recap - this was a Girl Scout trip to England and we spent the first couple of days touring around London on our own.

Here's what I posted from that day, Thursday, August 12:

Well it is the end of Thursday here. It's 11:15pm and I'm just getting a minute to post.
Today we toured the Queen's Gallery, Victoria and Albert, Art and Love. It was all of the art that they had commissioned and collected. After that we toured the Royal Mews which is the horses and carriages that the royals have and use. We saw the carriage that Princess Diana rode in before her wedding. Then we toured Buckingham Palace.

After tea and scones at Buckingham Palace we went to Harrod's for a very quick shopping trip. We finished the day with a late dinner at the original Hardrock Cafe.

There is just so much to see here that there's no way we can get it all in. We planned to see the Tower of London for 2 days now, but we keep running out of time. We plan to do that first thing tomorrow.

Time for bed. I hope everyone is well!
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Here's Teresa, Mary Helen, Tiffany, Bailey and Elizabeth at the entrance to the Queen's Gallery.




After the tour, we had a nice lunch. I had chicken with black beans.

And we finished lunch up with fried ice cream - it was very good.

Then it was on to the Royal Mews tour. We saw all of the carriages that the Queen uses.

This was the carriage that Diana rode in to marry Prince Charles.

Then the girls got a hold of the camera.

They were having fun.


You can see me and Melissa walking away in the background. We had given up on getting the camera back.

They found out that they could amuse themselves with their own reflection.

After the Royal Mews tour, we toured Buckingham Palace. Sorry - no pictures allowed in there.

But after the tour, we had a creamed tea, which is scones with clotted cream and jelly and tea. Yummy!

This is looking back at Buckingham Palace. We had the tea under the tents you see on the left. Those are geese in the garden as well.

We were allowed to walk around the garden of Buckingham Palace, which was quite pretty. Keep in mind this is in the middle of London, yet it was so quiet and peaceful.

After Buckingham Palace, it was time for some shopping! Harrods here we come!

We were pressed for time, so we only had about 45 minutes here. We went up and down the escalators, and I had just enough time to buy (what else) 2 cupcakes. They made the perfect bedtime snack for everyone.

Last stop on this day was the original Hard Rock Cafe in London. We had a great dinner.

I took this picture in the Underground. It just cracked me up because instead of "exit" signs, we would see "way out" signs.

That's all for now. More later.

Cheers!