CHILLIN IN SENOIA, GEORGIA...

Veranda B & B in Senoia, Georgia

 On Labor Day Weekend we met up with our old Bible Study Group - 3 other couples we've maintained a great friendship with for 36 years!  We live in 3 different places now.  One of the other couples planned this trip to Senoia, Georgia.  I really had no idea about anything we were doing and it was refreshing to just go and enjoy!  I usually love trip researching but my plate had been really full of women's ministry lately, so I was happy to do whatever!

The Veranda B & B was such a pretty place filled with antiques!  Built in 1906

We ate so much good food!  Kinda crazy with the fried stuff, though!  Over 4 days we had fried deviled eggs, fried chicken, fried okra, sweet potato fries, fried green tomatoes, fried apples (breaded), and fried chicken livers!

Matt's Small-town Pizza wasn't so small!

Nic & Norman's

The town itself was pretty small.  We found out it's claim to fame is that many movies have been filmed there.  Downtown we saw stars in the sidewalk that represent different ones like Driving Miss Daisy,  and Sweet Home Alabama.  Right now the Walking Dead series is being filmed there and they have a Walking Dead tour (we aren't fans so didn't do this).  In the town there are some beautiful new homes and also old broken down barns.  Kind of interesting!

Walking Dead windmill and a cute church!

We visited Calloway Gardens and they had a balloon festival there! Loved the balloon glow.

This was a double dip....seriously!  But it did cost $8, so I guess he should've expected it to be big!

We drove down to Warm Springs where FDR's Little White House is and enjoyed the museum and the house.  He chose this area because the hot natural springs made him feel better with his Polio. 

I hadn't heard about the Unfinished portrait.  This was being done right before he felt ill and died, at the Little White House in Warm Springs.

This was at the International Market in Atlanta.  It was a huge indoor market that sold all kinds of international foods, including shark!  We all got snacks there, and skipped lunch.  We also spent a few hours at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum and Library.  I absolutely loved learning more about the president that was elected while I was in elementary school.  All I remembered about him was that he was a peanut farmer and had a daughter close to my age.  His faith was prominent in the museum and I really enjoyed it.

Back at the B & B, we had a fun picture taking session with everyone!

We had a great time together and ended on a Sunday where we worshipped together.  We were able to sit outside the B & B in this beautiful setting and share the Lord's Supper, a message, our prayer requests, and songs.  What a wonderful blessing to have these friends in our life!

LONDON THE SECOND TIME AROUND...

What to do when you've been to London before and hit all the main tourist attractions???

We tried to go to the Churchill War Rooms, but it was a very long wait.  So we went to the amazing British Museum (again)!  We also rode the London Eye, which I wouldn't recommend unless you have a discount of some kind (we did).

We ate dinner at a wonderful Turkish restaurant near our hotel.  

 Day two, I was on my own and walked around Kensington Gardens, saw many beautiful flowers, got kicked out of Princess Diana Memorial Playground (you could only go in there if you were with children), and had Afternoon Tea at The Orangery.

 I also shopped at nearby Portobello Road and got  some goodies, including a shirt from a thrift store!

The next day was church day -  I spent time at two very different churches!  St. Paul's cathedral was pretty amazing.  What i did not know before I went was it is second only in size to St. Peter's in Rome.  The architect Christopher Wren designed this one and helped rebuild St. Dunstan's.

 Lunch on the street - fried potatoes with all the fixings!

 Monument to the great fire of 1606

 StDunstan's in the East, a former church the city has let turn into a garden.  It had a lot of destruction due to the great fire, then Christopher Wren helped rebuild it.  After the blitz in WWII, it was not repaired but is now a quiet oasis in the city.  

Day 4 I did a lot of walking!  I tried to find a special store but didn't so I shopped a crazy huge cheap store called Primark.  Then I got back on the Tube near my hotel,walked to the Borough Market and had some delicious cheese olive bread and hot chocolate.  There were all kinds of turkish, meditteranean, fish & chips, etc., along with produce.  I also walked through nearby Southwark Cathedral - found out Shakespeare worshipped there and John Harvard was baptized there.   I walked on and saw many neat sights on my way to Tate Modern Art Museum.

A building they call the Walkie Talkie!

 Shakespeare's Globe Theatre - rebuilt by a nice American

Tate Modern Art Museum

Picasso!

 Street art

We went to a business dinner and this is the dress I bought for the occasion!

Last morning we found the hot chocolate place I was wanting to go to - SAID 1923. AMAZING.

After the hot chocolate, we checked out of our hotel and moved to a hotel right beside the airport.  We toured Kew Garden, which had some really interesting architectural things, and had a Chihuly exhibit there!  I loved it.  We also ate at a wonderful little cottage place outside the garden called The Original Maids of Honor, that had been recommended by a woman from the dinner the night before.  

It was a great end to the trip!  Thankful to get to spend some time exploring the world outside the US!

WALES...

We had planned to spend one night in Wales at Holyhead Port.  BUT, the only glitch that happened on our trip was this one.  We got notified from Irish Ferries that our afternoon ferry ship was experiencing technical problems and we were advised to go on the earlier ferry.  Unfortunately, that was at 8:30 a.m. and we would have to get up and leave our hotel in Athlone at 5:30 a.m. because we needed to drive to Dublin and return the rental car, then get an Uber to the ferry port.

It all worked out, but since we were arriving in Holyhead before lunch we just decided to spend a couple of hours there, then catch the train on  in to London.  My main objective was to see this in Wales -

IS THIS NOT THE COOLEST LIGHTHOUSE YOU'VE EVER SEEN?

South Stack lighthouse is actually on a little island - you walk down the steps on the cliffs 417 steps, then cross a little bridge to it.  It's over 200 years old and quite an amazing feat when you think about how difficult it was for them to get the materials down the cliffs and build it on that spot.  

I had to do some very strong suggesting to the Hubs to get him to do this.  He really wanted to be on the 2:00 train to London.  I got in the rental car line and he went outside to see if there were any taxis available.  The taxis weren't plentiful but a couple did come.  We were going to store our luggage in the train station but there was note on the door that said "back in 20 min."  We had a jovial taxi driver named Wayne and I asked him if we could store our luggage in his taxi and could he come back and get us in an hour???  He agreed and we totally trusted him to this agreement.  

We enjoyed the hike, yes, I'd call it a hike 834 steps down and back up.  We also paid and went inside and up into the lighthouse itself.  They did have some historical things inside but we really didn't have much time for that.  There were also puffins nesting on the cliffs and beautiful coastline views.  

At the end of this day we were pooped!  We had driven our rental car back to Dublin, taken 2 taxis, 2 shuttle buses, 1 ferry, and a train to get to London!  Whew!