We've landed in OKC again!

Well.. 2.5 weeks from "the accident" as everyone keeps saying. I'm feeling mucho better! Just today I realized I can now walk up and down stairs by alternating legs, rather than using only my good leg to get up. Later this week I start physical therapy, bi-weekly for a month.

We're now totally moved into the small apartment and I'll be starting my new (awesome) job one of these days soon.

I just found out that my first traveling assignment is to Washington D.C.! Joy! I've always wanted to go there :) When I'm there I get a way cool super-duper-all-access-government-badge, a govnt computer and a govnt cell phone. Oy!

This weekend my mom is driving down to OK to bring me my car, since I haven't been released to drive yet.

'Till then, I'm just chilling at home, rainy days abound.

A mile in my shoes

Last weekend I had a water skiing accident. Can you believe I broke and dislocated my hip? I wasn't even trying to do any cool tricks and I had a horrible wipe-out on the lake. Spent about 36 hours in the hospital. I'm home now on 2 weeks bedrest.

My life for now:
Friend R sent these really pretty (and happy!) flowers to the hospital:
Other friends/family have come to visit me, brought me food/magazines/books. I'm a lucky girl, actually.

DH also took the 2 weeks off to basically wait on me hand and foot ;-)

Plus.. in the midst of all this excitement.. I got a new job! I'm heading back to Oklahoma for a full time research job. I'll be with DH again soon!

Finally... London Pictures!

Well... a month later and we finally had time to upload all 300 zillion of our Europe pics and sort through them. Here's some of my favs :)

Buckingham Palace

Can't go to London without checking out the tele in the famous red booth
We created our own pub crawl...
British Museum
the Rosetta Stone
Worked up an appetite perusing the museum and grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor. The pigeons joined us.
Then we headed over to King's Cross Station (made famous by Harry Potter) and attempted to enter the wizard world through Platform 9 3/4.

One of the best ways to get a great view of the city was from the London Eye. Basically, a huge ferris wheel. We timed the ride for sunset. Perfection.
London Bridge
One of my favorite things we did, visited the longest running play in the West End. Agatha Christie's Mousetrap


Day trip to Windsor Castle, so so pretty

Stonehenge
Roman Baths


touching the "healing waters"We also drank some of the water (very warm and salty)

London

We made it to London! It's been a pretty interesting past couple of days, too!

Sunday night we went over to the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs Elysses. We just planned on going over and taking pictures but we found out you can climb stairs inside the pillar legs and visit the very top. The French sure do love their stairs. Stairs up the Eiffel. Stairs all over the Metro. Stairs in the churches. And stairs to the top of the Arc.
The stairs are SO worth the view, though. If you're looking for a view that includes the Eiffel, this is the place to get it!
Then, we wandered down the Champs Elysses. Lots of cool stores and places to eat, but they were all packed, so we decided to be really cultural and check out the McDonalds right there on the strip. Haha, it actually really hit the spot!
We headed home to get a good nights sleep before "Chunnel Day". We decided to get up early to check out and head straight to watch church services at Notre Dame.


Our train tickets weren't until 4:30pm so after the noon mass we walked the bridge across the Seine to Ile St. Louis (very, very cute) to grab an ice cream cone and take more "far away" pics of Notre Dame.

Then, we ran back to the hotel to grab our luggage to catch our first train to Lille, France.
It was an hour train ride to Lille. The high speed trains are very comfy - Joe and I decided we need these in the States!
We hoped we'd be able to check out Lille during our 3 hour layover until our train to England. We decided to try to rent a locker at the Lille train station so we asked a guy (Anthony) at the train info booth where one could be rented. He said the station didn't have lockers. So Joe and I decided to get into the line to check in for our train and wait with our luggage in the station. We were in line when Anthony ran up to us and said "my colleague said you can transfer your tickets to the train that's just about to leave for London." We were super excited! We rushed through the line to French Customs. The Customs folks said our tickets couldn't be used for the earlier train. We drug our luggage back through the line and tracked Anthony down. He walked with us to the Customs official and they let us though (whew!) Then, we got stopped by an angry Eurostar employee who said we "may or may not" have seats on the train. We were not to be thwarted so we ran down the entire length of the train along the platform. I ran on the train and began surveying the seats to find two possible vacancies. Meanwhile, Joe was standing at the train door, still on the platform with all of our luggage. No seats available. The train was seconds from leaving so Joe quickly swooped all the luggage onto the train car, jumped into the train car and the doors slammed shut and we were off! Still no seats. So, we shoved our luggage along the back wall of the car and put ourselves on fold down seats in the luggage room. We rode through the English Channel as stow-aways, laughing the entire time and terrified we'd be caught and kicked off!

At last, we made it to London yesterday about 7:30pm local time and grabbed a taxi to our hotel, The Darlington. We booked an awesome suite...
the hallway connecting the rooms...

We put our luggage in the room and went out immediately for fish and chips. Yum!!

This morning we went to check out the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. So, so cool. I don't understand why our guidebook printed that it wasn't worth the visit.

Afterwards we toured Westminster Abbey. Very cool too but no pictures allowed.
And of course, we stood for a photo op with Big Ben.

No Bones About It

Last night we wandered through the Canal St. Martin, which is just two blocks from our hotel. This is a major hang out for the locals. They just sit along the edge of the canal and eat and drink and chat up their friends.
We've had some Chunnel ticket drama, so we woke up early this morning (7am!!!) to head straight to the ticket office and get our travel figured out to move on to England tomorrow. The tickets through the English Channel were going to be almost $800, which we were NOT expecting. So.. we booked tickets to a small town in North France that we'll spend a few hours at and catch a train from there, which is much cheaper than leaving straight away from Paris.

Then, we headed to the Left Bank to see St. Sulpice. Joe and I have both read The Da Vinci Code so we were excited to see this church in real life.
The Rose Line, pointing from South to North...
After visiting the church, we headed to an outdoor restaurant for a true French lunch. We both had crepes filled with meat and cheese...mmm....

Then, we decided to tour Catacombs.