Friday fun with Lisa

Friday was a long but super fun day! We were up and at 'em at 6am. Just enough time to get ready for the day, stop by Starbucks for coffee/muffins, catch the taxi to the bus station, and get on the 7:50 bus to London!

A sunny beautiful day for England - Lisa and her group were so lucky to be here during this weather as it's absolutely amazing and unique for these parts.

We met up with her Weslyan group at University College of London at 11am where the auto-icon of Jeremy Bentham is located. Unique thing to visit for a bunch of psychologists and myself. Then across the street for a pub lunch at the Bentham pub.

One of the highlights of the day for us both was the next stop - visiting the Freud home museum. Wow, what an insight to the amazing homes in the famous area of London (Hampstead were celebrities Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law live) and mainly into the life of an extraordinary scientist and psychologist of the day - Sigmund Freud. He actually only lived in the house for his last year of life, as he was escaping from Nazi Austria. Our group also was in the presence of a journalist who lived in London and was friend's with Freud's daughter and attended kindergarten with her. He was visiting the home after 40 years and said it looked very similar to as he remembered.

We enjoyed free time after the museum, so Lisa and I left the group for more exploring and shopping! We were close enough to the fun, funky area of Camden for more shopping and checking out the London scene. We ran into some very nice blokes from Australia and chatted with them for a few minutes while enjoying our refreshing drinks while overlooking the Camden Locks in the sun.

We grabbed dinner at an easy Chinese buffet, which was fun and then on to possibly catch the Jack the Ripper ghost walking tour!

The tour didn't start until 10pm though. Lisa was so tired and I had to catch a bus back to Oxford. So we had permission to miss out, and I got Lisa back to the hotel. They were leaving for Paris bright and early the next morning so she has some packing to do. I caught my bus home and was at my Oxford flat by about 1am.

We had so much fun and it was so special and such a joy to have cousin Lisa here! We really enjoyed just the quality cousin and girl time together - I hope she will always remember our great time together!

Thursday with Lisa in Oxford

Cousin Lisa (my mom's sister's youngest daughter, aka my cousin) made it to the UK without incident this past Tuesday. She enjoyed some time exploring London with her tour group, and then made a day trip to Oxford on Thursday. I met up with their group while they were on on the Oxford Walking Tour and could spot Lisa right away with her long hair and cute hat! Here she is just leaving the Bodleain Library and into the courtyard of the famous Oxford Radcliffe Camera.

After briefly meeting her professor and the tour guide, we were granted permission to take off on our own and hang out in Oxford. I could give her the same tour with more fun girlie notes anyway! We enjoyed combing the main streets of Oxford for some cute summer dresses and Oxford souvenirs. There was still time to visit the requisite Christ Church College - seeing the Harry Potter dining hall and beautiful church within the college. We had shopping success in the Covered Market and British high street shops, and of course the Oxford University souvenirs shops as well.

We popped into the local downtown pub, which everyone likes found down a hidden alleyway, the Turf pub. Found a nice table outside and had a bit of brew on tap. Then we walked home (30 min) to Kelly & Brian's flat in North Oxford. Saw Brian's office building and his college (Keble) along the walk. Lisa was getting pretty tired, as she had only been in the country for two days without much downtime so far. So finally was a chance to relax a bit at the flat!

We went for a nice dinner just up the road in our neighborhood (Summertown) at a place called Portobello. Great food, but typical slow British service. So was time to get Lisa home so we could Skype with her parents Bob and Diane (so fun on video!) and so she could call her boyfriend (I'm pretty sure he's official boyfriend status now) Gordon (who is a doll according to the pictures and stories I heard from Lisa!). :)

Lisa was able to spend the night with me in Oxford, which was great for a girls night (Brian was in the US for a conference). I think she enjoyed having a room to herself instead of sharing with 3 others from her tour group. I'm pretty sure she slept well that night!

More fun was had Friday in London and a new blog post on that coming soon!

Cousin Lisa to visit! (if the airports stay open!)

Cousin Lisa Jungbluth has just graduated from University in Nebraska this weekend and is planning a fun  post-graduate European trip! She is joining a class with a few other graduates and professor to study Freud in the UK, France and Italy.  They are to fly out tomorrow (Monday) to London Heathrow (arriving Tuesday am). They will spend a couple of days in London with a side trip to Oxford. Luckily she got permission to spend one night in Oxford with me - so excited! Then we'll head back into London so she can catch her trip to Paris the next day.

Unfortunately, the winds are changing and the airports in Northern UK are currently closed again due to volcanic ash. I have my fingers and toes crossed for her that they will be able to make it!! As of this minute Heathrow is still open . . . 

More on holiday: Koh Yao Noi in Thailand

"Koh" means island in Thai, and Yao Noi was the name of the small island in Phang Nga Bay in the Andaman Sea where we stayed for four nights of tropical bliss. We stayed at a boutique resort called Paradise Koh Yao and it was definitely paradise to us!

To get there, we flew from Bangkok to one of the larger, more known islands called Phuket on the west side of Thailand. Then a car was booked to take us to the marina, where then the resort speed boat picked us up, and another French couple, and took us 45 minutes to the resort on the northern tip of the island.

We picked, well actually Brian did the leg work and found this resort, because we wanted something relaxing and amongst the natural beauty of the Adaman Sea and limestone cliffs/rocks. We wanted to avoid the crowds, parties, drinking etc on the big island (atmosphere more like cancun during college spring break). We just wanted to be old people - up early to enjoy the day, happy hour at 5ish, dinner at 7 ish, more post dinner drinks and to bed early!

The island was my favorite part of our entire trip - it was just spectacular. Our first full day we booked a kayak tour.  The resort puts us in their long tail boat with a boat driver and tour guide and we boat around the limestone cliffs and islands. When the tide was low, we sea kayaked through low caves and into amazing lagoons. The lagoons housed unique birds, fish that have legs!, monkeys (but we didn't see any), bats (yuck) and mangrove trees with very cool root systems. Liam was our guide. He is Thai, 22 and left school at 14 since he could make money working in the tourism industry. He was very nice and could speak English fairly well.

We stopped on a small island with a private beach to eat our packed lunch. As we were the only couple who had booked the trip this day, we basically had a private day and tour - it was incredible!

One of the most famous islands they call the "James Bond" island from the 70s move - JB and the Man with the Golden Gun. It's off another island which you can walk around to take pictures. Usually being a blonde gal in other parts of the world, I get a lot of attention from the local guys. But not at all in Thailand. That is the one area that was so nice for a change. Ironically, it was Brian who drew the attention. American culture is very popular there. Brian being a tall, strong, handsome American guy was really interesting to the Thai guys. So they would come up to him and ask to get their picture with him. They must really like American baseball since they would try to talk to him about baseball - funny he doesn't know much in that area!

The next two days, we enjoyed the kayaking so much that we hired the sea kayak ourselves and explored the area looking for private beaches where we could chill and hike a bit into the jungle (not too far in). We would return to the resort by around 2pm and then relax on the beach for another hour or so before the typical late afternoon rain moved in.





Around 3pm, the resort staff would walk around with fresh fruit to choose from as a snack. Fun tropical stuff such as: dragon fruit, lynchees, yellow watermelon, papaya and something else I didn't even know!

While I expected the food to be pretty decent on the resort and lots of proper Thai food (which we were excited about), we were pleased to experience absolutely amazing food! The chef was a top notch French chef who decided to leave the high class french cuisine restaurants and live on a Thai island and live a bit more relaxed. So the food was incredible. We still ate Thai every night, which his kitchen did very well (still spicy for me!) but they also did western, italian and mediterranean cuisine as well. Plus, and amazing breakfast buffet every morning - my fave!!

Our room was very cool - an outdoor shower (still protected by walls, but one you can push back and watch the trees and sea while you get clean!); a huge bed with the mosquito netting (although the mozzies really weren't that bad); and a really great patio with a lounge swing (which Brian really enjoyed).

We were able to relax, enjoy one another's company and appreciate the absolute beauty around us. It was definitely paradise!