So we saw royalty today in London. Really, we did. Josh, Jamie and I were strolling through Kensington Park this afternoon when a helicopter hovered over our heads and landed a little ways away in a field (near Princess Diana’s old residence). We wandered over there and saw the Royal seal on the helicopter … and a bunch of London policemen sealing off the area. The pilot came out of the chopper and stood there for a while, apparently waiting to pick someone up.

Jamie, Josh and I proceeded to discuss what we would do if it were the queen. Do you bow? Call her ‘Your highness?’ I dunno. Well, it turned out to be Princess Anne. I’ve never heard of Princess Anne, but she’s a princess and flies around Londontowne in a helicopter, so that’s good enough for me. I took some photos, so I’ll get them on Flickr soon enough.

Anyway, the weather in London has been great. 70s and sunny. We took advantage of the great weather by watching THREE football (soccer) matches in pubs on Sunday. (I love my wife.) We watched Chelsea-Liverpool, Manchester United-Arsenel and then Barcelona-Racing at night. Brilliant day of footie, but LOTS of second hand smoke. Rich, if you’re reading this, Carling Extra Cold is the best beer I’ve had so far on this trip. And Jen (Zollers), we’ve hit Wagamama TWICE so far.

London, kind of like Paris, has been pretty low key. Just hanging around, eating good food, etc. We’re off to Brussels tomorrow. Don’t know much about the city so maybe I’ll read the guidebook a bit tonight. We’ll post more later. Cheers, mate.

We’re about to enter the channel tunnel on a Eurostar train — on our way from Paris to London. The tunnel stretches across the English channel and should take about 20 minutes to cross. Pretty amazing.

Paris was great. (It’s Jamie’s favorite city thus far.) I had been there once before but was excited about being there with Jamie. The city has a great feeling with all the cafes, narrow streets, French people, etc. We were a bit shell shocked by the prices ($7 US for a cup of coffee) but it was a memorable experience nonetheless. We didn’t exactly embrace the French menu, but instead took advantage of some ethnic stuff we haven’t seen at home.

On Thursday, we got Labanese take out and a bottle of wine and went down to the Sienne for a picnic with Josh and Evy (a friend Josh met in Rome). Evy’s a Norwegian studying and living in Paris, so it was fun to hang with a local. We sat on the side of the river and watched the river cruise boats pass by before heading off to a cafe for $14 drinks.

We ended up eating on the banks of the Sienne again last night, but with Turkish takeout and some Kronenborg. Jamie and I stumbled upon a harvest festival on the river, where we were able to sample some wines and desserts.

In all, it was a pretty relaxing four days. We avoided a lot of the touristy stuff (we only saw the Eiffel Tower from a distance) and basically just hung out a lot. We’re pretty sick of eating out, so it was nice to just get some takeout and eat it outside somewhere.

We had hoped to meet up with Doug (my brother in law) this weekend in Paris, but we ended up arriving there a lot earlier in the week. Oh well. Maybe we’ll meet him at Au Bon Pain in the mall when we get home.

Well, we just emerged from the tunnel on the English side. It’ll be nice to speak our own language (sort of) for a little while. Looking forward to dark beers, football and bad exchange rates.

More later …