Lots of things to do today, include complete the unpacking and sort the accumulated bits and pieces. There were souvenirs, tickets, receipts, postcards, catalogs, a beautiful book of the Oberammergau PassionSpiele, and toiletries and other necessities. Umbrellas are essential when you are travelling, but they break - left three brokens overseas and came home with new ones from London.
We will have to decide what to do with all the bags - they are all the same size and don't fit inside each other.
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A note from Liz:What a fantastic stupendous amazing and unforgettable ride the last month has been. Thanks to everyone back home who has indulged our narcissism and followed along the journey with us. There will be much more reflection, unblogged, in the coming weeks I am sure, but on balance I think about some of the things I will treasure from this holiday and some of the things that I definitely wont miss.
On the treasured side... my wonderful husband who planned and drove me to distraction before we left... It was worth all the hours of this and that and will we do this first or that and what do you think about.... the maps, the guides all the things made our trip very comfortable. Love you Lots xxx
I will also treasure every experience. Already some have asked me to quantify what was the "best" thing... there was no best thing. Every day we started the day open to the new experiences it would hold, and while the big ticket items like the Passion Play, the Tattoo and Disneylands and the West End Show were just amazing and awesome and lived totally up to expectation there was also 100 little things that made every day such a rich experience. i am also grateful for the fantastic people we met, many of them strangers who brightened our day with a chat or helpful advice, and others like the friends from the tour of Britain like Pam and Tony, whose company we enjoyed immensely.
On the not so treasured side. I will not be sorry to leave the stairs behind. They really challenged my bodgy arthritic knee to the max. I estimate that, during our week in Paris alone I walked a minimum of 10,000 stairs and I reckon that is a conservative estimate. Add to that all the other stairs everywhere else and you get the picture. I will also not miss kamakazie bus drivers who fang it down narrow lane ways, often scratching their head with one hand and talking on the mobile phone with the other. Nor will I miss rude Italian student tourist groups who tended to descend en masse everywhere we were in London...I will certainly not miss paying to pee! The most expensive toilet visits were the regular 50p everywhere in London and 70 eurocents in Paris and while some of the facilities were great others left much to be desired and it was so inconvenient finding the change all the time. And one final thing I will not miss is the trauma of counting the undies and hoping that you make it to a laundromat before the clean clothes run out... there is something very comforting about ones own washing machine and dryer.. even though I now face a mounting pile of folding and ironing.
Overall.. one fantastic life enriching experience, the memories of which I will treasure forever.
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A note from Chris:Thanks to our family and all our followers, it has been a pleasure sharing our holiday with you.
A special thanks to my darling wife Liz, who put up with months of planning and then was there to share our special moments. You have taught me new computer skills, through using this blogger.
As my dedication said on the plane, I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.
And Sarah, I love you lots. Thank you for being our anchor at home.
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And so friends, this is the end of our blog. Every moment has been a treasured one, even all those ruddy stairs.
For those of you with the stamina, we will be adding photos to those days that are light on - come back and see us some time!
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