England!

We spent a fantastic 5 days in England over Easter! We planned the trip to visit our friends, Stephen and Julia Cheung, but it also worked out that my sister was also there at the same time so we got to see her and her husband as well! It really was a wonderful trip starting with our flight on Virgin Atlantic! We enjoy flying new airlines and had heard good things about them and were not disappointed! Stephen and Julia then picked us up and we stayed with them in Reading. It was rather cold the whole time we were there - 30s-40's most days but we bundled up and were quite comfortable! As the purpose of our visit was to see friends we did not hit all the sites but we did visit some gardens, drank coffee at Starbucks across from Windsor Castle (we decided that was adequate as going inside would have cost $30 a person) ate at Wagamamma's twice and did some window shopping! We had planned to take karis to the zoo but the day we were in London it was REALLY cold and rainy off and on so we decided to go to the museum of natural history instead. Just one small problem: the place was absalutely packed! Easter is a big holiday in England with everyone off school and work and everyone had the same thought process as us - the museums are inside and free!

Things are really expensive in England. Most things "cost" the same amount (or more) in pounds as they would in dollars the only problem is that the exchange rate is $2 to 1 pound! So an 8.99 menu item is really $17! Needless to say, we did not do a lot of shopping and there was a conspicuous lack of tourists from the U.S.!