back on Canadian soil

... in London that is.

We were taking pictures in Trafalgar Square and noticed the Canada House right next door, so we decided to go see if there was anything cool and there sure is... free internet! And a really pretty (and warm and dry) building to hang out in!

Our visit in Espelkamp was a real blessing. We've been travelling five weeks now, and I cannot express to you how good it felt to relax with a family, to sit and read without keeping an eye on your stuff, to go for a bike ride with kids and chat with other adults. Heck, I won't lie, it was nice to talk to someone other than Michelle for more than five minutes! It was exactly the right thing to encourage us and rejuvenate us for the remaining weeks of our trip.

We left there Monday evening, and got to Cologne around 10pm. Our hostel proved easy to find, and we immediately wished we had more time to spend there, because it was just one of those really great hang-out-and-meet-people places. We hung out in the bar until ridiculous hours (I went to bed around 4:30, but Michelle stayed up until daylight, around 6) chatting to other Canadians, and then the next morning we went to the Cathedral, climbed the 509 steps to the top, and took a tour around the inside. It was really cool!

Since it was our last day in Germany, Michelle finally broke down and bought one of the cuckoo clocks she had been eyeing since Munich, and ever since her face will light up now and then and she'll say "I have a cuckoo clock!!!"

The flight from Cologne to London proved adventurous. We of course have been travelling exclusively by train for over a month, so we didn't think about what sorts of things are allowed to be brought in hand-baggage and whatnot. Wanting to keep our time in London as affordable as possible, we bought a bunch of groceries in Germany to bring over. After checking our big bags, we proceeded to security with our daypacks and the bag of groceries that Michelle planned to pass off as her purse. When we got to security, however, we realized that the Nutella and the six-330ml bottles of apple juice were not allowed in our hand bags. Shoot. Oh well. We chugged the apple juice, and threw the Nutella in a garbage bin, only to realize that Michelle had also forgotten to transfer her swiss army knife into her checked luggage. Unwilling to part with that, she decided to check her daypack. Well, might as well keep our Nutella, then. I stood watch as Michelle dumpster dived for our hazelnut and chocolate treat, and we proceeded to pay the 15 Euros to check the extra bag.

Now it was my turn to be an idiot... after all that, I had forgotten that there was a corkscrew buried deep in my purse, which was buried deep in my daypack. The computer found it, and I was forced to part with my beloved "purse corkscrew", a gift from Lindsey that has been very useful on this trip alone.

RIP, purse corkscrew.

After an hour delay, we got on the plane, and followed the orange and purple sunset to jolly old England, where we proceeded straight to our hostel, and went to bed.

Today is our only real day in London, so we splurged for hop-on-hop-off tour bus tickets, and we're going to see as much as possible before dinnertime, when we head to Wembley to see our friend Dave. DAVE. IN LONDON. TODAY.