Back together with Glen and Steve

Cousin Beryl cooked up a nice English breakfast for us... bacon and sausage and eggs and beans and toast. Nice to set off on a full stomach, and we wouldn't need much lunch. 

Our bus to Leeds left at 10:15am, but that gave us a few minutes where she could drive us around town for a bit of a sightseeing tour before dropping us off at the bus station.

A quick trip to Hull

We took the train from Leeds to Hull yesterday. About an hour ride, and the cost was about £7 ($10.60 CAD, $8 USD) each. Given the choice, we do enjoy the train more than the bus, but the bus is often cheaper. 

We were in Hull to meet up with my mother's cousin Beryl and some of her family. I don't have many relatives on my mother's side of the family since she was an only child, so it's good to keep in touch with the more distant relatives.

This was unexpected...

We had been told of a different kind of walking tour here in Leeds called the Leeds Owl Trail. Apparently there are at least 25 different owls located around the central area in statues and often well hidden in ornamental displays. You can download a map, which I did, but it was difficult to follow, so we stopped by the tourist info office where they sell you a paper one for £1.

So we set off looking for owls.

London to Leeds by bus

I had bought our bus tickets back in mid July. Very often there are some good discounts involved when you buy that far in advance, and that was definitely the case this time. We paid only £7.14 ($10.75 CAD, $8.15 USD) each for the four and a half hour ride with Megabus. And that included £2 each extra for reserved seating so that we were guaranteed to sit together.

Departure time was 11:00am from Victoria Coach Station in downtown London. We left Auntie Nice's house just after 9:30am and that gave us lots of time to get to the bus using train and underground.

The Regent's Park flower gardens and more London architecture

You would think that our legs would be tired from all the walking we've been doing here in London. And you would be correct! But yesterday we set off walking again anyhow, this time towards The Regent's Park to see all the flower gardens.

It had rained much of the morning, but it cleared up nicely after lunch. Which was good news for all the people with the ambition to see the King and his sons walk behind the Queen's casket as it made its way from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall. We had no such ambition. 

The Regent's Canal, and off to the theater

We walked over to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park where the 2012 summer Olympic Games were held in London.

It's an interesting walk to get over there from where Ruth's aunt lives in Hackney because you follow the Regent Canal almost the whole way and there are people living on house boats.

An interesting day in London

Slept like a rock on Sunday night, as was expected after a long travel day and a five hour time change. 

We tried to get out of the house in time to get to Buckingham Palace for the 11:00am changing of the guard ceremony, but it was so busy that we would have probably had to get there at 7:00am in order to get a decent spot to view it. Yes, Buckingham Palace was crazy busy.

Arrived in London, England

Our British Airways flight from Amsterdam to London was right on time. That was the 8th different airplane we've been on since August 5th, and other than a couple of minor delays, they have all gone smoothly. 

So considering the horror stories we all read about with regards to flight delays and cancellations this summer, I guess we were pretty lucky. Especially considering we connected through both Amsterdam and Toronto airports which were two of the worst offenders.

Made it back to Amsterdam

Writing this at Amsterdam airport waiting for our flight to London, England.

When we originally booked these flights back in mid March, we had no idea what we were doing or where we were going upon our return to Europe, so making our way back to Amsterdam left us with a lot of choices. You can get to just about anywhere from Amsterdam. Then of course, we decided to head to England for a few weeks, and needed a little puddle jumper flight from Amsterdam to London, a forty five minute flight.

We are off to London to visit the King

Our vacation to Canada is over, and it's time to get back to our normal life. For most people, that sentence means heading back home and going back to work! But for us, it means heading to a different country, and returning to our life of full time travel.

So, this evening we get on a flight from Montreal to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam we have a six hour wait for our 45 minute connecting flight to London City Airport.

Back to the old neighborhood

We headed to the Ottawa suburb of Orleans yesterday afternoon. This is where we lived and brought up our family for about 18 years from 1989 to 2007. We actually lived at three different places during that time, but the most recent and longest one was the house we bought and owned from 1993 to 2007.

But first, we made a stop at the bank.

Bought some tickets to the theater

We had more visitors over for lunch yesterday, but before they came we wanted to get out and do our power walk for the day. They've got one road on our route blocked off for new culvert, so we decided to take a different route for a change. 

But I didn't plan it in advance, we just sort of took off.

Lots to talk about with friends...

We're having great weather here for our visit to Ottawa. Highs of between 24C to 28C (75F to 82F) for the week! We'll take it. The kids may be back in school, but it's still summer for a little while yet.

We're only here until Saturday, and it's been an abnormally short visit to Ottawa since we spent so much time in Nova Scotia. But we've been busy every day seeing friends or family, and sometimes both friends and family.

How we travel long term with carry on luggage only

We belong to a facebook group called Senior Nomads. One of the discussions that often arises is how people travel long term using only carry on luggage. And there are lots of people who manage to do it, but there are still lots of people who travel with what we would consider to be too much stuff.

But of course it's a personal choice, and a lot depends on your travel style. Many people travel long term and stay for a month or more at each location. This means they are not often having to lug all of their stuff around. But when they do have to move, most of them will readily admit that it's a difficult and frustrating thing to do.

Working at McDonald's?

We're not doing anything super exciting, so I've been taking a bit of a break from the daily blog writing. Don't worry though... we will get back to our regular routine of travel in a week or so!

I also haven't been taking many photos. We're just kind of taking it easy and visiting some family and friends here in Ottawa. But there are a few I'd like to show you...