Sunny Dublin Town?

I thought about using a picture of me hacking it up in the bunker on a links style course we played on our first day in Dublin, but I decided to go with a happier theme. This is from our last night in Dublin at our favorite spot, Oliver St John Gogarty's pub. Do yourself a solid and go there. It is in the heart of Temple Bar and always had a good crowd. At this point we are several pints in and thoroughly enjoying the live music. All in all it was a great trip. We played 3 rounds of golf, each one getting progressively better than the first. Micah and I each walked away with a birdie each. Not to brag or anything, but I probably got a birdie on a tougher course. Micah did sink a 40+ foot putt for his though. Each night we found ourselves at Gogarty's pub, we each grew quite fond of Guinness. We were also surprised at how hospitable everyone was. Every cab driver or person we ran into on the streets was eager to give us directions. In fact, our cab driver that took us to St. Margaret's Golf Club on our last day in Dublin, insisted on going through every hole of the course in detail - telling us which clubs to hit, whether or not to cut the corner on our drives, etc. We didn't do a whole lot in terms of sightseeing. We had to take advantage of the fact that it didn't rain one drop while we were there and get in as much golf as possible. We attempted to see the Book of Kells, which thanks to wiki I now know what it actually is, but they were closed by the time we made it over there. The Guinness tour was decent. It showed the different steps of the brewing process, the effects alcohol had on your body, then quickly informed you that it was ok to consume in moderation. Honestly, I don't think I ran into too many people enjoying Guinness responsibly, but we didn't witness any knife fights, so I guess it was all in good fun.

Race for the Cure

No, your eyes are not deceiving you.....that is Hannah running and she actually has a smile on her face. It was just over 6 months ago when Hannah and I ran a 5k at her school, which inspired her to start working out with a personal trainer and get her butt in shape. Her trainer set a goal for her to run today's Race for the Cure in under 30 minutes and though she was doubtful that she could do it, she defied all odds and prevailed (and w/o any whining at all)! Aside from meeting this goal, the race marked the beginning of Hannah's journey towards the Breast Cancer 3-day walk in Atlanta this coming October. If any of the 4 readers of this blog feel so inclined, they can make a donation towards Hannah's fundraising goal by clicking here. I don't know that we'll be rushing out to run another race anytime soon (actually I am running the Peachtree Road Race, but that is mainly for the cool t-shirt), but it was definitely a neat experience and surprisingly I didn't have to make any pit stops in the port-o-jon despite my pre race meal the night before.

Costa Rica Part II (The Actual Class Trip)

Day 5 (Continued)
We shed some tears as we turned in our Rav 4. We met up with the group and loaded up all of our bags and our Apache stone faced driver, Lito drove us to Hacienda Pinilla, our pad for the week. HP is located on 4500 acres in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica about 12 km outside of Tamarindo. On site is Hotel la Posada, where we ate most of our meals, residential lots for sale (starting around $400,000/acre), and some really nice Villas (starting at $800,000). HP recently sold some land to Marriott and they are currently finishing construction on a 5 star resort along the beach. Here is our pad for the week, Casa Matapalo:

and here is the view from the back of our house:

Yeah, I think we're going to like housesitting. Matapalo was a rustic, open air 4 bedroom 4 bathroom house situated a grueling 20 meters from the beach. We unloaded our stuff and picked our rooms and beds. I was in a room with 5 other guys. I picked a bed right under the east facing window, figuring I would get a nice cool breeze at night. I was worried that I would not be able to sleep to well, but a couple of cervezas helped facilitate that process.

Day 6 (March 17th)5:30 am - I wake up sweating profusely as the sun is beating down on me through the window and struggle to fall back asleep because the howler monkeys won't shut the f' up. We got moving and headed to Hotel la Posada for a quick breakfast before we headed out. Now, many of the guides and hotel employees we have met have referred to what is known as "tico time", and it wasn't until this breakfast that we really understood exactly what they meant. At the hacienda no one is in a rush and people slowly go about their days. We had quite a relaxing 2 hr breakfast and were finally headed out around 9:30 to start our morning. We started off by visiting the clinic located on the HP property. It is staffed by 2 physicians, 2 nurses, and 1 receptionist. Dr. Hernandez told us a little bit about the clinic and I couldn't get past the fact that she looked like she was all of 18 years old. Turns out she is 33. Anywho, the clinic was set up to serve the healthcare needs of the 600+ employees of Hacienda Pinilla, most of which are construction workers. They typically see 500-700 patients a month, but in emergency situations the patients are taken to Nicoya which is roughly 50 mins away. As she was telling us about the needs of the clinic a truck pulled up outside with a construction worker with what appeared to be a pretty nasty gash on his leg. That was our cue to leave, though that would not be the end of our visits to the clinic. Lito and Yanith, the director of Fundacion Progreso Guanacaste, took us to visit one of the local schools in a town called Pinilla. So far the Fundacion Progreso Guanacaste (the foundation we were doing work with while in Costa Rica), has adopted 40 elementary schools, and based on needs, has built new classrooms, functioning bathrooms, or cafeterias. Yanith works very closely with Mr. Patillo, the benefactor of the foundation in making the decisions on how to allocate the budget. Several rotary clubs throughout Atlanta have partnered with the foundation to build playgrounds and donate other supplies. Another great thing the foundation is doing is giving 10 scholarships a year to high school seniors to attend 4 yrs of college in the U.S. After we left Pinilla, we went to meet some of the kids who had just recently taken the TOEFFL and were prepping for the ACT.

Here we are with the students and their teacher, Josh, on the far right. He graduated last year from Valdosta State and postponed joining the Peace Corps to take this teaching position with the foundation. His main focus is helping these kids improve their English so they can pass TOEFFL and the ACT. He had some interesting teaching methods, including playing a Jimi Hendrix song and having the students try and attempt what the meaning. That seems like a tall task, trying to interpret what someone was trying to convey in another language when they were this high.
The kids were extremely excited about the opportunity to come to the U.S and were asking us all sorts of questions about our experiences in college. It was probably my favorite part of the trip, though I was getting a little distracted when I thought I heard something moving on the whiteboard behind me.
At first I was relieved because it appeared to be a dead scorpion they had taped the the board. Upon further review it was clear that the little guy was still moving around. The fact that his tail was taped down pretty tightly to the board was not assuring enough to me our most of the others. The students laughed and told us that they found the scorpion while cleaning up and decided to tape him up on the board to teach a lesson to all of the other scorpions. I am not sure if that was effective or not, but I will tell you that it scared several gringos shitless. We visited a few more schools after another lengthy lunch at the hotel. Another thing to note about all of the towns in CR - there are 4 things you are guaranteed to find: 1) a church 2) a school 3) a bar and 4) a soccer field. In addition to school supplies, Jay brought over 30 soccer balls, some cleats, and jerseys that his soccer team had given to him in McDonnough. After a long day, we were all starving so we had dinner in Tamarindo. Tamarindo is well known throughout the world as one of the best surfing destinations. As we walked around it was clear that there were several gringos around, as well as a lot of drug pushers and prostitutes. We got propositioned for just about everything under the sun in the 5 minute walk to our restaurant. We got home to Casa Matapalo and Jay decided to wage war on the monkeys - BAD IDEA! These guys don't screw around. He thought that tossing a coconut into the trees might keep them from waking us up at the crack the following morning. Instead we got pissed on and just as we ran back inside they flung some poop onto the table we were sitting at. Monkeys 1 - Gringos 0.

Day 7 (March 18th) In the pic below, Marco shows that he means business when it comes to computer netowrking
Today the hotel set up a buffet for breakfast which was much more efficient and allowed me to eat as much bacon as humanly possible. Today we went to a school and helped set up a computer lab that I believe the Dunwoody Rotary Club donated most of the equipment for. This was very generous of them, however, the few rotarians that were on hand to "help" were about as knowledgeable about the internet as Ted Stevens:

As Dayne put it, "it was like being in an organizational behavior microcosm" when we were trying to set up the computer lab. There were way too many chiefs, too many cooks in the kitchen, however you want to put it. To add to this, there was no circulation of air in the room and the sweltering heat was starting to take its toll on our decision making. One of the older rotarians was trying to get involved in some of the technical stuff, clearly not realizing that half of our group had either an engineering background or worked in IT. The older guy, let's call him "Pins" for all of the Rotary related flare he was wearing, was really thrown off when he saw Alex, one of the guys in our group taking out the window to get some air circulating. He never directly addressed Alex about it, but would just make comments in his general direction - "I don't know why he is doing that" or "I wish he wouldn't do that!". It did feel nice when the window was out to have some air circulating, but it was time to step outside and play some hoops with the rotarians' sons/grandsons. Me and another kid, ironically named Will, played against Yoshi and some tubby kid with a shirt that said "The Future of Rotary" on it. Future is not looking so bright. I don't gotta wear shades. The game was fun and a nice break from being in the computer lab with the old coot. We were starting to get tired and Yoshi (our Japanese friend) was getting tired of Will, the little kid, calling him Yao Ming. In other news, Hinman apparently had some bed bugs get after him the night before and whatever the hell was on his arms looked like it was spreading so we dropped him back at the Hacienda clinic where Dr. Hernandez applied some creams and gave him a shot in the ass. That about covers the highlights of the day - setting up a computer lab with a guy who probably doesn't use email and Hinman getting a shot in the ass.

Day 8 (March 19th)

Because it was Semana Santa (Holy week) we really didn't have much else planned for the trip. So we met with Mauricio Estrada, the GM of Hacienda Pinilla. He explained to us how he worked in mergers & acquisitions in his former career and quickly burned out on the hours and wanted a switch. He is originally from San Jose and hopes that some of the development in the Guanacaste region will provide jobs for the local residents and highlight the importance of receiving an education. He talked a little bit about the Hacienda's commitment to the environment and how they have planted over 500,000 trees. After visiting with him for a bit, we headed back to the clinic to have Dr. Hernandez check on Hinman and Pasha wanted to go in and get some cough drops for his sore throat. Guess what he came out with? You guessed it.....a shot in the ass. Apparently that is the cure all in Costa Rica. We had a free afternoon so we took a tour of the property and went inside one of the villas they are selling. The place was pretty decked out and the A/C felt really good. That afternoon we went horseback riding around the property. My horse, Ranchero, was not the most energetic horse. I guess I would rather have a slow horse than one that bucked me off or ran into the ocean. We stopped halfway to take a break, drink some water, and enjoy the view from one of the highest points on the property.

Pictured Above from left to right(Elke, Josh-the english teacher, Mark-our professor, Yoshi aka Yao Ming, Herb-nice hat!, Hinman, Jay, and me)

As we took this picture I kept looking over at my horse and he was just peering over the edge of the cliff like he wanted to end it right there. Thankfully, we made it back to the stables and my streak of no broken bones remains intact. Later that night I was introduced to French Uno or FRUNO! has we started to call it. The rules of this game are way too crazy to write out and frankly I can't say that I remember all of them. All I know is, there were some heated games of FRUNO and I can't wait to play again. I think I finally stopped playing at 430am. Just in time for the howler monkeys to sing me a lullaby.

Day 9 (March 20th)

The following day we discovered that one of the downstairs toilets was clogged. I am pretty sure that it wasn't my fault, but who knows it wouldn't be the first time. Another relaxing day at Casa Matapalo. We went to Tamarindo for lunch and found a little bar that had a small TV where we could watch the end of the Kentucky-Marquette basketball game. Some of the group went surfing, but I decided to pass considering I could barely body surf. We went back into Tamarindo for dinner that night, watched a little of the NCAA tourney, but were more interested in the Costa Rican futbol game and all of the fights going on in it. It was like a hockey game!

Day 10 (March 21st)

The tide was low in the morning and you could see thousands of little fish swimming around fairly close to shore. Preying on them were larger fish which attracted at least 15 ticos. These guys were cleaning up. They were walking out with backpacks full of fish as big as 2 ft. As we were sitting on the beach we heard a loud crash. One of the trees fell all of the sudden on top of an SUV parked just to the side of our house
(Please note Mrs. Hacienda Pinilla 2008 in the right of the picture wearing the black tank top. This was the unofficial title we gave to the most attractive woman on the beach). No one was in the car when the tree fell and they simply let some air out of the tires and backed out from under the tree. Ballsy move, but it worked!

It was time for us to start moseying over to the Sabanera festival. Every Friday around sunset they put on a show of riding horses and dancing for the guests.


The show was great and included a band that played some festive musica. The howler monkeys started making some of there own noise in an attempt to steal the show or maybe they were just taunting Jay.

Day 11 (March 22nd)

It was our last full day so a few people, myself included, decided to take a katamaran tour of the bay in Tamarindo. We rode around and dropped the anchor where we could swim, snorkel, kayak, or just hang out on the boat and enjoy the open bar and good food. I found out pretty quickly that the water was not very clear so Mark and I took a quick trip in the kayak and got bacak on the boat to get some grub. On the way back we were enjoying a nice sunset when we heard a ruckus coming from the back of the boat. One of the crew members was reeling in a line they had cast out. I am still trying to find the picture, but after some intense fighting he reeled in a 3+ ft red snapper. Probably the biggest fish I have ever been in the same boat with. This was pretty much the end of our trip so I had to make the final cut of my jeans and needless to say the jorts were getting a little dicey:

Thank goodness there were only 10 travel days, I was starting to run out of fabric.
Day 12 (March 23rd)
4:00am - Lito "Apache Stone Face" came to pick up me, Yoshi, Pasha, and Hinman to take us to the airport for our 8am flight. Lito drives pretty slow, so we wanted to make sure we made it with plenty of time to get our Japanese and Ukrainian friends through security. Now I could just sit back and enjoy the movie Enchanted on the flight home.

Dayne-isms

In addition to meeting up with our professor, this marked another historic milestone on the trip - the arrival of Dayne (aka Shelt'n, the medicine man, or the pride of South Georgia). Below is a picutre of the medicine man holding court, passing on his teachings concerning life, kids, alcoholic beverages, etc. We decided it would be a good idea to document all of his Dayne-isms so that we can refer back to them whenever we need some advice on making an important decision. This list is sure to grow in the remaining 4 weeks of B school and some of the inside humor might be lost on some. Either way, here we go:


Dayne-isms

3 things that grandma taught Dayne:

1. Don't tug on superman's cape
2. Don't piss into the wind
3. And don't mess w/ the man that writes your credit report

On kids:

1. That kid needs to get his head out of his a$%!
2. 3 & out, have surgery
3. Never let the kids outnumber the adults (he admittedly breaks this often)
4. 1 Dog = 1 year (Dayne swears by this theory that if you want to put off having kids, buy your wife a dog and that buys your 1 year. At one point Dayne owned 3 dogs)

On alcoholic beverages of choice:

1. Cranberry vodka?!?!? I'm a MAN!
2. Drinking cranberry and vodka is an insult to testicles
3. 5:00 pm is Toddy time at the Shelton house (and at Hacienda Pinilla as well)
4. It's dark under the porch, pour yourself a drink!
5. I never met a liquor cabinet I couldn't crack.

General:

1. You can put that on my freakin' tombstone (I am sure he was referring to one of the Dayne-isms)
2. I will take that to my f*%$in' grave!
3. It ain't a well stock pond (referring to female community at Tech)
4. Even a blind pig can find an acorn
5. That dude is apache stone face (in reference to Lito, our driver for the week, more on him later)
6. Odds go up on Grey's night

7. There are 2 truths in this world: 1) liquor stores will always make money and 2) I'm going to have coffee in the morning

Costa Rica Part I (The Pre-Class Trip

Costa Rica
Day 1 (March 12th)

One of the requirements of my MBA curriculum is to complete 1 international elective, so instead of taking international finance or marketing, I decided to take the Global Operations Practicum. Most of the "classes" entailed working on a project for a company in a foreign country. The Costa Rica class offered a unique opportunity to work with a non profit foundation that is focused on improving housing, healthcare, and education in the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. After meeting with several people involved in all different aspects of the non profit world, we headed out to Costa Rica for 12 days for some "research", adventure, and fun. The highlight of Day 1 was when we flew into the Liberia airport and some dude decided he wanted to take his shirt off in the middle of the customs line. I can't apologize enough for not capturing this moment of zen on camera, but he looked something like this. Everyone made it through customs except for Jose Antonio, his passport was expiring within 6 months and even though the consulate assured him he would be ok, he was denied access to the country. Matt, Jay, Yoshi, and I rented a Rav 4, Herb and Elke rented what looked like half of an SUV, and Pasha, TJ, Quigley, Charity took a bus to La Fortuna. We were all staying at different hotels in town but met up for some drinks and dinner that night. Our hotel was off the beaten path to say the least, so the owner offered us another room that had 4 beds. Sweet! We checked in and I needed to use the bathroom and here is where some ability to communicate in Spanish comes into play. I didn't know how else to put it, but told the manager, "Hay una problema en el bano!" Couldn't remember how to say it wasn't my fault and I found the toilet that way or figure out the word for plunger. Either way we got it fixed and were off for a night of drinking Imperial and Guaro. We foolishly disregarded the advice of Vladmir, the manager at Quigley, Pasha, Charity, and TJ's hotel, of not mixing the local rum, Guaro, and Imperial cerveza. Bad idea.

Day 2 (March 13th) - I decided I would cut some length off of an old pair of jeans and take a picture each day we were in Costa Rica to chronicle the different days. I didn't count the first Wednesday or last Sunday since they were primarily travel days.

After a much too early wake up call, it was time for us to catch the shuttle to go whitewater rafting. El Rio Toro (the Bull River) was a little low so we had to wait a little bit longer to get on the water. For some reason everyone in my boat was ademant about flipping the boat and about half way in we slid down some rapids, crashed into the bank, and our guide helped facilitate the flipping. It felt great getting in the water, but I struggled getting out from under the boat and swallowed an insane amount of river water. There was nothing living in the river because of the high levels of sulphur so I was fully expecting to get deathly ill. Luckily I didn't. After a 3.5 hour trek down the river we got out of the river and they had fresh pineapple and bananas set out for us which was great because I was starving. Above is the picture (from left to right sqautting in the front are Quigley, Elke, and Yoshi; in back from left to right are Pasha, TJ, Hinman, Herb, Jay, me, Charity, and 3 Canadians, btw, Canadians love Costa Rica - I couldn't go to take a piss without bumping into someone from Canada.) After a delicious meal Hinman, Jay, Yoshi, and I got back in the Rav 4 to head to the active side of the volcano at the Arenal Observatory Lodge.

Day 3 (March 14th)

We woke up early at the Arenal Observatory Lodge (a Brad Roller top pick) and had an awesome breakfast. BACON!!!!!!!!!!!!! We then took a guided hike around the volcano and to a waterfall. The only way I can describe our guide is as the Costa Rican Michael Winslow. We would be walking down a trail and all of the sudden our guide would just stop and start making some crazy ass noise. The next thing you know there was a monkey or some exotic bird in a tree nearby us. There were some interesting characters on the hike with us. One lady was about 3-4 minutes behind everything that was going on. Several times through the hike the guide referenced the tractor that was going to tow us back to the hotel after the hike. As we are being pulled back to the hotel we hear her from the back, "Oh! We're being pulled by a tractor!" Weclome to the show lady, maybe you should be wearing a helmet. After the morning hike we got in the car to head to Monteverde. I have yet to mention the wonderful roads in Costa Rica and the road on the way to Monteverde had to take the cake. It was basically a winding caliche road that had cows wandering in the middle of the road. It took us around 3.5 hours to cover roughly 100 km. Luckily Hinman worked for Ford Motor Company before coming back to get his MBA and was very capable of handling the Rav 4. After we checked in, we went for what we thought would be a leisurely hike up Cerro Amigo. It ended up being a grueling 55 minute, 300 meter vertical climb on a 3km trail. At least we were able to enjoy the rewarding view of Nicaragua on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. We caught a glimpse of the Pacific but the clouds were making it hard to see very far off of the other side. After the exhausting hike we went into town for a great dinner at a Chilean influenced restaurant. Each table was served complementary appetizers consisting of small tortillas, guacamole, salsa, black beans, and jalapenos. I would love to start every meal in that fashion. After having 3 bottles of wine at dinner, we stopped at the store to pick up some more and went back to the hotel for some intense games of spades in the lobby. That is until 10pm, when apparently the hotel curfew starts; the guests there were probably of the average age of 55 (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Day 4 (March 15th)
Here we are in the Santa Elana Cloud Forest. Santa Elana is about 5km outside of Monteverde. We got some advice from the front desk saying that if we were interested in seeing more wildlife, we should go on a hike in Santa Elana because there are only 20,000 visitors a year vs. the 200,000 that come through Monteverde. Sadly, the only action we got was the Coati that we saw in the parking lot. Regardless it was an enjoyable hike with some cool views and we only saw 4 other people on the 2.5 hour hike. After our hike, we were starving and decided to be a little adventurous and stopped at some random restaurant on the side of the road on the way to our next destination, Playa del Coco. The best way I can describe this beach town is that I felt like I was in Florida where everyone spoke Spanish. So, basically I felt like I was in Florida. The town was a little shady. A word of caution: if you find a recommended place to stay in Costa Rica via http://www.tripadvisor.com/ , make sure you are not getting scammed when you go to another site to book your room. We were originally set to stay at Hotel Puerta de la Sol, but when we arrived the owner did not have a reservation for us. Hinman had seen that the hotel was recommended on trip advisor, then had to "do a google" to find the room to book it. Someone had posted pictures of the hotel in Playa del Coco and set up a webiste to bill customers. Luckily we were able to get the transaction cancelled and we found a nice room (with A/C) at the Cocobay Hotel and Casino just down the road. We spent a little time at the Casino and I decided to get up and leave after the woman in front of me hit on 13 with the dealer showing 5. Of course she stole my ace that would have made my double on 10 pay off. I only lost $40 and then I ventured down the the "poker room" which was basically a converted guest suite. Looked like the type of place where you might not be able to walk out with your winnings and the buy-in was $200 (or 100,000 colones). No thanks! We took that as our cue to play another game of spades. After a few cervezas and a shot of centenario rum that Hinman ordered it was time for some late night grub. The bar was about to close but we were able to order some fries and they were probably the best french fries I have ever had. Yoshi, Jay, and Matt can vouch for that.

Day 5 (March 16th)
For the first time we were not woken up by nature in the morning. This was much worse, we awoke to an annoying car alarm at 6am and it went on until 9am. Today marked the end of our adventures on our own as we headed back to the Liberia airport to meet Prof. Ferguson and the rest of the group. The pre-class trip was over, now it's time to get to "work".

Mini moon # 1 (May 18th)

"Hey Hannah, what do you want to do for dinner tonight?"

"I don't know, I kind of feel like Mexican food." (shocker!)

"How would you feel about Trudy's?"

"Trudy's? In Austin?"



And just like that, our summer of non rev travel began. On our way to the airport I gave Kenny a call to see what he was up to for the weekend. He agreed to pick us up from the airport and said we could crash at his place.

From the airport we headed to Trudy's with Kenny to meet Hannah's friend Australia Michelle (above) and her husband Matt. We had a few beers while waiting for our table, I miss $2 beers. We kept the night going with a few mexican martinis and some queso especial. After 1.5 martinis, I quickly realized my tolerance had slid since my days at UT. It is 12:30 and Hannah is still awake. Time to capitalize on the night's momentum and head to Paradise Cafe on 6th street. Once again, it is clear that we are old as everyone in the bar looks like they are 17. Actually we are just old.

Saturday morning started off great with breakfast at Whataburger. We drove around town for a bit looking at all of the new developments around town. Seeing as how it had been 2.5 hours since we last ate, it was time to get some food. Hmmm....what should we eat? Mexican food anybody? A quick bite at El Arroyo and it was time to head back to the airport to catch our flight back to the ATL.

Our first return trip and we got to sit up in first class! This was a great way to start off our summer of mini moons and we can't wait for more to come.

Team Hartin goes to Foggy London Town (August 3-5)

Look kids, Big Ben! Parliament!



This marks the beginning of our last major trip of the summer. It was no easy task, but after 11 weeks I finally got my passport and was ready to cross the ocean.

With a certified copy of her birth certificate, driver's license, marriage license, retina scan, and passport with her maiden name, Hannah was along for the ride too!



Not to sound spoiled, but I don't know if flying business class on my first trip across the pond is a good thing. I guess I will just have to work for an airline forever or just never take a flight longer than 3 hrs. We were so excited to be sitting up front, I forgot how crucial sleep would be in our quest to conquer London in a mere 22 hrs. After a five course meal, a glass of champagne, several glasses of wine, and an ice cream sundae (lay off me, I'm starving!) we watched movie after movie, tv show after tv show until Hannah finally dozed off. A little bit later I was finally able to get to sleep for a bit only to wake up to some crazy lady sitting next to me reaching for my water. Her husband was a pilot and she was meeting him in London. We made the mistake of making small talk with her, only to be barraged by her commentary on how we should get around the city.



We landed around 630 am , and by the time we made it through customs and caught a train to the city it was 845. Our tour hadn't even begun and we could barely keep our eyes open. Let's get some breakfast. Ill spare you the details, but this picture best sums up how I felt.




Really? You can't make bacon and eggs without screwing it up?!?

We started off by walking by Big Ben and Parliament and from there headed to the River Thames. We must have walked 5 miles all day long, but took a ride on the London Eye where we had a great view of the entire city. From there we walked along the river and had a delicious lunch at Wagamama. Good call, Micah! After lunch, we continued our hike and found a nice green spot behind the Tate Modern Museum to get a quick 1 hr nap.

Feeling recharged we headed to the London Bridge, the Tower of London, and the Globe Theatre. We figured we had seen enough and were ready to meet up with our friend Ilan from UT and Atlanta. His friends, Brock & Sherry (recently married to each other) and Orville (works with Sherry who is married to Brock who works with Ilan who went to UT and used to live in the ATL, ya follow?) were grilling out. Ilan made some damn good gazpacho, followed by some grilled salmon, prawns, and squid that Brock grilled up. After a feast like that along with a few beers, it was going to be a challenge getting Mrs. Hart out to a pub that night.

After relaxing at Ilan's for a quick bit, we headed out to the Queen's Head Pub. The night started off pretty slow, but as the beers and vodka tonics continued to flow and the DJ started playing some good tunes it picked up. Even though there is no photo evidence, I danced. Trust me, it was pretty awesome. After a late night drinking we headed around the corner to get some lamb kabob gyros and french fries. Mmm mmm! I love me some late night grub. After a quick shower and what felt like a 30 minute nap we were back on our way to Gatwick. Thankfully we got seats in first class and toasted each other with mimosas right before takeoff! After failed attempts to watch the Namesake I was sleeping like a baby.

It will be hard to top our first international trip together, but who knows, maybe next time we'll get to stay for a while!