home sweet home....for a few days

Well folks...here I am, back in sunny Santa Clara, California.

...time to unpack the boots, scarves and coats...and fill my suitcase with my shades, swimsuits and flip flops!

It feels nice to be home after my 16 day trip, but I am definitely missing England a lot! My eyes are not used to this lack of GREEN. Adjusting back to the time difference is difficult as well... I am up most nights and tired during the days. But finally, (5 days later) I think I have adjusted! I shouldn't speak too soon though, because on Monday I am off to Hawaii to visit my cousin David...and that is a three hour time difference! Not too big of an adjustment though.

It sounds weird to say, but I am kind of excited to start working again. It's been a few months of freedom and adventure...but getting a job will be nice to save up a little to achieve my goals of moving :) Before that can happen I am SO excited for my final adventure of 2010...Hawaii trip #2!

It has been so nice to catch up with all of my friends! Carli and I are back in the swing of things, with wine nights, stories from the past two weeks & chocolate fondue! Tonight we are headed to a San Jose Sharks pre-season game. yey. I even got a chance to take some night pictures of the golden gate bridge last night with an old friend...well, not old litteraly...old like I havent seen him in a long time hahah.

Hawaii here I come :) 5 hour plane flight is nothin! ..compared to my 10 hour one to England!
thanks to everyone who followed my journey to England through my blog posts! I have loved reading all of your comments and messages. love you guys.

xoxo,
Elise Diane

....never forget that with true dedication, motivation, perseverance, & love...you hold the key to every closed door.

CHEERIO ENGLAND.....

:(

The departure day is almost here...we leave on a 11:30am flight tomorrow morning, headed back to the US of A. We arrive back in California at about 1:30 in the afternoon....which is about 9:30pm in England!! It will be a long day of traveling.

This trip has been a once in a lifetime adventure...well, not ONCE in a lifetime, I hope to go back to England of course!! The last 16 days were ones that I will never forget. There is something about going back to the country where my grandparents were born, grew up and met, that is truly indescribable. Also meeting family, and people, who I never knew, now I can put a face to the names of people who are part of my extended family, just placed on another side of the world. Me & Nessy had such a wonderful adventure, traveling all over the south of England. We saw a variety of scenery, from ponies and sheep to the underground tube and chaos of the big city.

What I have learned as I am about to head home is that, (England is "bloody" expensive!) & you never know where life is going to take you....always be open to new opportunities...and never lose your sense of adventure!!! Another thing that has become pretty apparent to me, is that I love the country more than the city. Hard to believe since I am such a girly girl with a shopping addiction. I have to say, the best parts of my trip was seeing for myself the beauty of the English countryside, the little shops with candle makers and antique stores with wonderful friendly owners...lovely rolling green hills, with sheep scattering them...houses with thatched roofs...afternoon tea, charming little pubs, white wine spritzers.......& most of all, quality time with my Auntie, family and friends.....and wishing I brought my good Nikon camera to capture it all in detail! grrr...my point and shoot will have to do the trick :)

I can't even begin to describe the close relationships I made here in England. I miss everyone already!!! Hopefully my pictures & videos will give a better glimpse into the past 16 days.

Bye England, and thank you for opening my eyes to new experiences, new adventures, new memories, a better sense of what the hell I want to do with my life! ...and even conquering some fears... (driving on the wrong side of the road, AHH!!!... & figuring out the "tube" system!) I think I got the accent down...and some awesome new words to use :)

Here comes a 9 hour flight! See everyone at home soon. x.

cheerio!
Elise Diane

THE MORNING SHOW

Ello!

I totally feel like I'm wayyy over blogging, but I finally got a cord so I can upload pics and videos so bare with me...

Updating you today from London, England, we welcome you to the morning show with Elise & Nessy.

Today we had quite the experience going on the "tube" for the first time. It's like an underground subway. We asked about 57 people how to get there and what tube lines to take...but with my sense or direction and Nessy preparing us with Starbucks this morning, we were really to begin our journey! Before getting on the tube, we walked to Buckingham palace from our hotel to see the Changing of the guards (only about a 5 minute walk, the Queen is practically our neighbor!) It kind of reminded me of a Disneyland parade, but way more meaningful. We learned that the guards change shifts every 2 days (48 hours) and they each work 2 hour shifts, then get 4 hours breaks, then back on for 2 hours and so forth and so on. After that excitement, we had more coffee at a local pub kind of place and watched the Pope on the TV there. He was at Westminster Abbey today, which is not too far from where we are staying!

Then we went to the tubes.....everyone there is ON A MISSION, speed walking as fast as they can. Thank God Nessy & I were wearing our matching shirts of we might have gotten lost ;) ...total losers....we know. We went on two different tube lines, got off at our stop....and then I saw it...HARRODS. Pretty much heaven on Earth for people who like to shop. Maybe if I win the lottery I can actually go shopping there one day. For now I just got a cool little Harrods bag :) I must say the absolute HIGHLIGHT of the day was where we ate lunch.... let me just say, the name of the place started with "Chocolate" and ended with "Bar".....yep, a chocolate bar! Are you kidding me?! This place was amazing-ly-yummy.

Tomorrow is our last day in England....hard to believe. I don't even want to talk about it haha.

Here are some pictures from the past week!

(Hike from our B&B to Watersmeet)

(New job! ...as a guard at Buckingham palace)

(Twin day! Watching the Changing of the Guards)

(Chris & I at the train station)

Ok mates, we are off to go see Dirty Dancing!! Sooo excited.

x,

Elise Diane

LONDON BITS & BOBS

Alright Mates!

This is a mini update coming to you from London, England! I'll do a more current one soon hopefully when I have more time.

This morning I realized there was a USA outlet in our hotel room, which means I can charge my laptop, yeah!! .....that's the good news....bad news is, I lost my cable for my digital camera somewhere along the way, (think I left it in Lynmouth) so I have no way to upload pics and videos :( oh well

London is madness... kind of reminds me of San Francisco, but everyone has accents and drives completely insane. I do love it, but I have to admit I miss the countryside. The shopping is absolutely awesome, but it does make me realize that I don't think I could ever live around all of the "hustle and bustle" of a big city. I do notice that everyone dresses up more here than at home! A lot of men are wearing suits, and women wearing interesting styles that I will probably try to copy and bring back to the States... ;)

Today we went to Blenheim Palace, we walked through the room where Winston Churchill was born. along with seeing the palace where he grew up. Amazing! It was huge, we took tons of pics and pretended that we lived there. We then went to the Cotswolds, where we shopped around in the cute little towns there and had lunch & wine spritzers...duh.

We ate at a nice little restaurant, conveniently located in our hotel :) Tomorrow we are headed to HARRODS! I can not wait.

It's so weird to think I only have a couple short days left in England! We have been here over two weeks now, and I can't imagine going home...I am basically a local now...and going to miss it SO much.

Going to go check out London! Here are some pics that I put on my laptop earlier in the trip before it died....not the latest, but thought you might like them. Hopefully tomorrow I will get something so I can upload pics. We have some good videos haha.

"shouldnt there be a steering wheel here?!"

(Christchurch)

(inside St. Andrew's Church, where Grandma & Boppa were married)

(me holding my BIRTH announcement that Auntie Vera still had at her house. Baby Elise was eight pounds 9 ounes, and 21 and a half inches long on Nov, 25th 1988! lol)

"X" (it means kiss!)

Elise Diane

LONDON BOUND!

hello pea-pool (people)

This is an update coming to you from Bournemouth, England again!

We successfully returned the car!!! yeah!! We have had such an amazing last day in Bournemouth. Yesterday Chris picked us up from the car rental place and we finally were "home" back at Chris and Terri's. We always walk in the door and say "WE'RE HOME!!!" knowing that Terri is cringing...and thinking "oh no, they might never leave!"

We then went to their "local" (local pub) for a great meal before picking up uncle Tom and preparing for our last supper with everyone. It was a full table: Me, Nessy, Chris, Terri, Andrew, Ally, Nick, Ella, Lauren, Uncle Tom, Heidi and Sam. We has a fabulous night telling them about our driving adventures and places we have seen in the last 5 days. We said our sad goodbyes and made them promise to come visit us in the States VERY soon :)

This morning we are packing up all of our stuff and getting ready to leave for the train station. On our way to LONDON TOWN!!!! Watch out London, here we come :)

Hugs & kisses
Elise Diane

YMCA...

Hey loves!

This time Nessy & I are updating you from Bath, England!

We arrived safely yesterday in Bath....we only hit 1 curb so we are pretty happy with ourselves! It is a huge difference here from the little town of Lynmouth we are used to. We kind of miss our little B&B....

We are totally tough cookies and are having the adventure of a lifetime. We survived our first night here.. but probably should have listened to the few warnings we had before arriving here. A few days ago I told Andrew we were staying at the YMCA in Bath, and he responded "haha no you're not" ..that was clue number 1....Clue number 2 was when we were trying to find the YMCA and asked a man if he knew where it was... He responded "Its that horrible building with the grey roof behind you..." hmmm...

Let me just give you a little info on where we are staying.
First the positives:
-We are in the heart <3 of Bath
-There is a Starbucks a block away from us
-We have a computer, blow dryer and towels, and a sink in our cell....I mean room.

Now on the the not so positives....:
-We are staying in the YMCA (aka a dormitory style place)
-We have COMMUNAL showers...yep...communal.
-Walls are paper thin and the bed is like a cement floor.

After Haiti, I'm am 100% sure I can survive anything on this planet, so, with our Starbucks in hand, we are ready to start our day! Today we are off to explore Bath!! We are going to see the Royal Bath's, do a little shopping and then go see the Princess Diana dresses event!!! We are soooo excited to see her amazing dresses. YEAH!!!

I am not able to upload pics here. We have a funny video to post when I can. Kisses & Hugs!!! Love you guys.

Smashing darling,
Elise Diane

LYNMOUTH ADVENTURES

Alright Darlings! (alright means whats up in England)

Soooo.... we are really liking Denise now (our B&B landlord.) She is so sweet to us. We made the mistake of looking at another room at the B&B and we both went green with envy...we moped all the back to our small box of a room. Yesterday morning Denise asked us if we would like to stay in the bigger room overlooking the river for the last night of our stay here. We both were SOOO excited and gladly accepted. It has a bathtub and cute decor.

Yesterday we went on the cliff railway up to Lynton (a small town close to where we are staying.) We came across this AMAZING little coffee shop where we had our morning mochas and an excellent view of the coast. We continued on our way to some shops including, a antique shop (totally my thing!), a candle maker named John who loved us (He said he was in Heaven when we took a picture with him) and a few other little shops with unique gifts.

We walked along the coast path through the Exmoor Forest and saw some wildlife along the way. Did I mention....WILD PONIES!!??!! yeah, we were hangin with the Ponies (aka PONES.) We also saw some geese and locals playing cricket.

For dinner we enjoyed some fish & chips, of course, and our last dessert of the trip. We made a pact that we will eat NO MORE fish & chips and NO MORE desserts....for fear of us being over the weight limit on the plane like our luggage.... Our waitress said Nessy's fish was VERY happy to see her....can you see why in the pic??

Don't know when our next post will be since we are off to Bath tomorrow!! Miss you guys tons.

Also.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOB!!!!!! I love you soooo much and wish I could talk to you today. I am so excited for your and Jon's trip to Vegas. You are going to have a blast. I cant believe you are only 30 ;) love you!!! xoxox

Cherrio!

Elise & Nessy