London - Day 7

Where has a week of holiday gone???

Today my cousin and I go to the “RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show”. It was huge – had heaps of show gardens and displays of flowers and stalls to buy things – WOW!

The Entrance

Most gardens had a story behind them and once you knew that it made the gardens make sense. The photos show the things I liked best.

The Russian Garden

Blue water in the Russian Garden

TV fallen into the garden - note the colour coming out of the tv and the black and white on either side

Beer Bottles (Bridge?) This garden was sponsored by a brewery

I found a cow at Hampton Court

Think we could do a better job of a container garden

I never knew that there were so many types of Garlic

The view down to Hampton Court

Me and my Cousin with the huge display of Chrysantemums

Just a garden I liked (not a display garden - this was in  the tent where you could buy things)

The Bee Garden - this is the closest that I am ever going to get to a bee hive

Allium flowers - they were huge!

Cactus display

I really liked these stained glass windows - but the smallest was 75  pounds!

This was a display of lavendar with one of the Olympic torches from the London 1948 Olympic Games

I didn't know that Lupins came in so many different colours

We arrived just after 11am and didn’t leave till 4pm. Then we went back to my cousins to have tea, with the plan of going to bed early as we are hoping to go to Wimbledon tomorrow.

London - Day 6

I arrive in London at 7.40am and I am met by my cousin. First photo stop for the day is the Olympic rings at Heathrow Terminal 5.

Olympic Rings at Heathrow Terminal 5

I'm a Fan!!!

Next I stop at my cousins for a refresh and then head to Borough Market for lunch and a Strawberry Tart – yum!! 

Strawberry Tart - delicious!

Borough Market - Under the railway lines

By now I’m getting tired so I go for a walk along the Thames, stopping at Hays Galleria and Tower Bridge – to take another photo of Olympics rings (two in one day!!).  

Me with the Olympic Rings at Tower Bridge

Then I go to the Tate Modern to look at very strange artwork and to look out over the Thames toward St Pauls.

Is this art?? I think these were real birds

The view from the Tate Modern towards St Pauls

Then I met my cousin again and walked alongside the Thames back to where she lives. On the way we went past The Wheel, Big Ben and The Houses of Parliament.

The London Eye or Wheel

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

Had Pizza for tea and watched a beautiful sunset over the Thames.

Sunset on the Thames

Houston – Day 5

Today is my last day in Houston so I do a few of the catch up things, like revisiting US Toys and the Mall.  I have lunch with my cousins before packing my bag (which is now a lot heavier) and heading to the airport. 

I have learnt a few other things while in Houston:  A “By you” is in fact a ditch like this one…

A bayou (I checked how to spell it on Wikipedia)

And they have four way stops, they work by all cars stopping when they get to the stop and you get to start driving again in the order that you stopped at the stop sign.  Sounds confusing but it works well.

Four Way Stop

From Houston my next stop is London, on the plane I get butter chicken for tea – it was the most delicious plane meal I have ever eaten!

Me and my plane

Best airplane food ever!

Houston - Day 4 (4th July!!)

Happy Fourth of July!!!

America is a very Patriotic country and I have seen lots and lots and lots of American Flags. There are 13 stripes on the flag to represent the 13 original colonies and 50 stars to represent the 50 states. There are big flags at businesses (especially the car yards) and flags on houses too.

House decorated for the Fourth of July

Caryard with American Flags - the bigger the better!

Today my cousin and I go to NASA home of Mission Control (Hey Houston, we've had a problem here). When we get there we do a tram tour that shows us the control room that was used for the space shuttles and the building where the astronauts are trained. They tell us that althought the space shuttle missions are finished NASA is still operating and next wants to return to the moon.

Misson Control for the Space Shuttles

There are currently 2 Russians and 1 American on the international space station, and flags at the security gate show you how many people are in space and what countries they come from.

Flags at security entrance to NASA

We then look at the "Saturn 5 Rocket", which was like the rockets that sent Apollo missions to the moon. It was very long and big!

Me and the rocket boosters of Saturn 5

Me and Saturn 5

Then we have lunch - a huge ham sandwich (the bread was a bit sweet too).
 

My sandwich - look at all that ham.

At NASA I also got to touch a piece of the moon (strangly it was black), and hear that NASA is also hoping to get to Mars and on August 6th they will have the rover Curiosity on Mars (this will help them study Mars), and they hope to have a man on Mars by 2030!

I touch the moon!

Next it was off to Galviston for fireworks and a Fourth of July parade. Galviston is the area hardest hit by hurricane Ike. We walked in the heat (94 degrees fahrenheit) along the beach, then we went to walk along a rock wall that went out into the sea when we were yelled out by a policeman who said "Maam, Maam you can't go down there!" then we discovered that that was were the fireworks were going to be let off from.  

Boats on the gulf at the end of Galviston

The beach at Galviston - not nice but people still swim there

At the parade there are lots of people driving cars and throwing out beads and lollies (we cottoned on to this rather fast and started collecting!).

Fourth of July Parade in Galiston

The fireworks were out over the beach, we sat on the beach wall, from there you could see the boats on the gulf (I counted at least 16) and one oil rig.

The lights on the horizon are the boats on the gulf

The fireworks were pretty amazing and lasted about 25 minutes. And then there was an amazing full moon.

The moon rising over the gulf

Found where we had left the car and then headed back to my cousins - there was lots of traffic!

Houston - Day 3

Breakfast today was at Denny's - yum! Bacon Strips, Hash Brown, Scrambled Eggs and Pancakes.

Then it was off to Hobby Lobby - where christmas decorations were already being sold! Saw lots of fun/crafty stuff.

Then it was off to do some shopping at the outlet mall, wow! so many shops and when you entered the shops they said hi and told you their specials - lots had 50 percent off.  While we were at the mall there was a thunder storm - which was a bit strange as the clouds stayed a light grey colour but there was lots of rain and thunder and lightening.  I bought lots of stuff I hope it will fit in my bag - hmmm!

Bling for my Crocs

After tea we went to the fireworks warehouse - another wow! moment.  So many fireworks, all with a big bang!  These are the fireworks to make a good 4th of July backyard fireworks display out of, some packs were $299!

$299!