On April 15, we left for a trip to England, but not just any trip and we did not fly to England, we cruised! Or as we soon learned it was a "Crossing" not a cruise.
We boarded the Queen Mary 2 through much security and found our "Stateroom" with no problems. Our Stateroom was about 12 x 20 including the 2 closets, bathroom, a desk, a table, 2 chairs, 2 twin beds, and 2 bedside tables, and no window! We were going budget style! ha! The room was a little cramped, but the beds were comfortable (we figured out that we could have the steward put our beds together)! We didn't spend much time in the room anyways! We Scrapbooked! Poor Jerry! Really, he did good, all the girls were impressed with his quick
learning. He had fun too. He was tired of it by the end of the trip though, so he worked on his bid for the next job. We got tons of cool free stuff in our classes everyday. (We had to pay $25 more to bring our overweight luggage back home! It was worth it!) Our dinner mates were 3 ladies from Alaska who were on their annual scrapbook cruise together! We are lucky to have sat with them. We so enjoyed each dinner we spent with them. The food wasn't too bad either! *wink*When we landed in South Hampton, we discovered that the Mayflower had sailed from that harbor. Of course it looked a lot different then, but we read the plaques and went into a small museum.
We rented a car there. That was fun! Driving on the "wrong" side of the road. But Jerry had it down in no time, in fact, after a couple days, when we came to an intesection where there was not a round-about, we weren't quite sure what to do! ;) Driving through the countryside was our favorite part of the tr
ip. It was peaceful and so beautiful, as it is Spring there too. We went to a most amazing garden called Leonardslee, it was unbelievably beautiful, and we were a month early for the majority of the flowers! We also saw several castles, and cathedrals! It was amazing how old some of the stuff is. Some were nearly 1000 years old!! Crazy! It was all so beautiful! 
We finally ended up in London. We saw the London Bridge (which makes me start singing that song from childhood!), and ate Italian, Indian, and Thai (not at once). We also went to the zoo, and the Phanton of the Opera at the Theater. That was fun! We love that we can drink the water there and they have just about every amenity there as we do here in the US. That made the trip very relaxing.On our way home we stopped in New York City to visit the Twin Towers site. We had been there the week before it happen in 2001, and not since. The day we were there the clean up crews had just finished, and the construction was planning to start the next day. We could see a lot of damage from the buildings coming down, many of the nearby buildings are still not repaired. So much work to be done! It was quite sobering, but we are glad that we went.
When we returned home we found an email letting us know that our Dossier had been released from the Consulate's office in New York, and it was back in Kazakhstan already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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