Back in black!

Wow! Finally home. I feel like I've been gone for about a month.
Oh how I missed America. It was a great trip and loads of fun, but there's nothing like this country.

Some misconceptions about Britain/Ireland (if anyone reading this lives in the aforementioned area, please skip ahead):

1) "British people are fashionable" - False. They dress just as poorly as we do. They aren't over there wearing the latest and greatest fashions. They're wearing exactly what we are: tshirts, jeans, sneakers; leggings with skirts; gladiator sandals; oversized handbags; oversized sunglasses; skinny jeans. It's all the same.

2) "They have so many more drink options over there" - False. In fact, I believe it to be worse than America. You go into a restaurant over there and they have maybe three different types of beer. And the wine is either red or white. You get what they happen to have available. I guess if you really want a good drink selection, you've got to go to Germany or something. But England, Scotland, even Ireland doesn't have much variety. Don't even get me started on the Guinness...

3) Other random thoughts: There's no English muffins whatsoever. They really like paninis over there. Water is pretty hard to come by. Their bottled water tastes very strange - has lots of minerals that we aren't used to drinking. Ice is even harder to come by. If you're lucky, you'll get two cubes in your Coke. Also, Coke and Dr. Pepper there are made with real sugar which tastes okay but only for awhile. Candy (chocolate especially) isn't good either. Hardly anyone in London speaks English (you hear lots of other languages... it truly is a melting pot of nationalities. More so than even NYC, I think.). I felt like I was living in a mirrored world having to be on the left side of the street/sidewalk.

Okay, I'm not a total Debbie Downer... I did have lots of fun and saw some pretty cool things! Castles, cathedrals, gardens... oh my!


Let's stick to rock and roll though.

In London, we ate at Bill Wyman's Sticky Fingers restaurant. Yum-o! For that type of place, you'd expect the food to be just average. It was actually really good! Lots of cool memorabilia too.

Went to Madame Tussauds - waited an hour and 15 minutes to get in, but it was so worth it. It's kind of creepy how lifelike they all looked! You can touch them/take pictures with them all you want.

Some peeps you may recognize...










At the Dominion Theatre, they're doing a Queen musical (we opted for Wicked instead, which was awesome!)...


Went on a Beatles walking tour of London which was really interesting. For them not actually having their start in London, there sure is quite a bit of history there regarding them.
Paul McCartney's offices in Soho:


Trident Sound Studios, where they recorded "Hey Jude":


Other famous recordings done at Trident:


The crosswalk:


Abbey Road Studios:




It was a fast paced but fun vacation - now I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation! Back to real life and the mountain of laundry is calling my name...
I've decided not to do a review on the .38 Special/REO Speedwagon/Styx concert from a couple weeks ago. It was really good and that's all anyone really cares about anyways. (If you want to see a couple short clips from that concert, check out my Youtube videos here.) However, tomorrow night is Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, so expect a full review on that! Very excited :)

I'm behind on all your blogs so I'll need to catch up in the next couple of days. Glad to be back, guys!