Away with us!

For me, London occupies an important part in my heart. Thanks (for a large part) to Nicole, we spent some great days there being tourists. This a was a few months before we got married, and, although it certainly wasn't a honeymoon (honeymoon's aren't spent sleeping on the floor of a friend's one-room flat), it was an important vacation.

It was our first big trip together. From giddily sitting in the Calgary airport to figuring out transit in London and Paris to just walking around together and sharing in the surprise of seeing new things, it was all so exciting and new and wonderful. During periods of vacation and travel on my own or with family, I was often beset by moments where I wished to share it with someone else--someone who might just hold my hand and feel the same amazement of the gardens of Versailles or the view from a mountaintop. That trip to London and Paris and Vimy was filled with those kinds of moments--each one reinforcing that we could easily spend the rest of our lives together.

We don't travel enough of it, but it has featured significantly into our lives together. Whether it's making a long distance relationship work between China and Canada at the height of the SARS crisis or taking a quick road trip to Seattle to watch a made-for-tv movie, travel has been a notable and wonderful part of our relationship.

Photo from the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. Shot by Nicole.

And so, we're quite excited to be planning another trip to London for later this spring. History, food, architecture, art... there's a lot we're looking forward to and we're finding that, even though we'll be there longer this time, we're going to had to make decisions on what things MUST be done and what things can wait until we return again.

We've taken out almost every London travel book from the library, but that's not making things any easier. I guess, as we get closer to the date, we'll be more motivated to make the tough decisions on a somewhat flexible itinerary.

So far, our plans include spending most of our time in London with a couple of day trips and a quick jaunt out of the country to return to Vimy Ridge via Paris. And now it looks like we might also do Amsterdam for a couple of days. This could become another whirlwind tour, but I think we can handle it.

I've made sure to work out more regularly so I can carry Natalie around as much as I can a la this photo from our first trip.

Even though we're doing a bunch of research on what we'd like to do for this trip, we'd welcome any suggestions from our readers. Any must-see, of overlooked, gems in London?

This is going to rock.