I was fortunately (unfortunately?) correct on the car - a short in the car alarm system (installed a number of years ago). Surprisingly it took 3 hours (diagnostic time + labor time) to remove a fairly simple alarm system. Total: $210. Ouch.
During our time in London I had some time to check out UK TV and show a children's show called BAMZOOKi that was pretty cool. Kids design virtual 'bugs' to use in virtual competitions similar to Robot Wars except all intangible. Then the competitions are shown on Saturday morning TV. Not sure the technology for display, perphaps blue screen?
Check it out BAMZOOKi and you can download the design and simulator kit.
Got in last night after missing my connection in Denver due to delays at MDW. Movers arrived and delivered yesterday without incident, other than a broken chair leg on my favorite chair (bummer).
Car was completely dead which left me stranded for a day or so...got it in to the shop now. Hopefully a quick fix. And I spent hours trying and successfully finding the registration papers that I failed to separate before the packers arrived on the Chicago side.
Dad arrives on Monday to start looking through the long list of things to work on...and I need to work on organizing the list a bit more. It's probably time to officially at the house to the project list. :)
Happily back in the US after nearly 6 weeks away. I must say that the simple things in life were the more suprising differences through out our Spain, France, UK trip. In the UK I saw three public water fountains in three and a half weeks, all in public museums in London. Bathrooms were similar...
The time in Scotland was probably my highlight, in part because it turned into a sort of pilgrimage since I was traveling alone and I took a few days to get up to Oban and then over to Iona and spent two nights on Iona. Absolutely incredible. The first evening was clear and sunny and great hiking weather and since it was just a few weeks after summer solstice the sun didn't set until after 10 PM. The abbey there is quite an experience and I met a woman from Sweden visiting her daughter who was spending her third summer on Iona with the Iona Community.
I'm hoping to catch up with snippets from the trip, fairly random at that. Final day in Chicago, heading to Seattle today. Ready to (finally) make the transition after a number of trips out there and now some great weeks of travel over.
Quick update from Oxford...we've completed the Spain (Sevilla, Madrid, Barcelona) and France (Carcassonne, Vaison-la-Romaine, Sur-la-Sorgue, Nice, Monaco, Paris) portions of the trip. We switched up some plans for the end of Nice, cut a day, to have part of a day in Paris. Then caught an over-nighter bus to London (painful as the ferry required waking up numerous times throughout the night) and then caught a bus out to Oxford. P has checked into her program that kicked off today. It's been cool to explore here and check out the campus/town of a school that was started in ~1250 A.D.
I'm planning on picking up a Brit Explorer 14 day bus pass and heading up to Edinburgh tomorrow, taking the next 14 days to travel around Scotland and Northern England.
In general it's been a great trip...definitely appreciate being back in English-speaking areas again. :)