Alice Cooper in London

This year Alice Cooper brought his huge "Theater of Death" tour to London for two Halloween shows. The 62 year old rocker is very popular here in London and has played many shows here over the years. I dug up this recent Halloween picture of Julie and I and it's easy to see that he's got nothing on me.

The Old Red Lion

This Pub on the west side of London is one of the oldest in the city, as you can see on the sign. My friend Paul and I had a great lunch here a few days ago. This might be a surprise to everyone, but I've always tried to avoid these places that serve booze. I only go into English Pubs to see how the food tastes. I've got absolutely no interest in the ice cold pint of lager that they serve with meals. I only take an occasional drink to chase down either good or bad tasting food, and whenever I'm thirsty.

Air Head

What a beautiful morning here in London looking out of our flat. It reminds us of the Arizona mornings we saw every day, 3 years ago. "Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning". It's true because by 3 PM it was raining, blowing, and darn cold. Look what I found on the street today, An empty head! You always gotta have a camera ready if you're a blogger like me. I tried it on but it wasn't my size. Isn't it odd that the biggest heads in the world are always the emptiest. It might be a real air head!

Hard Rock Cafe, London

London's Hard Rock Cafe is the one that started it all. Just listen to me and get the real facts! The very first Hard Rock Cafe was opened here June 14, 1971 on Old Park Lane, close to the Green Park tube station. There are now over 150 of these cafes worldwide. The London cafe has some of the best American cuisine and also has one of the most valued collection of Rock 'n' Roll memorabilia in the world. Today I visited the cafe and got into the basement "Vault" where the memorabilia is locked up. This was sure fun for an ol rock fan like me, and a great place to take my guests when we tour London.

Arizona friends

After spending last week in Italy, 2 of our great US friends came back to London with us. Julie went back to work and I spent the week with Paul and Mary touring the city. We had great weather for this time of year in England with mostly sunny but cold days. Here are pictures of us in our flat, in the sub-zero London Ice bar, and Paul and Mary at Westminster Abey. We visited Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Greenwich village, the Churchill museum and war rooms, and I can't remember what else during the week. If you ever come to London and get a tour guide, you'll have second best if you don't have me. I'm getting real good as a city guide here.

Italy freeways

You never know what you might see on the road, so always have someone ready with a camera. We were usually driving in heavy traffic on these freeways. I wished I was able to translate some of these Italian words especially the one on this tour bus. How do you like this shot of this dude driving at highway speeds reading a newspaper. He did have his seat belt on so I'm sure he felt safe. This idiot should have his license taken away and be put on that tour bus with the funny name on it. Click on the pics and get the big view.

Pisa, Italy

We took a day and visited the historic city of Pisa. This Tuscany city of 87,000 is full of 12 th century churches. It is best known for the Bell Tower of the city's cathedral, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tower was built in 1173 on a poor foundation. It weighs 16,000 tons so engineers have done a lot of work to stop the settling. I couldn't resist a photo of this public toilet in Pisa. With the commode flat on the floor, I had to assume that the roll of paper on the wall and the brush were there to clean your shoes when they got splashed on. I got no idea what the women did in there.

Citroen Van

Here is the car I rented for our Italy holiday. This is a diesel 9 passenger Citroen Jumpy van with a 6 speed manual transmission. We needed all the room it had with 6 adults and luggage. Bruce and I picked this up in Rome. The van came with insurance but with a 3,000 euro deductable. Oh but don't worry we could put insurance on the deductable for only 9 euros a day, which we did. It was the smart move because Bruce, the first driver and made it 3 turns in the rental garage before hitting a cement post. I was then given the driving job for remainder of the week. The van was a great rig, easy to drive, and served us well as we traveled about 1000 miles during the week.

San Filippo Wine

We drove about 1 hour south of Florence Italy to the town of Siena. Here we were a little unlucky with the weather and got caught in the rain. Still we walked the Tuscany village of Siena to the city center and had lunch. From there found the San Filippo winery, thanks to the GPS on Julie's I-Pad. The winemaker here was very proud of his wine and made sure that we knew they only made wine from there own grapes. As usual, we tasted the wonderful Brunello wine until they quit pouring before we started buying. Since I was the driver and we were 2 hours from home, I was a good boy and let everyone else have all the fun. So there we were, 6 American winos in the Tuscany vineyards of Italy....Life is Goooooood!

Tuscany, Italy

Tuscany is a 9,000 sq. mile area in central Italy with a population of 3.6 million. The capital is Florence and the region is most famous for its wines, and that's why we were there. For a week we shared a beautiful mountain villa with two couples from the US who are great friends. We all met in Rome last Friday, rented a van and drove 4 hours north to our villa. The villa, shown here had 2 bedrooms, a sleeping loft, a pool and a casita. In fine Italian fashion it came complete with a fireplace, barbecue pit and a pizza oven.

2010 Ryder Cup

This morning I got up at 4:30 am to start my journey to this years Ryder Cup. The trip from London was 2 underground tube rides, a 2 hour train ride, and a bus ride. I arrived at 8:30 am at The Celtic Manor Golf Resort in the South Wales city of Newport. As usual all phones and cameras were incarcerated at the front gate so I couldn't get a picture of me with the US team. It was a right fine miserable, rainy, and windy day. My feet were soaked in 3 minutes upon arriving and play was suspended 30 minutes later. So I only saw about 20 minutes of golf in the rain. Such is normal weather in Wales this time of year. I bought a pair of socks and found 2 small plastic bags to put over my feet, then put my wet shoes on. My feet stayed dry the rest of the day (Good idea). After 5 hours of waiting in the wind and rain, I headed back home to London and then watched the golf on TV as play resumed at about 5:00 pm. These disappointments will happen in life but maybe my little pep talk with our team just might make the difference in the final outcome. It warmed my heart to see such a huge turn-out of American fans here today. Go USA!