London 12/31/18

Happy New Year!  The group went off by bus to Oxford and Windsor, but since Dave and I had been there before, we opted to stay here.  We went to the Museum of London, which is a museum that starts at prehistory and moves you from room to room until you get to modern times - a very interesting way to portray the city through time.

The top pic is of an ancient bison skull and some early stone points.

This next set is of Roman London (Londinium).  The last shot is of a piece of roman wall and column outside the museum.

Next is Renaissance London with a piece of sculpture of Neptune.  The bottom photo is of an early book made with wax pages so a stylus could engrave the words on it - very cool.

The great fire exhibit was very interesting.  It was amazing how fast and fierce the fire spread.  The bottom shot is of the first petrol powered taxi cab in London - it is in remarkably great shape.

We stopped in a pub for lunch.  I had a cheese toastie, but it was so enormous I ended up giving 3/4 of it away to young fellow who was sitting next to us with his friends.  He thanked me and said his "mum calls me her human dust bin".  We had a chuckle at that.

Those are Dave's fingers hovering over my sandwich.

We made our way back to the hotel by tube and I saw a great ad on the wall for furniture.

After Dave's nap, we took a walk down by the river.  I had intended to walk across, but the bridges were all blocked off so we walked along instead.  It was crazy busy.  Keep in mind that it was only 4 PM and there were already thousands of people lining up along the embankment to get in position for the fireworks that are not going off until midnight! 

I got a great shot of Big Ben with a lion from the bridge in the foreground.  Unfortunately, the tower is under construction so is covered in scaffolding.  Did you know that Big Ben is not the name of the tower or the clock, but of the bell?  It was made by the same company that made the Liberty Bell and it also cracked the first time is was struck.  It was repaired, but has a distinctive odd sound because of how it was repaired.  It has been silent for quite a while, but will peal out the new year tonight at midnight.  The next picture is one of the fireworks barges.  They are already set up in the river.  There were a number of buskers out and I caught a pic of one of them blowing giant bubbles to the delight of the children trying to catch and pop them. 

We made our was back and are now waiting for dinner, which doesn't start until 7:30 tonight.  Afterwards there will be a party in the hotel for the kids with pizza and soda.  Tomorrow is the day of the parade.  I am excited for the kids.  They will be #6 in line so we will see them early.

London 12/30/18

Today we took a lovely boat ride down the Thames to Greenwich.  We had a guide on the boat who explained a number of items of interest along the way.  I got a different photo of the London Eye.  We sailed under the Tower Bridge and passed by the old dock area where goods were brought in by ship from all over the world.  I took a picture of the Cutty Sark, a wool clipper that traveled from Australia in the 1850-60's.  This area was heavily bombed during WWII so while some of the docks are still there, many areas were turned into housing (about a 15 minutes commute to central London by light rail). 

We traveled at a more leisurely pace and arrive at Greenwich in 45 minutes.  While it was a cloudy day, it was not raining so we enjoyed the day.  We walked up the King's Steps - where royalty from other countries would walk up to some lovely homes to stay the night before traveling the next day to London.  We poked our heads into a lovely chapel which was featured in "Four Weddings and a Funeral". 

We then walked through a large park where the equestrian part of the 2012 Olympics was held and then continued up a long steep hill to reach the Royal Observatory.  This is the site of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian.  We stood with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one in the western to have our pictures taken. 

The museum was quite interesting and featured some of the first marine clocks and instruments of navigation. There was also a 24-hour clock that was quite interesting. 

 After touring the observatory we boarded coach busses to return to the Tower of London.  Dave and I split off from the group so that he could have a nap (we also have been to the Tower a couple of times on previous trips).  The Tower was the site of many imprisonments and beheadings, including two of Henry VIII's wives.  On our way to the tube station, we passed the ruins of a Roman gatehouse associated with the Roman wall which enclosed one square mile of the city. 

 When Dave was rested we took the tube to the British Museum to see the Sutton Hoo exhibit.  This was a 7th century burial hoard including a wonderful helmet.  There were many jeweled and gold items found in the hoard.  The amazing thing was that the burial place was in a room built on a ship and buried under a mound of earth.  By the time it was discovered in the late 1930's, the wooden ship was gone, but the imprint of it was found in the surrounding soil with the treasure scattered about under where the room was located.  Unfortunately, I left my camera in the room so did not get any pictures inside the museum.  We stopped for dinner on the way back and are now just chilling until time for bed.  Amy and family will come back to the hotel later and we will see them at breakfast tomorrow. 

London 12/29/18

We walked our little piggies off today.  After breakfast, we took the Harry Potter audio tour and visited Diagon Alley, the site of the Leaky Cauldron, the Ministry of Magic (along with a magic phone booth), and the Millennium Bridge, which in the movie was the one whipping up and down with the Death Eaters on it. 

On our walk, we had to walk through Trafalger Square where we saw some unusual crossing signs:

We then walked back to the hotel to pick up Alex who slept in this morning and went across the street to eat lunch in The Horse and Stables pub.  We dropped Dave off for a nap and the rest of us went on the Princes, Palaces and Power audio tour.  We walked over the Westminster Bridge where we had a great view of the Parliament Building.  The green awnings cover the tea house of the House of Commons and the red ones cover the tea house for the House of Lords and never the twain shall meet.  On the front of the building, there is a statue of Oliver Cromwell who was at one time buried in Westminster Abbey.  At some point he was disinterred and his head was put on a pole and affixed to the roof of the Parliament building and stayed there for 42 years! (Yuck!)

We walked across a green to get to our next stop and I just had to take a picture of the funky architecture on the building in front of us (note the placement of the windows - I assume there is a really large staircase on the other side:

We then walked over to Westminster Abbey.  Unfortunately, it was closed on Saturday afternoon, but we did learn that they have added a set of statues on martyrs over one of the doorways and one of them is Martin Luther King.  We then walked past the Churchill War Rooms.  The room was locked after WWII, but Margaret Thatcher opened it to the public in the 80's.  Apparently everything is in place just as he left it.  There was a huge long line outside to get in so we walked on.  We walked through St. James park on the Princess Diana Memorial Walkway and stopped to take pictures of the geese, ducks and swans swimming in the lake.

Our last stop was Buckingham Palace and then we walked back to the hotel to cool our heels for an hour before dinner.  Amy wears a step counter and we logged in almost 27,000 steps today.  The weather was cloudy and windy and in the low 50's so not a bad day at all.

London 12/28/18 (cont.)

We finally got into our rooms at 2:30.  Took an hour power nap and then hit the shower - that really made all the difference.  Dave manages to sleep on planes, but I was awake all night.  I watched The Book Club and Crazy Rich Asians - both funny in their own way.  We have just come back from a lovely walk.  We could see the London Eye (giant ferris wheel) all lit up in red along the river.  We stopped to buy a six pack of bottled water as the tap water here tastes of chemicals.  We will have dinner at 7 downstairs in the hotel and then will chill for a bit before going to bed.  The kids are going to unpack their instruments to make sure everything arrived safely - they were boxed up a week or so before we left and shipped over.  More tomorrow. 

London 12/28/18

It was a short night and a long day so far.  We got in at 6:15 AM London time (1:15 our time) and then had a long wait while we got almost 200 folks through passport control and customs.  We then had an hour bus ride to get to our hotel.  We are still waiting for our room key - hope it is soon as my eyes are falling out of my head.  We went for a walk a bit ago and had a small lunch.  Dinner is not until 7 tonight so hopefully we can get to our room and freshen up before then.  I hope to get pictures up tomorrow. 

Fancy Dinner

We got all gussied up and took the kids to Legal Seafood for our "fancy dinner".  We walked to the metro station and saw some lovely tulips on the way.  It was quite chilly and windy, but we walked fast. 

The kids looked adorable and were super well behaved (not that they aren't always so).  Nathaniel ordered fish-shaped ravioli, which came with a side of sauce, corn on the cob, and a side of grapes.  Zoe ordered popcorn shrimp with the same sides (except ketchup instead of sauce).  Dave had baked cod and I had baked stuffed shrimp - very yummy.  The kids magically had room for dessert - a brownie sundae for Zoe and three large scoops of blood orange sorbet.  It was still cold and windy when we came out of the restaurant, but there were no taxis around so we took the metro to Dupont Circle and caught a cab for the short ride back (Zoe was especially happy for the cab ride as she had bare legs).  Tomorrow we will re-pack our bags for our ride to the train station.  We will have lunch there and visit the U S Postal Museum.  We will be home tomorrow night.

Day 4 DC 4/19/18

A funny thing happened last night.  We looked up kid-friendly places to eat in DC and found a place called The Diner, which serves breakfast all day and sounded good.  It was too far to walk and there wasn't a convenient metro stop nearby so we took a cab.  As soon as we went inside, Zoe, Dave, and I recognized it as one of our favorites from the last time we were here!  Our B and B from last time was just around the corner.  We had a good meal and came back to the condo for showers before bedtime.

This morning it was raining and a bit on the cold side so we donned our sweatshirts and raincoats and walked our .8 of a mile to the metro stop.  We decided on the way, that city people have great opportunities for exercise.  We went to the Museum of American History first and had a great time looking at the exhibits.  We saw Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street and Bill Nye, the science guy's lab coat.

We went to a room called the Spark!Lab, where the kids made a tactile map for the blind and invented a device for transporting animals.  They enjoyed the creativity.

There was an old gramaphone in the hallway and Nathaniel got to wind it up.  I got to choose the record and I chose Caruso (a very early recording) as my father always had his music on the record player when I was growing up.  It brought back fond memories for me.

After we explored both wings of the first floor, we went to lunch in the cafeteria.  There was a Statue of Liberty made entirely of Legos as we entered - quite cool!

After lunch we went to the second floor.  There is an entire house here.  It was in Ipswich, MA - built in the 1760's.  The exhibit detailed five families that lived in the house over 200 years.  It started as a fashionable house for a fairly well-to-do family and a hundred years later with the advent of industry in the area, was converted to apartments for factory workers.  The kids enjoyed following the families through the years and were especially interested in the ration books and victory gardens during the war years.  We also viewed an exhibit called Many Voices, One Nation, which talked about the various immigrants that make up our country.  We ended up in the American Democracy Hall where the kids found the inkwell used by Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation (see photo).  This was one of their items on the scavenger list.

We went up to the third floor to see the Gunboat Philadelphia which sank in Lake Champlain during the Revolutionary War.  As we exited the museum we walked by some wonderful cherry trees in blossom so we all stopped to take pictures.  We walked by the Washington Monument (under renovation so you can't go in) and walked along the reflecting pool stopping to take a photo of the White House before visiting the Lincoln Memorial.  The kids stood on the spot where Martin Luther King gave his famous I have a dream speech and did a good job finishing their questions about the memorial.  

The wind had picked up after we left the History Museum and the walk to the Lincoln Memorial was pretty challenging - even Dave was staggered a bit by the buffeting.  We decided to take a cab back to the condo and take a short break before dressing up and going out to our "fancy dinner".  

Screaming hairy armadillo

I figured out how to get it on today rather than waiting for tomorrow.  He has a face only his mother could love.

Day 3 DC 4/18/18

Last night we went to dinner at Firefly.  The kid's meals weren't too imaginative, but they cool thing is that they brought a raw cookie and some sprinkles to the table and the kids decorated their own cookie which became their dessert.  As you can see, Nathaniel is a minimalist and Zoe goes whole hog.

This morning we went to the zoo.  I'm glad we got there early as it was a lovely day and it became very crowded later on in the day.  Our first stop was to see the pandas.  They were chomping away on their breakfast of bamboo shoots and other goodies.  We all agreed that they were very cute.  Zoe's hand is next to a mold of a baby panda - it is about the length of a stick of butter!

We wandered around and went into the small mammal building where Nathaniel found a screaming hairy armadillo (instead of curling up into a ball when it is threatened, it pushes hairs out through its armor and screams).  Dave's favorite was a reptile building and Zoe loved the Galapagos tortoises.

We saw a 40 year old female orangutan who was playing with a sheer window curtain - putting it on her head and then wrapping her whole body up in it.  We also visited the gorillas.  There was a new baby, but it was not in view while we were there.  The lemurs were very active - I love that their tails are longer than their bodies.

For some reason, the armadillo picture is being shy and doesn't want to post.  I will try to put it on tomorrow.  They kids had a great time - and even enjoyed their dipping dots to cool down as it was in the 60's this afternoon.  Nathaniel had rainbow and Zoe had panda dots.  The last photo is one of the very long escalator at the zoo metro stop - you can see the bottom is way down.