Europe Part 2: London

Note: We took over 1,000 photos, so I'm posting but a small few...if you want to see something specific, let me know. 

Day 4-July 1. We took an Aerlingus flight to London Glaswick today. After getting bags and an hour long taxi into downtown, we were able to check into the hotel and then go wander to find some lunch. We are staying right near the London Eye and Westminster Bridge. Part of the parliament building and all of Big Ben are unfortunately covered in scaffolding for refurbishment right now so not as good a sight as it would normally be, but oh well. I know they have to do maintenance on these old icons sometime or other to keep them standing. We went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, and then since Jack was patient while we did that, we took him to the Lego store and M&M world. The Lego store had some fun builds and maps that were London specific and Jack also bought a small model of a double decker bus since we told him he could only buy something he couldn’t get at home. Then 4 floors of M&M candies and merchandise was also quite the sight. We had dinner in a traditional English pub, where we each had a Sunday roast, mine pork and Mike’s beef, and Jack had fish and chips (again!). I think he's planning to live on french fries while we travel. 

Day 5-July 2. Today, we spent the day around Westminster. We started by touring Westminster Abbey. Or, I should say we started by waiting in line to tour the Abbey. It took about an hour to get in, but it was worth it. The architecture is remarkable, and so much history too. Seeing the graves of all these past kings and queens as well as famous people is pretty amazing. And, it’s so impressive and mind boggling to me to see the layers of history, with parts of the building dating in the 1060s for example, but remodeled in 1800, with one burial added in 1500, another in 1700s and a 3rd added in early 1900s to commemorate WWI, all in the same area. If I’d had the time, I could have spent a full day here, but we had a late lunch and then moved on. They don't allow photography inside, so all I can show you is the outside of the building. 

Then, we walked through Saint James park, and went to see Buckingham Palace. Here, we toured the Royal Mews (stables) and saw all the fancy coaches used by the current Queen and past Kings and Queens. We also visited the Queens gallery, where we saw some of their Indian artifacts collection. 

After this, we headed back to the hotel to get dressed and went to dinner at the Savoy grill, one of Gordon Ramsey’s restaurants. The food was good, including beef Wellington for Mike and halibut for me, as well as lobster bisque, and crepes Suzette. Jack also liked dinner but was disappointed that Gordon Ramsey wasn’t there so he could tell him, “I watch your show.” 

The Park Plaza Westminster where we are staying is a huge, modern hotel near the Thames. It’s got nice rooms, and it’s quiet (much better sleep!) but we’ve been doing a lot of walking as the location isn’t the best. Next time, we’d want to stay in a different area. We are finding that London is big!

Day 6-July 3. Today, we took a bus to Tower of London and spent the morning exploring here. It was much larger than we expected. I think we all expected to see just a tower, but it's more like a whole castle complex. It's been very neat to see all the old buildings, prisoner initials carved in the walls (including this picture of Henry Walpole, a famous person whose name I recognized from my history classes), old fortifications, and even some former Crown Jewels. We didn’t wait in the line to see the current Crown Jewels, which are housed here, as it was several hours long. We had lunch and some ice cream and then headed out. 

We walked across the Tower bridge, which had a lot of stairs to get to the top but it was cool to go through. Jackson and I checked out the glass bottomed walkway while Mike went around it. We also saw the Engine rooms that control the bridge. 

Then we walked down to the HMS Belfast, and toured this old warship, which was one of Jackson’s favorite things of the day. After this, we went to the Tate modern, but didn’t last too long before deciding that we just weren’t fans of modern art. We went by the globe theater but unfortunately couldn’t go in because it was closed. 

We had an early dinner in a little market, a paella that looked amazing but didn’t taste good at all, and then took a taxi back to our hotel to get dressed. Then, we went to see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theater, on the Strand. It was very well done and fun to see. I loved the costumes and masks as well as the puppets, and the orchestra was good too. It was a good show for Jack with lots of humor and fun as well as a story he’s familiar with. He said he liked it quite a bit, but “likes the movie better.” As a kid, he doesn’t quite get the full appreciation of what it means to be a live performance!

Day 7-July 4. Based on a little oops where we missed booking a hotel for one night, I had to scramble when we arrive in London to book a room for tonight. I found one, although quite expensive, so this morning we had to switch hotels. The room was quite impressive, with full views of the London Eye and Parliament, and the hotel had great activities for kids as well.

We dropped our bags off and the took a bus to the zoo. The London Zoo was truthfully a bit disappointing. First, it was nearly a mile walk from the bus stop and then it was rather old fashioned and not very big. We had Jack pick a few of his favorite animals to view, and then moved on pretty quickly. 

We took a taxi to the British Museum, had some lunch, and then spent most of the afternoon exploring the amazing collection here. They have quite the ancient Egyptian collection with many mummies and tombs as well as writings and the Rosetta Stone! They also have quite a bit of ancient Roman artifacts as well, including from the Parthenon. 

We had dinner near our hotel, Greek food this evening, and very tasty, and then headed back to the hotel early owing to Jackson’s distress over a very "wiggly tooth." It's been bothering him for two days, but he won't let us touch it either. He finally lost said tooth at the hotel about 8pm, when he finally consented to let daddy pull it out because it was literally hanging by a single connection. He was quite excited to lose his first tooth, “in another country” and pleased the next morning that the tooth fairy “knew he was from the U.S.” and left him “ America money.” That tooth fairy is a smart one! But seriously, his first lost tooth has been a long time coming; most kids lose one before well into 7.  He has another wiggly tooth next to this one as well.

Jackson has been very interested in the different kinds of money, first Euros and now British pounds. He’s also interested in the languages and can’t wait to get to France where they speak a different language. It was weird today having no recognition of the holiday. I thought of it a couple times, but no one mentioned it anywhere. Happy 4th of July!