London, Baby!

Monday 23 June 2014

For the uninitiated, the title is from Friends (Joey when they went to London for Ross and Emily's wedding).  But, I digress!

We woke up very early (5:30) for our early flight from Dublin to London.  We were on a small airplane--in fact, we had to walk out on the tarmac and climb up/down the steps to get on and off the plane.  It was only about 17 rows, 3 seats on each side of one aisle.  We landed at London's city airport which is very nice, more human-sized than the others.  We got on the DLT--Docklands Light Rail to connect with the tube to our station--Elephant and Castle.  Much nicer than the long rail line from Heathrow.  We are south of the Thames.  From our tube station, we crossed the street, figured out the door and rang up to the apartment we were renting.  The owners were there, turning over the apartment, but they showed us around, asked us to just dump our bags in the front closet and said they'd go to the coffee shop to give us time to "freshen up."  Which in our case meant to change from warm clothes (for me:  denim capris, hiking boots, and wool socks) to cooler clothes (aaaahhh--a skirt and sandals).  Then we departed with cameras and credit cards to get more poundage (we had some from Northern Ireland).  Then we did textbook London 101.  We walked to the Thames, stopping along the way to pick up sandwiches at a Spar.  We ate them by the Thames, then took photos of the Houses of Parliament.  We have some experience in London, the children have been once, Randy has been twice, and I've been three times before this.  But on our family trip to England, Joshua was only 4, so this is like his first time.  He is so excited to see things he has dreamed of seeing!!  Yelling and pointing as we walked!  :)  It was fun to see his excitement.  Of course, he had trivia/facts to share about everything!  ;)  From there we walked to Westminster Cathedral, but after seeing that the family ticket only covers 2 adults and one child (additional children are extra), we realized that going as a family would cost over $100, which is a lot when all but one of us has already seen it!  We are toying with the idea of taking Joshua to Wednesday night's evensong service so that he can see the inside (no charge for worship).  And who's going to begrudge an 11-year old taking a few photos after a religious service?

Buxton Memorial to mark the end of Slavery in England

If you look closely, you can see the tiny mosaics

Victoria tower which was designed for Parliamentary archives
after the Great Fire.

Victoria Tower

House of Lords

chapel

Westminster Cathedral

so excited!

Westminster Abbey

Houses of Parliament and the London Eye--contrast of old and new

We walked through a gate to the Dean's yard which is a green space for the Westminster school behind it.  It is a boarding and day school for boys and girls in the 6th form and up (no idea what that means!).  Must be a secondary school (after the primary school).  We saw some of the students in their uniforms:  blazers, ties, skirts, etc.  There were younger students in the yard engaged with older students working on scavenger hunts in costume and sword fighting.  Like most other students, they are in school until the middle of July.

Then we decided to walk back to the apartment and have a nap.  Our apartment is rather strange.  It is on the 4th floor and you enter into the living room/dining room with kitchen through a doorway.  Then down half a flight of stairs to a loo and bathroom (tub/shower and sink) off the hallway leading to the back of the building, down another half a flight to the two bedrooms.  No air conditioning, the living room is much warmer than the bedrooms.  But a washing machine and dishwasher.

Randy went to Tesco's to get groceries before coming back to take his nap.  We then had dinner and had planned to walk to the Tower Bridge when we finished, but it started to rain, so we stayed in and played cards instead and planned how we want to spend our next two days.  We plugged  an iPod in to the stereo and listened and sang to music while playing cards and now while we catch up on blogging, emails, etc.