I like London; It's Marvelous!

Yesterday I spent the day in London with Gwen and Emily. We had a great time! We started by riding the train to Paddington Station. We had to buy our tickets from a real live person, as opposed to the ticket machine, because the machines weren't reading our credit cards. But it turned out well, even though we had to wait in line for a bit. We ended up getting the "family rate" which was 2 adults and 1 child. Gwen's and my tickets were each £16.40, but Emily's was only £1! How cool is that? We got Travelcards, which were also good on the London tube.

After tickets, we got hot drinks at a coffee shop before getting on the train. We also got a chocolate roll thing that was like a pain au chocolat (croissant with chocolate) but much better. We had to wait about 15 minutes for our train, which doesn't sound bad, but it was 31 degrees F and VERY chilly. We kept making Emily stand where the sun would shine on her.

On the train, we sat by an older man (maybe in his 60s) named Malcolm. As we chatted with him, we learned that he used to be a jockey. We also learned that he was going to New Zealand in a month's time for 5 weeks to visit his brother. It was a nice chat.

At Paddington Station, Gwen got a picture of Emily with Paddington, then we looked at the Paddington souvenir stuff, made a pit stop at the pay restroom (20p each), then got on the tube to Baker Street to hop a tour bus.

At Baker Street we had to wait a bit for a bus, so Gwen and Emily popped into a souvenir shop, but had to abandon their prospective purchases because a bus arrived. At first there wasn't room for us to ride up top because it was so crowded, but after the Picadilly Circus stop there was room for us to move up. It was chilly up there, too!

We got off at St. Paul's Cathedral to see if there was really a "feed-the-birds-tuppence-a-bag lady" there. Like in Mary Poppins. While we didn't see her, we did see a couple of interesting things: 1 - preparations for filming for a movie called "Run, Fat Boy, Run" (your guess is as good as mine on this one) and 2 - a man ringing a bell on the steps of the cathedral then running across the street. Again, your guess is as good as mine.

After we looked around back at the cathedral, we walked a couple of blocks to the west to a little place called Bow Lane. Not very significant to anyone, except that my ancestor Simon Hammond lived there in the late 1500s. He lived near St. Mary le Bow church. I got pictures of both! How cool is that?This is the southern end of Bow Lane. You can see the church steeple through the trees.

St. Mary le Bow.

I think the only thing left from the time of Simon is the cobblestone street itself. There was a huge fire in 1666 that pretty much wiped out all of the thatch and timber homes.

After this we walked back to St. Paul's and I had to use a public pay potty. It was weird.

I think the pictures speak for themselves.


We got back on the bus and went to the Tower of London. Ate at KFC, decided not to listen to the Yeoman Warder (Beefeater) on the guided tour, and went straight to the shops then the Crown Jewels. After the Crown Jewels, we got back on a bus and headed back to town.

Uuummmm....I'm trying to play checkers with Caleb and write at the same time. He's beating me.

Got off the tour bus beside the Thames, then hopped a tube over to Westminster. As we emerged from the tube, we were greeted by Big Ben - huge and imposing. We walked over to Westminster Abbey and got pictures of St. Margaret's Church. This is where Mr. Simon got married.

Then on the bus again. We were hoping to go past Buckingham, but ended up only going past the side. Bummer. After this, we hopped off, got on the tube and rode over to Trafalger Square to have tea in the Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. We had tea on dead people, as Emily put it. Each of us had a scone as big as a fist with clotted cream and jam, a slice of chocolate cake, and a slice of madiera cherry and almond cake. All in all, very tasty.

By this time it's 6.30 and PITCH DARK. It started getting dark at 4.00. Sundown this weekend was at 4.18, I believe. Yikes. We still have a month of darkness!

After tea, we hopped another tube to the London Eye and took a ride on it. It's cool at night. Plus it was a clear night, so we really got to see a lot of lights. The other 5 people in the capsule with us were from the U.S. It was 2 college students (originally from San Francisco, but Hoosiers now, and one is studying in France) and a family from Virginia. The dad is British, but has lived in the States for 7 years. The son, Alan, was 5 yesterday. Imagine Audrey times 2. Not Little Miss Axe Murderer mode, but energetic mode. That was Alan. VERY full of life.

Off the eye, into a souvenir shop.

Out of the shop several £s later and on the tube to Buckingham. The problem with taking a tube to Buckingham Palace is that there's not really a tube station near the palace. There are 3 that are equidistant - Victoria Station, St. James' Park, and Green Park. We chose Green Park. We should have chosen Victoria Station. I'll use some adjectives to describe the walk from the tube station to the palace: dark, deserted, lonely. One more adjective describes a 5-minute segment of our walk that doesn't describe the other 15 minutes: scary. We had to take a little jaunt through the edge of St. James' Park and it was dark, lonely, deserted AND scary. We walked FAST and Emily asked if we could walk even faster. Gwen and I both said later that we were holding our bags in such a way as to weild them as weapons if needed.

Buckingham. 9.30 p.m. Dark. I was so tired by this point. Gwen and Emily were, too. They got a couple more pictures, then we decided that we would hail a taxi.

Sweet relief.

Taxi back to Paddington.  £10. Worth it. McDonald's for late dinner. £2.99. Mostly worth it. Bus home at 10 p.m. We were so tired. It was nice to see Steve waiting for us at the train station.

But then...Steve had a good movie on the telley ("Return of the King") and it was up to the point where Frodo loses his finger. If you're *that* close to the end, you might as well finish it, yeah?

I got to bed at 11.45. Not 2 hours later, Audrey wet the floor in the bathroom (we're not sure how it happened) and woke us, then Caleb came in and woke us after a bad dream, and Julie felt the need to feed, so we didn't sleep all that well.

Caleb is at home again today. He still has the squirts. I'm really going to concentrate on getting him medicated today and filled with binding food.

The mail just came and the 2 big kids each got a letter. Caleb opened his and we read a letter from Nana. Audrey's is waiting for her to get home from school in a bit.

I need a shower.