Day 10

The weather here is similar to Seattle in the spring. Today began as a beautiful sunny day .. mid-day we had a quick thunder and rain storm .. then it became beautiful again. We decided against a formal bus tour and took the regular bus (which is a double decker and very exciting to the kids -- Jack screams 'It's a double decker!' every time he sees one) to the Victoria station then the tube to the Tower of London. What an amazing place. It's 1000 years old. Monarchs lived there for hundreds of years. Anne Boleyn and soon-to-be Queen Elizabeth were imprisoned there (along with many, many others). Unfortunately the line to tour the tower was too long for small kids. We opted to return next week when kids here return to school.

I found this image on google.. better than anything I took.

Since the tower bridge and HMS Belfast (an old battleship) are within walking distance, we went to both. The tower bridge was built in the late 19th century, as were many cool London landmarks.. the age of Victoria was big here. It occurred to me that in 1894 while this majestic bridge was under construction Seattle was a tiny logging town without many buildings since most of the city had burnt down in 1889.

Sadly, the Belfast was closed for repairs so we jumped onto a Thames river cruise and then walked over to Trafalgar Square. The square was built in the mid 19th century (era of Victoria). We hung out for a while and watched a riveting street performer. First he juggled knives. Then he swallowed a very long balloon (inflated.. I was never clear on why he did that particular trick). He also tied himself into a straight jacket and had someone in the crowd tie chains around him and put padlocks on the chains. He, then, escaped from the chains and straight jacket in under 3 minutes. Quite impressive.

Knowing that event could not be topped, we headed home.
While Ryan watched the kids I visited a very large and fancy shopping mall that is about a 10 minute walk from Kate's house. I wanted to visit the European versions of Old Navy. I found some great clothes for the kids but not much for me. The mall had a lot of amazing food.. Here it seems everything is organic or free range or advertised to be untainted by chemicals. Kate told me citizens of the UK lobbied large companies such as Kraft to remove all food dyes from their products. They were successful. So in the UK their processed food is free of those chemicals but the same food in the US is full of them. Lovely.

I am not sure if I have written that we are staying at Kate and Stephen's home. It is a 1000 sq foot, 3 story home in the Notting Hill/ Holland Park neighborhood. I am surprised by how comfortable we are. We have the top floor which is just one open room. All 4 of us sleep there. The second floor has three small bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The first floor is the kitchen, dining and playing area. 4 adults and 5 kids. We are grateful to be here for so many reasons. I find that hanging out with another adult who has kids the same age as mine just makes life more fun for everyone.