Two Days in London

Well, leaving France was uneventful, and it is oh, so wonderful to be in the land of English speakers! In our last few days in France, we visited Versailles and Monet's garden in Giverney. Now we are in England! To be able to follow the signs, understand the conversations around you, to be able to ask questions without elaborate gestures! It feels almost surreal...



In Monet's garden

 We have gone from four back packs and three small bags to four back packs and two large duffel bags (with the small bags stuffed inside). Lugging these bags through metro stations and city streets requires a feat of supernatural strength! I actually got STUCK in a turnstile on Saturday! It caused quite a commotion - apparently there is a non-turnstile exit for folks lugging luggage! Good thing too, we have to use the Tube tomorrow to get to the airport!
Okay, so we arrived in London Saturday evening, had a dinner of fish and chips and headed back to the hotel to relax and watch some English game shows on tv. We were all exhausted, so it was a early night!
On Sunday we took a hop-on-hop-off double decker bus tour of the city (a river cruise was included!) We got to see so much more of London and Westminister than we would have just using the Tube, plus there was an audio tour that pointed out all the sights and important facts as we drove along.

Top deck of the double decker

Tower of London

We stopped at the Tower of London and took the Beefeater tour of the castle and heard some great stories about the unfortunate residents. (Bryanna will be sharing some in a later post). Then we saw the crown jewels. We had seen the Bayeux Tapestry in France, and the Tower of London was built by William the Conqueror 900 years ago when he decided he needed a castle to rule from. I love it when things get tied together like that for the kids (me too!).

Today we headed to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. This was the underground WWII headquarters of Churchill's war effort. There are 27 war rooms, including Churchill's room, the map room, and others, just as they were in 1945. An audio guide was included and explained each room in detail and included first-person accounts of what life was like during the war. It was fascinating!

We had to stand in line to take this picture! Lot's of tourist in town today! 

On the Millenium bridge

Pirate ship!

Millenium Bridge, St. Peter's and the Thames, oh, and the kids

The real surprise though, was the Churchill Museum. It followed his life, was very interactive and had many original artifacts. It was probably the best museum we have seen on this entire trip - and we have seen alot in the last 5 weeks! And again, tying in everything we saw and learned while in Normandy was wonderful.
We had lunch, then headed to the Globe theatre. We had to walk over the Millennium Bridge, spotted St. Peter's Cathedral in the skyline and got another view of the river Thames. Bryanna took the tour while Elijah, Day and I wandered along the river front, took some pictures in front of a replica Golden Hinde, Sir Francis Drake's 16th century pirate ship and treated ourselves to ice cream.
Tonight we are all giddy about the thought that this time tomorrow we will be home in the USA! Just the thought brings tears to my eyes! It has been an amazing 5 weeks, but we have all been missing Bryan horribly! And my mom, our house, and our critters and of course, all of our friends! Oh, but keep coming back to the blog! We all have more we want to post and more pictures of some of the oddities we have seen along the way through 6 countries!