Weekend in London

On April 2-4, Benjamin and I went to London for the weekend. I had recently bought Benjamin tickets to see Star Wars in Concert. The concert was amazing, and that should speak a lot about it coming from someone who doesn't really know much about Star Wars. The Royal London Orchestra played the music and scenes from the movies where played on a big screen.

   

We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, an art and design museum.

We also went to the Britain at War Experience, which showed what life was like during the World War II with lots of information on air raids.

On the last day in London, we took a tour on the HMS Belfast, a vessel used in WWII.

Star Wars

This weekend, we finally get to use Benjamin's Christmas present! We are going to see Star Wars in Concert at the O2 in London!

London in December

On Friday, I saw Regina Spektor live in concert!! She was amazing!

I also went to see Grease! It was good, not the best show I've seen but good. It just didn't live up to the movie, and they changed a lot of the iconic dances (hand jive was changed, greased lightening hand moves also changed). I didn't really like the Danny character either. Other than that though it was another great West End show!

London weekend

We went to London again! We are really starting to enjoy the city. We decided we would go to the British Museum, London Aquarium, and try to see a West End show. On Saturday, we got up early and headed to the The Cornish Bakehouse, Benjamin's favorite place to eat in London. They have delicious pasties (not pastries).

We then headed off to the British Museum, which was free by the way. This is the oldest public museum in the world, established in 1753!

Some of the highlights of the museum were:
Rosetta Stone

Easter Island statue:

Sutton Hoo Treasure, preserved 7th century ship burial:

We also got to see the Parthenon Sculptures, Egyptain mummies (of both humans, Cleopatra included, and animals!), Lindow man, whose skin is 2,000 years old! This was the best museum I've seen in a while.

The West End show that we decided on was Blood Brothers. It was about a mother who had two twins, but couldn't afford to keep both of them. Her boss wants a baby and convinces the mother to give one of her twins to her. One boy is raised in poverty and the other in the upper class. The boys become friends and eventually fall in love with the same girl.

On Sunday, we went to the London Aquarium! We saw everything from sea horses to upside down jelly fish to sharks! It was fun but quite pricey, for two hours of entertainment!

Here I am at the entrance to the "Shark Walk"

You have to walk over a glass insert, with sharks beneath you. Here's Ben checking it out:

Disclaimer for anyone who wants to visit England: October, you would think, is considered to be off season for tourists, right? NO! Here is a picture of just how crowded it was:

This is right beside the Thames, to the right, and Westminster Bridge, straight ahead. It's packed!!!!! We aren't quite sure when the tourist season dies down, but it's NOT in October!

Hampton Court Palace

Benjamin and I went to Hampton Court Palace on Saturday. HCP is owned by Henry the VIII. It is only one of two surviving palaces, out of many, owned by Henry the VIII. It was built for Cardinal Wolsey, a favorite of the king. As Wolsey fell from favor, the palace was given to William III. He wanted to tear the palace down and build it differently. William III did not get very far when the lead architect died. This left the palace with two very distinct contrasting styles, domestic Tutor and Baroque. 

The first thing we did when we got to HCP was get a scone!! Yum! I think we are addicted! I want to find a recipe on how to make scones so I can make them when we go back to the states.

We successfully completed the Hampton Court Maze, planted sometime during the 1690's. The maze covers a third of an acre and contains half a mile of paths. Here we are in the centre of the maze.

We also got to see the Hampton Court kitchen. It was said to have been ready to feed several thousands of people at anytime. The kitchen consisted of several rooms for preparation and cooking food. 

Beautiful, elaborate clock 

Here is Benjamin in front of HCP. It was such a beautiful day in London.

Beautiful gardens we couldn't go in, still got to snap a picture.

Of course we ran into Henry the VIII and Cardinal Wolsey. We just had to get a photo!

Check location

Last weekend, I purchased tickets to go to Hampton Court Palace in London. We didn't really look at where HCP was until we got to London last weekend. Turns out, it is nowhere near any of the Underground stops. We decided not to go and luckily the tickets are good for one week of the purchase date. We are going to go tomorrow and just drive there. In our London book, this is one of the top ten things to do in London. Other than that, no big plans for this weekend.

London

Update time!

We had a three day weekend, for the third week in a row! Benjamin and I decided to go to London. This was our second time going to London since we've been in the UK. Our friend Jordan who we met at tech school in Texas was always going to be in London so it just made since to go! This time we did not take the train. We drove to Epping, which is about 1.5 hours away. Epping is one of the first stops for the Underground. A short ride to the right stop and we were on our way to the hotel.

Benjamin wanted to go to the Imperial War Museum. It was very interesting and I learned a lot of things, especially about WWI and II. Benjamin was very happy in his element. We spent most of the day at the museum. We ate at the cafe inside the museum and had scones! Scones are perfectly amazing. Fruity type biscuits with clotted cream in the middle with jam :) Lovely!

We checked out the cheap(er) tickets for West End shows. They have ticket offices which sell West End tickets for less on the day of the show. With a little coaxing from myself and Jordan, Benjamin gave in and bought us tickets for Wicked! The tickets were 37 pounds a piece, so about 60 dollars. Not too bad, considering the cheap tickets in New York were closer to 150 dollars. Wicked was amazing!!!!!!!!

Playing around before the show begins!

Getting ready to go inside!

While waiting for the show to start, Benjamin and I went into a book store. We found some books to help you study to become a British citizen. This picture is my favorite from the whole trip. Benjamin is looking at the British Citizenship Test and Obama is looking on thinking, "NOOO...Don't do it......"

The next day we visited the Queen's Gallery, the Royal Mews, State rooms, and Buckingham Palace. The Queen's Gallery is a permanent space dedicated to changing exhibitions of items from the Royal Collection, the wide-ranging collection of art and treasures held in trust by The Queen for the Nation. We saw french porcelain, famous works of art, armor, furniture, and jewelry. We could not take pictures in the Queen's Gallery. The Royal Mews is the stable of the British royal family. It houses the State vehicles, both horse drawn carriages and motor cars, used for coronations, State Visits, royal weddings, the State opening of Parliament and official engagements. We also saw some royal horses!

The State Rooms had an exhibition of dresses, jewels, photographs and gifts presented to the Queen by people of the Commonwealth. The exhibition represents six regions of the Commonwealth: Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, The Caribbean and Central America, Asia (including India), Island Peoples and Pacific Realms. The dresses she wore were absolutely stunning! . The exhibit I mentioned above was my favorite part. The rest of the State Rooms were breathtakingly beautiful and lavishly furnished. It was definitely fit for a queen :) We couldn't take pictures in the State Rooms. We also got to see the changing the guard. It was a pretty awesome experience. There were people everywhere so it was hard to see at times. We are going to go back in the winter, when there won't be as many visitors!

Here is Benjamin in front of Buckingham Palace.

Beautiful isn't it? This is Buckingham Palace!

We met Jordan for some Lebanese food and a cute little place. After dinner and dessert, we headed back to Epping and then drove home! What a great weekend.

In other news, Benjamin started gradate school on Monday at Norwich University. How exciting! I should be starting in January as long as they get the Miller's Analogy Test up and running on RAF Mildenhall!

Summer Vacation Part 5

Day 7  Wednesday 15 Jul

One of the things on our do to list was to see St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The cathedral was closed on Sunday so that day we got up early and drove from Stratford-upon-Avon back to London.   

After St. Paul's Cathedral, we headed back to home sweet home. I had to go to work on Thursday and Friday and we all had to prepare for our quick stay in Paris for the weekend! Check back later to hear about France!

Here are some more pictures from our London/Stratford-upon-Avon/Bath/Stonehenge trip :)

Us in front of the hotel:

This was a weird street performer in London. Benjamin did not like him at all and will probably say something about me putting this picture on here. However, look at this:

I finally got my picture with this sign. Benjamin says, "Shouldn't you be underground?" Thanks babe!

Summer Vacation Part 2

Day 4 Saturday 11 Jul, we got up early to see more sites in London. 

We got to see the Tower Bridge, not to be confused with the London Bridge (I heard it was falling down). We got to walk across the top of the bridge (which is now an exhibit about the bridge itself). Here we are on top:

We also got to go the Tower of London. This is most famous for the Traitors Gate, where the prisoners would cross to get into the Tower of London. The crown jewels are also housed here. The Beefeaters (no one knows why they are called that) job is to protect the jewels but they also give tours as well. Ours was very lively and theatrical. Here he is:

There is also a superstition about the ravens that live at the Tower. There are six of them that always live there. If they were to ever leave, then it is believed that the Kingdom will fall. Hence the reason one wing is clipped so the ravens can't fly away.

We also had to get a rental car because on Sunday we drove to Stratford-upon-Avon. Check back later to hear more on that. Here is a picture of Randy, Ben's dad, getting a few tips on how to drive on the left side of the road in a right drive car.

We saw Les Miserables and it was awesome!! Benjamin had never seen a broadway show before and I had only ever seen two shows in New York. The show was amazing and I really want to see more while we are here. While walking towards our show we walked by a Michael Jackson memorial. There is a show on broadway right now called Lyrics which features his song.  The British people love MJ, see exhibit A:

Later that night we went to Harrods, the largest department store in the UK. It has over 330 departments and over one million square feet of selling space. Also, 5,000 people are employed at Harrods!! This a definitely a luxury department store, everything was so expensive so I couldn't get anything! A pair of pants we saw was over 500 pounds (almost 800 dollars)! We did find some interesting cigarette packages:

I think these warning labels are pretty awesome...I wish they would use these in America. The second label is a man's neck (if you can't tell) with a horrible hideous tumor like growth....yuck.

Check back later for Stratford-upon-Avon!

Summer Vacation Part 1

Day 1 Thursday 9 Jul

Randy and Sharon arrived in London on Thursday 9 Jul . Benjamin and I drove to Bury St. Edmunds and got on the train there (I'd never been on a train...at least not one that I remember) and finally made it to the Underground subway. We finally had to ask someone what to do because we were slightly confused. We didn't know that we would be going straight from the train to the subway.

This is the Bury St. Edmunds train station...I guess all train stations look like this?

Somehow we got first class seats on the train!

We figure out which stop is ours after a fairly long train ride. We get off of the subway will all of our luggage and start walking to our hotel. It's about midnight by this point but the first glimpse of London was extremely beautiful! We get to what we think it our hotel only to find out that it WAS were the hotel was located but our hotel has moved. Thanks for updating your website....back to the subway we go.  We get on the subway only to realize that it's about 7 or 8 more stops in the direction we JUST came from. We finally get to our stop, find the hotel, eat dinner, and go sleep! The best part...we thought that the hotel was going to be close to Randy and Sharon's hotel (we were going to be meeting them in the morning). Oh no... because of the address confusion, we have to get up extra early and take all our luggage across town once again.

Day 2 Friday 10 Jul

Parliament and Big Ben:

Different view of Big Ben and you can see the Eye poking up on the left. This could be seen if you were standing with your back to Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey:

Picadilly Circus: 

 Can't really tell from the picture but just imagine NY Times Square but a whole lot nicer!

London Eye:

Here we are on the eye and you can see Big Ben and Parliament in between us.

Another Shot

Trafalgar Square:

Hey...everyone was doing it! It's not like we were the only tourists climbing the lion!

Check back later for more to come:

Les Mis, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Harrods