Here is a recap of our second week in London. For anyone who has a deeply burning desire to hear the trials of last week ( like Brenna passing out in a pub for the first time…), let me know and I can forward you Cory’s update. For anyone who wishes to not receive any of these in the future, please click unsubscribe here… J/K. just wanted to get everyone up to speed on how we’re settling in over here!
Monday- Ryan’s mom and dad were here about mid-day, so we all went to the Notting Hill Carnival "adult day." I fail to see how this was any different from the kids day the day before- same really loud music (and I mean really loud), but with some more costumes (some of which were actually impressive, some of which scared the kids, and some of which were just non-existent as people liked just following behind one of these massive speaker filled flatbeds just dancing. Did I mention the loud music?), and LOTS more people. Oh- and loud music, too. So we ske-daddled outta there (the music was too loud, I think) and walked against the tide of entering people, finally arriving at the Westminster Arms Pub and Thai Kitchen. This being Carnival time, they decided to be closed so we went up the street to get mom and dad Guinness and fish N chips at the Old Swan Pub. The beer was much needed and great. (sidenote- did you know pubs here are named after the signs adorning their doorfronts? In the 1800s, people were illiterate and couldn’t read any names, so they effectively just said, "hey, I’ll meet you at the pub with the old swan over it" and that pub became the Old Swan. Hence, the Fat Badger, Westminster Arms, Guzzling Goon, Jagged Hare, etc…)
Tuesday- After lazing around a bit, Nana & Papa offered to watch the kids (i.e. sleep off their let lag while the kids played downstairs) while we actually attended to some pertinent details: checked on mobiles (cell phones), stopped in at Foxton’s to try to have some questions answered (the main question we answered was not to use Foxton’s again!), and then went to the bank where they again made it rather difficult to give them any money. In essence, they established the wrong account for Ryan after he spent 75 minutes there last week, so they decided they needed to extract another 90 minutes from us this week to do new accounts ( we still don’t actually have access to any money, however, for about 2 weeks. Gotta love Visa, with a good exchange rate even!). Then we took the kids and Nana & Papa to the pirate ship park, where the girls proceeded to climb the 25’ (+?) mast all by themselves. We all thought that we would surely need to rescue them from such dizzying heights, but both girls descended unaided. They’re getting so independent! While walking to dinner from the park, Cory and Ryan managed to drag Brenna’s knees on the rough sidewalk while trying to swing her between them. This night we finally did get to the Thai restaurant which was fantastic. Good beer, too, this being an actual pub and all.
Allow me to digress- Brenna has an unending need to get hurt at least every three days, which apparently is an inherited trait from Nana. We hadn’t even left the Reno airport before she opened up three gashes in her shin while playing on the escalator, then fell to her hands and knees on a very rough rocky sidewalk on our first day in London and opened gashes in both knees and both hands. In other words, I guess we’re very bad parents and don’t protect her enough. So she has been in an eternal state of "plasters" (Band-Aids) ever since.
Wednesday- After seeing my parents off to Toulouse for cycling, Cory went out to explore the area and run other errands. So Ryan and the girls went to lunch and attempted the library, but it was closed. We decided we’d better do something for the day, so we journeyed to the Natural Science Museum since the girls were excited about seeing the whale and shark exhibits. Afterward, we wandered to South Kensington where the Rick Steves’ guidebook had a recommendation for an Indian restaurant: Moti Mahal. And it was FABULOUS! So was the Cobra beer.
Thursday- Cory decided to hop on the tube and go half way across town to find a used mobile phone. And boy did she find a doozy! Same price as a basic new one, it is circa 2002 and beat up with quite a few unreadable buttons. But it has the fold out keypad she’s been yearning for to make texting easier! So Cory now has her own UK mobile (from the US call or text 011 44 78 4904 1959). She can now actually connect to this city, provided we can figure out how to make phone calls to these arcane numbers (do you include the first zero?)! For something touristy, we decided to shoot for the 4 pm changing of the horse guards since we missed it last try. The girls (well, Fiona) were a little scared initially of the soldiers with swords and the yelling they do as part of their traditional changeover. But they were interested enough in the Cavalry that they wanted to go to the new Cavalry museum around the corner instead of the Transport Museum. The Cavalry museum was actually pretty interesting for all of us, plus they got to see the real live horses eating! This led to a pub experience down the street for dinner where they missed the girls order completely (do you know how hard it is to keep two young girls still at 7 pm after a lot of walking while waiting for their order to finally be done? "Oh, it should only be 5 more minutes sir…") and missed the course on Indian cooking of Chicken Jalfrezi altogether. Of course, that comparison is made to Moti Mahal from last night so maybe that’s not quite fair. The beer was good- anyone catching onto this theme yet?
Friday- Cory took the girls to exchange their USD for GBP ("free" at Mark’s & Spencer, with an almost decent exchange rate!) so that Ryan could actually get some studying done before term starts (without that extra study space in our flat, after all…), and then we met at Kensington Palace’s Orangery for high tea, missed the last entrance to the Palace State Rooms, then were asked to leave the sunken gardens (beautiful!) since it was closing time. So we jumped over to Round Pond where the ducks and swans (and all their poop on the ground) are, then let the girls run around in more than a 10’ x 12’ space for once. Cory went to Whole Foods to get dinner and supplies and I walked the girls back home after playing some more. Trying to get to bed, Brenna tumbled down the stairs. Literally tumbled, as in head over heels and bouncing off the walls before coming to rest at the bottom of the staircase after negotiating the turn in the stairs by careening off the railing, once again ably displaying her penchant for injury… luckily all that has resulted is a rug burn on the side of her nose (must’ve caught the front edge of a step is all I can surmise!).
Saturday- Off for more tourism!! The girls have been asking repeatedly about the London Eye (think Ferris Wheel on serious steroids- it’s 424’ high!), so off we went. And it was a pretty remarkable ride, but we’d been tentative about the girls enjoying such a high flying experience (or was this Ryan’s mild dislike of heights biasing us against doing this??). Beautiful views of London and pretty good visibility since we chose about the only partly cloudy day so far to do this. Next came an abysmal lunch at the entrance to the Aquarium (kwa-mari-men according to Brenna), after watching the line grow exponentially during our 30 min early lunch stop. After paying the equivalent of $82, we entered the London Aquarium. Oops- we’ve been spoiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to which nothing can compare apparently! Thanks Bonnie and Bill- your aquarium is truly a prize. They had a few sharks and a moderately informational shark talk, followed by the big event- SHARK FEEDING! This is what we’d been waiting for all afternoon! And all we got to see was one shark with half a fish in its mouth. Not quite the feeding frenzy we’d imagined!
After exiting our biggest London disappointment yet, we wandered toward Westminster Abbey (also closed this late on a Saturday- it being 4 pm and all) and got a small snack for the girls after being turned away from a pub which wasn’t serving food. At this point, Cory is pretty tired and very hungry since she missed her chance for roasted nuts while traversing Westminster Bridge. One more pub- also not serving food at this time on a Saturday (hmmm… you’d think we’d take a hint and try something else!). next pub- closing in 30 min, but we can stay 20 min after that to eat! Hallelujah! What we didn’t factor in was 15 min to order, and 25 min to get the food. So we force fed the girls and ourselves what turned out to be very good pot pies (@ the Feathers Pub, near St James’ Park tube stop- good beer, and they also do Thursday night ale and sausage tastings for which we very well may return!) and then jumped back on the tube for the ride home.
Sunday- it’s raining!! Cory’s sleeping after not doing so last night (thought we were over this jet lag stuff!!), and the girls are watching Brad’s favorite movie- the Muppet Movie!
We’re having fun- football should start next weekend for Fiona, with school the following week. This is good because she has been a little homesick and misses all her friends since she hasn’t met any here yet. This week we’ll look for a school for Brenna and begin our housing search in earnest beyond just poking around on the net. Ryan has some meetings this week, too, to maximize his time in London and to leverage contacts and relationships. Hope everyone stateside is doing well- we’re thinking about you all!
Monday- Ryan’s mom and dad were here about mid-day, so we all went to the Notting Hill Carnival "adult day." I fail to see how this was any different from the kids day the day before- same really loud music (and I mean really loud), but with some more costumes (some of which were actually impressive, some of which scared the kids, and some of which were just non-existent as people liked just following behind one of these massive speaker filled flatbeds just dancing. Did I mention the loud music?), and LOTS more people. Oh- and loud music, too. So we ske-daddled outta there (the music was too loud, I think) and walked against the tide of entering people, finally arriving at the Westminster Arms Pub and Thai Kitchen. This being Carnival time, they decided to be closed so we went up the street to get mom and dad Guinness and fish N chips at the Old Swan Pub. The beer was much needed and great. (sidenote- did you know pubs here are named after the signs adorning their doorfronts? In the 1800s, people were illiterate and couldn’t read any names, so they effectively just said, "hey, I’ll meet you at the pub with the old swan over it" and that pub became the Old Swan. Hence, the Fat Badger, Westminster Arms, Guzzling Goon, Jagged Hare, etc…)
Tuesday- After lazing around a bit, Nana & Papa offered to watch the kids (i.e. sleep off their let lag while the kids played downstairs) while we actually attended to some pertinent details: checked on mobiles (cell phones), stopped in at Foxton’s to try to have some questions answered (the main question we answered was not to use Foxton’s again!), and then went to the bank where they again made it rather difficult to give them any money. In essence, they established the wrong account for Ryan after he spent 75 minutes there last week, so they decided they needed to extract another 90 minutes from us this week to do new accounts ( we still don’t actually have access to any money, however, for about 2 weeks. Gotta love Visa, with a good exchange rate even!). Then we took the kids and Nana & Papa to the pirate ship park, where the girls proceeded to climb the 25’ (+?) mast all by themselves. We all thought that we would surely need to rescue them from such dizzying heights, but both girls descended unaided. They’re getting so independent! While walking to dinner from the park, Cory and Ryan managed to drag Brenna’s knees on the rough sidewalk while trying to swing her between them. This night we finally did get to the Thai restaurant which was fantastic. Good beer, too, this being an actual pub and all.
Allow me to digress- Brenna has an unending need to get hurt at least every three days, which apparently is an inherited trait from Nana. We hadn’t even left the Reno airport before she opened up three gashes in her shin while playing on the escalator, then fell to her hands and knees on a very rough rocky sidewalk on our first day in London and opened gashes in both knees and both hands. In other words, I guess we’re very bad parents and don’t protect her enough. So she has been in an eternal state of "plasters" (Band-Aids) ever since.
Wednesday- After seeing my parents off to Toulouse for cycling, Cory went out to explore the area and run other errands. So Ryan and the girls went to lunch and attempted the library, but it was closed. We decided we’d better do something for the day, so we journeyed to the Natural Science Museum since the girls were excited about seeing the whale and shark exhibits. Afterward, we wandered to South Kensington where the Rick Steves’ guidebook had a recommendation for an Indian restaurant: Moti Mahal. And it was FABULOUS! So was the Cobra beer.
Thursday- Cory decided to hop on the tube and go half way across town to find a used mobile phone. And boy did she find a doozy! Same price as a basic new one, it is circa 2002 and beat up with quite a few unreadable buttons. But it has the fold out keypad she’s been yearning for to make texting easier! So Cory now has her own UK mobile (from the US call or text 011 44 78 4904 1959). She can now actually connect to this city, provided we can figure out how to make phone calls to these arcane numbers (do you include the first zero?)! For something touristy, we decided to shoot for the 4 pm changing of the horse guards since we missed it last try. The girls (well, Fiona) were a little scared initially of the soldiers with swords and the yelling they do as part of their traditional changeover. But they were interested enough in the Cavalry that they wanted to go to the new Cavalry museum around the corner instead of the Transport Museum. The Cavalry museum was actually pretty interesting for all of us, plus they got to see the real live horses eating! This led to a pub experience down the street for dinner where they missed the girls order completely (do you know how hard it is to keep two young girls still at 7 pm after a lot of walking while waiting for their order to finally be done? "Oh, it should only be 5 more minutes sir…") and missed the course on Indian cooking of Chicken Jalfrezi altogether. Of course, that comparison is made to Moti Mahal from last night so maybe that’s not quite fair. The beer was good- anyone catching onto this theme yet?
Friday- Cory took the girls to exchange their USD for GBP ("free" at Mark’s & Spencer, with an almost decent exchange rate!) so that Ryan could actually get some studying done before term starts (without that extra study space in our flat, after all…), and then we met at Kensington Palace’s Orangery for high tea, missed the last entrance to the Palace State Rooms, then were asked to leave the sunken gardens (beautiful!) since it was closing time. So we jumped over to Round Pond where the ducks and swans (and all their poop on the ground) are, then let the girls run around in more than a 10’ x 12’ space for once. Cory went to Whole Foods to get dinner and supplies and I walked the girls back home after playing some more. Trying to get to bed, Brenna tumbled down the stairs. Literally tumbled, as in head over heels and bouncing off the walls before coming to rest at the bottom of the staircase after negotiating the turn in the stairs by careening off the railing, once again ably displaying her penchant for injury… luckily all that has resulted is a rug burn on the side of her nose (must’ve caught the front edge of a step is all I can surmise!).
Saturday- Off for more tourism!! The girls have been asking repeatedly about the London Eye (think Ferris Wheel on serious steroids- it’s 424’ high!), so off we went. And it was a pretty remarkable ride, but we’d been tentative about the girls enjoying such a high flying experience (or was this Ryan’s mild dislike of heights biasing us against doing this??). Beautiful views of London and pretty good visibility since we chose about the only partly cloudy day so far to do this. Next came an abysmal lunch at the entrance to the Aquarium (kwa-mari-men according to Brenna), after watching the line grow exponentially during our 30 min early lunch stop. After paying the equivalent of $82, we entered the London Aquarium. Oops- we’ve been spoiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to which nothing can compare apparently! Thanks Bonnie and Bill- your aquarium is truly a prize. They had a few sharks and a moderately informational shark talk, followed by the big event- SHARK FEEDING! This is what we’d been waiting for all afternoon! And all we got to see was one shark with half a fish in its mouth. Not quite the feeding frenzy we’d imagined!
After exiting our biggest London disappointment yet, we wandered toward Westminster Abbey (also closed this late on a Saturday- it being 4 pm and all) and got a small snack for the girls after being turned away from a pub which wasn’t serving food. At this point, Cory is pretty tired and very hungry since she missed her chance for roasted nuts while traversing Westminster Bridge. One more pub- also not serving food at this time on a Saturday (hmmm… you’d think we’d take a hint and try something else!). next pub- closing in 30 min, but we can stay 20 min after that to eat! Hallelujah! What we didn’t factor in was 15 min to order, and 25 min to get the food. So we force fed the girls and ourselves what turned out to be very good pot pies (@ the Feathers Pub, near St James’ Park tube stop- good beer, and they also do Thursday night ale and sausage tastings for which we very well may return!) and then jumped back on the tube for the ride home.
Sunday- it’s raining!! Cory’s sleeping after not doing so last night (thought we were over this jet lag stuff!!), and the girls are watching Brad’s favorite movie- the Muppet Movie!
We’re having fun- football should start next weekend for Fiona, with school the following week. This is good because she has been a little homesick and misses all her friends since she hasn’t met any here yet. This week we’ll look for a school for Brenna and begin our housing search in earnest beyond just poking around on the net. Ryan has some meetings this week, too, to maximize his time in London and to leverage contacts and relationships. Hope everyone stateside is doing well- we’re thinking about you all!
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