So I don't know much about what the rest of my family did this week, but Kevin, Megan, and I went to London!!  We flew out Sunday night and arrived in London around 1:00pm.  I thought the flight was great.  Good movie, good food, nice sleep.  Megan and Kevin--not so much!  Still, we were amazed to be in London.  We found our room which we had attained through airbnb on the West End and after getting settled, we walked down to the Thames.  The tourist attractions were closing, so we walked around the old Tower of London and across the Tower Bridge down the Jubilee walkway and across the London Bridge.  Such sights!!

The next day (after happily sleeping horizontal again), we were up early to actually enter the old Tower of London.  We saw the crown jewels and went on a Beefeater tour and went through the White Tower and around the walkway and into the tower room where so many royal prisoners were kept!  We had tickets for Westminster so we had to leave, but Kevin bought us some fish and chips to eat while we waited for the river ferry.  Westminster was incredible!  How can they fit so much history and so many memorials all in one abbey and still use it for services and coronations, too?  Crazy!  We were going to go on a walking tour of Whitehall after that, but it started to rain so we took the underground (we are pros at the underground) to Covent Garden which I'd heard had covered shopping.  It did!  But they were closing everything up, too.  It's like theyre not on holiday here in Britain or something!  Still, we managed to hear several street performers including a quartet that played Vivaldi and were just enchanting.  We also found a little shop called "Creme de la Crepe" and had Megan's favorite dinner ever!  Our ride home happened to take us through Kings Cross Station, so we found Platform 9 3/4 and the Harry Potter souvenir store!

The signs in London say "Way Out" instead of "Exit."  I found it enchanting!

On Wednesday we took the underground to the British Library and saw very very old manuscripts and ones not so old but still amazing like Jane Austen's notebook and scores by Mozart written in his own hand!  From there we walked over to the British Museum which was amazing!  We saw the Rosetta Stone!  Which was definitely a gift from God to the world.  We saw Egyptian art and Greek and Roman art and parts of the parthenon and other things from the seven wonders of the ancient world.  We saw many, many statues of naked men and women!  Meg has had an anatomical education now from the Greeks! Ha ha!  After they kicked us out of the museum (they close at 5:30!  Hello?) We found our way over to the theatre district which very conveniently backs up onto Chinatown, so we had a very yummy Chinese dinner and afterwards went over to the Queens Theatre to watch Les Miserables.  Can I just say, WOW!!!  What voices!  What a message!  What a story!  What music!  I couldn't even speak until we were two blocks away.

Did I mention we had lunch in a little café in a park?  So fun!

British Museum outside

British Museum inside.

Amazon woman beating a Trojan

Rosetta Stone!

China town

We came home through Picadilly Square.

On Thursday we needed to switch from our little airbnb room to the hotel where Kevin would be teaching.  So we moved from the West End to a place very close to the British Museum.  We are much closer to things here, especially to an underground station which is super nice.  So after we got installed in our new room, we took the underground over to Kensington Garden in order to tour Kensington Palace.  We learned all about Victoria and Albert and George and Charlotte and Princess Diana and about some of the ways of the monarchy and about the particular palace at Kensington.  I really enjoyed it.  After we resuscitated Kevin with a very late lunch (3:00?  Sorry Sweetie!  We just need to see this one other thing . . .) We rented some bikes (Megan's idea) and pedaled from Kensington Garden through Hyde Park and into Green Park and made our way to Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria memorial.  Amazing.  Are we really here?  Yes, we were.  We took lots of pictures.  Then we walked back down to Big Ben to take that walking tour we had wanted to do the other day.  This time we managed it and learned all about Parliament and Whitehall and the Horse Guard and King Charles being beheaded RIGHT THERE and ended our walk at Trafalgar Square.  Yes, yes we did.

Our room at 7 Barnett Street.

Kensington

Of course we know how to play Whist!

Victoria's wedding gown

Wellington Arch

Buckingham

On Friday Megan and I got up at 4:30am to go to Paris!  (Kevin started his actual teaching this day around noon and couldn't go with us).  We took the Eurostar train which goes up to 150mph and travels in a tunnel under the English Channel.  The train left at 7:00 but takes just two hours to get to Paris and we were there by nine!  Unbeknownst to us, we travelled to Paris on their National Day and most of the area down by the Seine was closed for a parade in the morning.  Since we couldn't take our tour bus down there, Megan and I walked and passed through a regiment of French Soldiers, one of whom winked at Megan and elbowed his buddy.  Ah!  The City of Love!  We made our way to the Louve and were amazed at its sheer size and the beauty of it's old palace.  We knew we wouldn't have time to go into anything, though, so we kept walking.  We stopped to eat crepes in a roadside cafe and then found Notre Dame.  Beautiful.  We found our tour bus again around now and saw Revolution Square and went down the Champs Elysee and under the Arc D'Triomphe.  We got off to see the Eiffel Tower but alas it was closed because they set fireworks off from it on National Day.  Of course!  Silly us.  Still, our tour included a river boat portion and we got a great view from the Seine.  After floating up and down the Seine and seeing many sights again from the river, we found our tour bus again and learned many more things about Paris on our way back to the train station.  It is a very beautiful city with iron balconies and flowers at every window.  Oh!  We saw the Opera House too.  Everything is amazing.  How do you decide when to put the camera away?

Yes.  This was on a double-decker tour bus.

The Louvre

Our little street side café.

Oh my goodness!  She could be a local!

The lock wall

Notre Dame

Revolution Square

Saturday we slept in late.  Kevin was teaching and Megan and I hadn't gotten in until after midnight because of train delays so we needed some sleep!  When we got up, though, we had lunch with Kevin at a Danish Pancake house (more crepes!) and while Kevin went back to teach more, Megan and I went back to the British Museum.  We just can't get enough!  5:30 came much too quickly.  This time we saw old curiosities and lots and lots of mummies!  After that, we tried to find our way back to Covent Garden on foot and got very lost!  We made it there a few minutes before closing and managed to buy souvenirs for our lovelies back home.  On our twisty way back home, we found St. Paul Cathedral which even from the outside is stunning.  We ate at a burger place there before taking our aching legs and throbbing feet slowly back through the streets to the hotel.

Sunday Kevin had to teach again but just in the morning.  Megan and I took ourselves to the National Gallery and saw art by DaVinci, Vermeer, Raphael, Rembrandt, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and lots of others!  I'm telling you.  This place is amazing.  There's old stuff in its actuality right there in front of you!  Meg and I hung out in Trafalgar Square (which is right in front of the Narional Gallery) until Kevin could meet us.  Then the three of us walked over to Hyde Park to witness the speaker's corner where we imagined Mormon prophets and missionaries speaking.  It would have been a tough crowd!  We were running out of ideas of places to go by this poing, so we took the underground to Baker's Street to see where Sherlock Holmes fictionally lived and then walked through Regent's Park, which was the prettiest of all the parks, in my opinion.  We ate dinner by the boathouse and made our way back through the Sunday walkers watching the paddleboaters and the swans and people feeding the geese and pigeons.  We finished with an early night.  That turned out nice because I got to write this all down.  Incidentally, I wrote all this with a British accent.  (Except, of course for the paragraph on Paris which I wrote in my best French accent).

Monet

Van Gogh

Monet

DaVinci

The view out of the museum and into Trafalgar Square.

National Gallery in the background.

Picadilly

We have learned to ask for the toilet (NOT a bathroom) and to bring money with us when we go.  Also, to specify if we want our water fizzy or still and to look RIGHT when we cross the street.  Ah, London.  You have enchanted us!