London and Lara's Birthday
Andrew drove us to Dayton airport for our flight to Paris via Washington. We lost a few hours along the way as we left Washington at 5.30pm and it was a 7 hour flight but it was 7am when we arrived in Paris!Nicholas was the only one who got a few hours sleep and Iain a little bit. We had 4 hours at Paris airport before we got our flight to London and we needed it! It was hard to find our way around and even when we asked at one point, we were still sent to the wrong section. We had to catch a shuttle bus to another terminal and it gave us a good chance to fully understand how large the airport is.
Our flight to London was a chance to have a quick nap – the flight is only 45 mins so we just got our cup of tea or coffee and it was time to land. Reminded me very much of our flights to Melbourne although they are longer.
Big Ben & Big Ben
Outside Buckingham PalaceWe were expecting extra security checks at Heathrow as has been reported but everything was easy especially as there were no customs officers to check on items being taken into London.
The hotel we stayed in was perfect for us – right next to the Thames and London Eye. We walked to “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” and spent a few hours there and attempted the Mirror Maze. The boys – especially Nicholas enjoyed Ripleys.
Our real reason for including London into our holiday was because “Love Never Dies” – the sequel to “Phantom of the Opera”- had opened in March. We didn’t tell the boys that we had tickets for the show until the Wed night – thankfully they were both very excited about it. It was also the way that we chose to celebrate Lara’s 13th birthday! Happy Birthday Lara, we thought about you often during the day……….
Can you see how high Ben climbed to hold the sign? Look on the left hand side of the photo - of course he could have gone even higher???!!!
We thought it was such a nice idea that deckchairs were provided in the park areas - until someone came to collect money for them - they are charged by the hour! We just hadn't seen the signs.
We had a quick dinner before going to the Theatre – Iain had really wanted to eat at one of the small London pubs but we didn’t manage to find one that wasn’t full and overflowing onto the pavement. We laughed at the restaurant when the waiter said he didn’t understand English very well (when Iain was trying to explain that we were going to the theatre so needed to be finished in time)and then proceeded to speak very fluent English to the table next to us!
Our last day in London saw us doing a Harry Potter Tour – visiting places that featured in the Harry Potter movies and learning how they did various scenes and effects. We had a very knowledgeable “Cockney” taxi driver, who told us some extra stories and took us to a few more places of interest as it was our last day in London. Ben & Nicholas was able to recognise a lot of the places that we visited and could recount which movie it had featured in.
Our driver dropped us off at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. We enjoyed it but it was extremely busy and it was hard to do more than shuffle around. Next stop was shopping! The boys went to Hamley’s – a 250 year old toy store for all ages, whilst I visited “Anthropologie”. Melissa & Sue – there were mother of pearl button chandeliers (no lights though) outside the changerooms for only 375 GBP and also button necklaces with “gold” links at 78GBP !
The "Quote of the Day" belonged to Nicholas on seeing the guards outside Buckingham Palace"That guard has his own porta-loo"!
(more photos soon)
No wonder everyone else in the park are sitting on the ground!!!
Great photos!!
I think I must spend the most time on the computer I am always the first to comment!!
I'll stop hassling you about posting!!! Must be very difficult to find the time....Marion and I said today..."I bet she's not journaling!!!"
Hey - thanks for sharing those pics - took me back 20 odd years! So wonderful to see the noys ahving a wonderful time and getting into the spirit of everything! I have barely recovered my breath after hearing about the chandeliers and necklaces! Be still my beating heart! Hope you bought up big at Anthroplogie - so many pretties. I have been wondering if you are affected by the air traffic problems caused by the volcano but it sounds like you have gotten to where you needed to go without too much hassle!
Oh yeah - we Aussies are complete suckers for those cute little squirrels1 Happy trails!
Wow! You've been so busy. The photos look great and Lara loved the Birthday wishes. Hannah felt very special with her messages too. Nothing much exciting happening back here - the only excitement was when I accidently sucked on a mousey balloon, in class and had trouble getting the taste out of my mouth. And no, I didn't do it on purpose.
Bonjour Mc Queens...this is my second comment..don't know what happened to my first oneas I went on just after Kirsty. Looks as though London as lots of un for you all. Great shot in the deck chairs...locals know the ropes lol...Rodney Bray is coming today to start Trudi's wardrobe...great excitement...the weather here is perfect but little rain.
Spoke to Germany last week and their weather was good so hopefully is yours. We are so looking forward to hearing about your classes and how you are enjoying Paris. Have you seen Mona yet? how did Nick enjoy that. I am sure that Ben has grown. Has Iain been to Tiff's yet to buy you something? so many questions.
Bye for now xx from us all