Off to London for a few days

The kids and I tagged along with Ron on his latest trip to London. What a beautiful city...with so much to do and it's so lively. Quite different from our lives here in Denmark that is for sure. I realized how much I missed being somewhere that English is the native language and with friendly people! And a place where we could get good food at a decent price. Yes, it might be sad that we think London is so cheap...but the cost of going out and eating out is so much less in London than Denmark so we just lived it up! I had Mexican 2 meals, fish and chips a few times, Thai, Indian. Ahhh, I miss eating out already....

Anyways, we did do more than just eat and go to pubs :-)

First I took the kids to the Natural History Museum. I could not believe there was even a line to get in here on a Wed AM. It was a great museum with a lot of great exhibits - I am pretty sure the dinosaurs were the kids favorite. It was crowded and so it was a little stressful at times on my own with the kids (mainly just when Wyatt decided he'd had enough of the stroller)...

Here we are in the train tunnel to the museum - it was really festive down there with a musician playing good music.

The building itself was really pretty.

Raegan out front

Museum pictures don't seem to turn out well so I'll just include a few.

 Going up the escalator into this earth was a highlight for them as well...

The next day we went to the Tower of London - very interesting. We got lucky and this was the one sunny morning we had. Raegan will tell you this was her favorite thing she saw in London (this is where the Crown Jewels are). I wish we had done the Yeoman Warder tour - I've heard they are entertaining - next time I will go on a day Ron can join so we can do that.

Here we are out front - this one kind of looks like they are doing some sort of synchronized dance (that would have been cool, although I'm pretty sure this was another time Wyatt tried to sprint away from me and Raegan was trying to help catch him)...

Other pictures of the castle

 The White Tower

 Snack time

 The Tower Bridge - view from castle

Wyatt loved this cannon with dragons on it

 Here is the dragon in the White Tower -definitely a hit with the kids

I actually braved lunch out with them alone...it wasn't super relaxing as you can probably tell but worth it none the less - great fish and chips!

That early evening we braved the weather and walked around Picadilly Circus and Soho areas.

The kids got a kick out of the taxis there...

 

Friday morning I took them out to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. It was done well - definitely more for Wyatt but they had a scavenger hunt type activity that made Raeagn really enjoy it as well. They got to see and go into trains and buses from over the years.

Friday evening we had an aggressive agenda - we went to the London Aquarium, the London Eye and then out for dinner.

The Aquarium for us was a bit of a let down only because of the cost versus what you get - but the kids did really like it - Wyatt went into it saying he wanted to see sharks, octopus and turtles. Very specific! ...he got his wish except the octopus, but he didn't seem to mind.

The London Eye (i.e. the big Ferris wheel to the kids) was fun - definitely something you have to do at least once. Too bad our weather wasn't better!

 The kids made an American friend on our trip on the London Eye- amazingly rivaled our kids in terms of how much they talk! They were really funny to watch have conversations the entire 30 min straight....you could tell all the kids had done a lot of museum visiting where they had to keep quiet. Raegan of course talked a lot to him but Wyatt kept saying to me 'Mommy, that boy talking to me!!' and hopping up and down all excited.

 

On Saturday we decided to do one of those hop on hop off bus tours and it turned out to be a big waste for us - we only rode on it a few times and some of its route shut down so we had to walk to see some of the things we wanted to.

 

Here we are crossing the bridge to Big Ben.

We keep walking into the Westminster Abbey area...I really don't know why Raegan does these poses (we literally say 'Say Cheese!')!

 These performers were right outside Westminster Abbey

 

Buckingham Palace - we just missed the changing of the guards...

 

We walked through St James Park on the way to find a suitable pub for lunch...

 

We then headed to the Kensington Palace and Hyde Park..

And in Hyde Park is the Princess Diana Memorial Playground

Then ice cream and another ride on our double decker bus

Riding past Harrods

And the Duke of Wellington 

 And finally the Marble Arch

Then back to Copenhagen for only a week until we leave for Crete in the Greek Isles....