Last Days in Spain; First Days in London

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with sorting, packing, and managing really big, really varied emotions. By Wednesday we had finished the process and were in a state of disbelief that it was really over. We went out to lunch/dinner to celebrate and then to our local park, where a Christmas Fair had been set up, complete with a ferris wheel and ice skating rink.

Seriously, Stone!!! If there is even a second of down-time he is near some ceiling somewhere. This is the front entry of our house. It is so charming with its iron gate from 1862 - this area used to be an outside space so there is still a sewer line under the floor (obvious to any nose who enters).

The girls had just been asking when we would go ice skating next, so it was a wish come true!

After skating we stopped by the playground for one last run on the zip-line. Stone cried when we left.

On Thursday morning we packed the last toothbrushes and ran the last load of laundry... and hoped our dear Carolina would be able to come say goodbye before we left. She showed up running to us through the rain the very moment we were loading our suitcases into the taxis. We were so glad we got to take a picture and give her a final hug goodbye.

Her mom had already shown up earlier to help us get things cleaned up. What dear friends they have been to us!

After a couple of hours in the plane and lonooonnnngggg taxi ride from the airport to the hotel and the hotel to London's Warner Brothers Studios, we snarfed down some cafeteria food and began our tour of "The making of Harry Potter."

Entering Hogwarts

Sophie in the Great Hall. She and Stone have only seen the 1st movie and haven't read any of the books, but it was a magical experience on its own and so amazing to see how movies are made! Hopefully they'll remember some of it when they're old enough to enter Harry Potter world. 

I'm only posting a tiny percentage of all the photos we took - it was a 3 hour tour of original sets, scenery, costumes, wigs, props,  models, creatures... everything the way the actors had left it.

The Knight Bus

#4 Privet Drive

Diagon Alley

We crashed into our hotel beds at 10 pm... then awoke to this sight out our windows Friday morning. So beautifully English and different from Spain!

 Lindsay, Lucy and I met a tour guide to take us around the city, while Erik took Sophie and Stone to a Christmas activity center for little kids. First we saw the changing of the guards. Lindsay took this video - we were standing in the perfect spot for them to march right past us! Lindsay could barely suppress her giggles at their uniforms.

Buckingham Palace

More guards

We drove through many beautiful, famous parts of London, with our guide narrating as we went. I was surprised at how much I remembered from my trip to London when I was 18... and how many high school friends flooded back to my memory after all these years. This was a neighborhood built during Queen Anne's reign - our excellent guide pointed out details that would have otherwise completely escaped us. The double doors were installed so that a sedan chair could enter to take the well-to-do ladies of the house to balls and social engagements. The tall black pole on the right is an old lamp post that held a torch in the time before electric lights.

The restaurant "The Two Chairmen" was named after these chair-carriers in the neighborhood in the 18th Century. I have the two cutest chair-carriers of any Century.

I had remembered Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey from when I was 18, so I wanted to show it to Lindsay. I hadn't remembered all the rest of the history inside - the site of the Coronation of British monarchs since 1308 - the throne inside dates back to that year as well, and is still used! Queens Mary and Elizabeth are both buried inside, as well as so many other people I used to know about. I could have spent all day there, soaking up stories like a sponge. 

 After our tour we ate some lunch and hopped in a cab - one of those charming old-fashioned cars they use in London - and rode to the London Zoo to meet Erik and the littles. I asked our sprightly, white-haired cab-driver where he was from, and he launched into his whole life story about being born in London, and having to go underground during the German bomb raid of World War II and eventually evacuated to three different cities in the countryside when England was saving their children from being killed (Lindsay and Lucy listened wide-eyed to a real-life "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" or "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" story). He told us all about living in poverty after the war, but about how he had one of the only fathers he knew who wasn't killed, because his ear drum had been damaged when he was a child so he was ineligible to serve as a soldier. I thought about the education my kids (and I!) have gotten from unexpected moments like these on this trip and felt so very grateful to have been able to do this!

I'm going to be honest here: The Zoo was cold and expensive (like everything else in London!! Holy Pounds Sterling, I thought the Bay Area was pricey!!!) and we were starting to get on each other's nerves. But we liked this soft, friendly owl.

And I was again reminded that Stone is happiest when he was stuff to climb on.

Dinner at Pizza Express, as recommended by my sister Courtney. My family lived in London for a year while I was in college so I'm sure we're walking through nostalgic streets for them. I missed you all, Mom and Dad and my dear, dear brother and sisters!! Please let's come back together some day and you can show me Denning Close in St. Johns Wood. I wrote that address on so many envelopes...

Sophie and Stone playing in the hotel lobby

Putting on a show for us before bed

 This morning we woke up and exercised in the hotel Fitness Centre together (Stone on the treadmill and Sophie on the exercise bike, Lindsay and Lucy on Stairmasters and Erik on weights = awesome), and then we walked to the train station to get to the Tower of London.

We had great weather yesterday but today was... ok, today was also great weather! Great, cold, rainy, authentic London weather. :) We met our tour guide at the Tower of London for a tour  - that's the tower bridge in the background.

Again, I wished we'd had more time in just the Tower of London. So interesting!!!

Our tour guide Jonathan demonstrating jousting with his umbrella, against his worthy opponent, Sir Stone. King Henry VIII's armor is the background.

I asked Stone at the end of the day what had been his favorite part, and he said "the armor that was my size!" This was Prince Edward's armor, Henry VIII's son.

The spiral staircases always rotated clockwise, so that an enemy coming up the stairs would be at a disadvantage, having to sword-fight left-handed.

Lucy hit the bulls eye on her first try with a bow and arrow!

Sophie loved the crown jewels.

We saw as much of the tower as we could, then hopped in Jonathan's car for an efficient, panoramic , narrated tour of the city. He dropped us off in the West End of London for a quick lunch at a café, a stop at a book store to buy some new books for the plane ride home, and then on to The Arts Theater.

I had bought tickets for "A Christmas Carol," which was getting rave reviews in the papers and was nearly sold-out . What I realized only yesterday was that it was not a typical performance - it was a one-man show (the great British actor, Simon Callow) where he told the story and acted out all the parts on a nearly-blank stage, with only a few chairs for props. This is not what I had been picturing, and was nervous that it wouldn't be accessible to the younger kids. I told everyone what to expect and we went in ready to discover how one man would be able to create that magical world and tell the powerful story all by himself. And oh, what a brilliant play it was. I was so happy I had just read Charles Dickens' original version to the kids as their bed-time book, going through paragraph by paragraph what the tricky words meant - the play followed Dickens' words exactly, and the kids exchanged knowing glances and delighted smiles throughout as they heard Callow bring to life the exact phrases they had just heard in their beds. It was so beautiful.

Through the rain on the way to the train back to the hotel

We couldn't bear to put Sophie and Stone through another restaurant - better said, we couldn't bear to put ourselves through having Sophie and Stone in another restaurant. :) So Erik took the bigs out to pick up dinner while I stayed home and bathed the littles. They brought back DELICIOUS take-out and we all watched Disney's "Mickey's Christmas Carol" on my computer before bed.

And now to bed for me! God bless us, every one!