London Day 5

Good morning! Today is Thursday day 6 of our London trip and the activity and walking and not enough sleep has caught up with Ally. She's not feeling quite right and has a teeny fever. So we are enjoying a leisurely morning in our wonderful hotel room. Ally is reading the new book she picked out yesterday at the British Museum, Literay London. It is a history of authors and writing in London. Her choice. She says she really likes it. 

It gives me time to blog, which is good because I know if I don't blog everyday while we are here I won't get caught up once back home. 

Yesterday we went shopping on Oxford Street, had lunch there and met up with Isobel's mom Annabel and after a bit more shopping went back to the British Museum. When we finished seeing all we wanted we walked to the hospital that Isobel is staying at. We saw her room and play spaces, played a few games and then walked to dinner, had dinner together the 5 of us, and then walked back to the hospital. Lots of walking. I have been wearing my Fitbit here in London and yesterday we walked 7.12 miles, 16,850 steps!!!! That is 2000 more than any other day here. No wonder we, and Ally especially are tired. That is a lot of walking for little legs!

 

This is the view from our hotel room. Lovely gardens! And our room is so quiet. It's just perfect for us.  We headed out to the bus stop and spent about 2 hours shopping, then lunch at a cute spaghetti house restaurant for lunch. Ally and I split a pizza and Becky had a yummy calzone. Ally kept saying how good the pizza was! 

 

The gorgeous Liberty of London building. Very posh store, we headed to the 3rd floor haberdashery section and gawked at the beautiful fabric and sewing notions. 

 

One of the goals for the day was to go to this Lush store we had walked by the day before. Turns out it's the flagship store and it was 3 floors full of amazing smelling bath and beauty products. Ally loved it!! She picked out some bath bombs and a lotion bar. We have a huge tub in our hotel room, so she was looking forward to using a bomb in it later that night. After Lush we walked back to the British Museum. 

 

First stop was the Parthenon Room, the British literally took pieces of the Parthenon and brought the, back to England. 

 

The large scale of the room was impressive.

  

The King RamessesII statue, taken from the pyramid in Egypt. 

 

More Egyptian artifacts. 

 

 

This is the famous Easter Island statue. We saw it the day before, but Becky some how missed it and wanted to be to see it yesterday. We walked in and Ally looks at me and says "we were here yesterday, I saw that yesterday"! I laughed  and explained we saw it but mama missed it. Becky was a good sport, and agreed to a picture in front of it to prove she saw it this day. 

 

This Chinese vase is what inspired Cameos.

 

In the money and coin exhibit this Andy Warhol original print was on display. It was fun to see an American piece.

 

Ally and I split up from Becky and Annabel for a while, on the way to the gift shop Ally let me take her picture. She was getting pretty tired, but the promise of the gift shop cheered her up. 

 

 

Becky explored the clock room, that is a clock above 

 

And saw the famous chess figures, which are considered one of the earliest game pieces in the world.

We walked to the hospital then, had a break in another beautiful London garden on the way met up with Isobel and headed out to dinner. 

 

Ally was very hungry and was excited to have a chocolate milkshake and fries again. We were at another burger restaurant. Annabel and Isobel's choice and treat so we didn't complain at all. 

 

These two. Friends made under less than ideal circumstances. But friends nonetheless.

It was difficult to say goodbye to Isobel as she now will be staying as an inpatient at the hospital without daily visits from her parents for several weeks. They will get to see each other every couple of days for a few hours, but that is all. It's a program meant to teach Isobel how to deal with her mental and physical health on her own with less dependence on her parents. I told her she was very brave, they all are. 

Then it was back to our room, a bath for Ally and a late night to bed. 

Break over, time to head out to the London Eye. We aren't sure if we will ride it, but Ally has asked to see it up close!

London Day 4

Today we moved our luggage to our hotel in Kensington, which meant about 2 hours minutes of bus and tube riding and walking before meeting our friends Lauren and Noah at the British Museum. Lauren and Noah were part of our moms group back home and moved back to Cambridge England about 7 years ago. 

 

This museum is something I have wanted to see since 6th grade my teacher Mrs. Califano taught us about ancient Egypt. It was really cool to see this museum. 

 

The Great Hall, this is the center courtyard of the museum and it's covered in a glass dome. Becky took this cool picture of Ally and Liem. 

 

The Rosetta Stone!,

 

 

 

 

 

Noah, Liem, Ally & Khai

Liem wanted to see the Asia exhibit, but it was closed, so we saw the mummies instead! Very interesting. 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way down a set of stairs we saw the most amazing Greek mosaics on display. 

 

It's fun to catch a photo of Ally taking pictures too.  We were getting ready to leave the museum and Ally asked for the gift shop, but we told her we would go back together again tomorrow. We had been there a couple hours, but still hadn't seen everything we wanted, and were ready to go. So was the group. Ally agreed. 

 

Outside the museum we took time for a couple of group photos.

 

Then it was time to walk for a while and get lunch on our way to the giant toy store, Harley's

 

On the way we stopped for a sweater for Ally. She has been cold here, we just didn't pack warm enough clothes for her. Instead of a sweater she picked out this powder  blue pleather motorcycle jacket and a coordinating navy blue scarf. Her smile said it all. She wanted to do more shopping, but with a large group that's just not possible. We told her we would come back to Oxford Street tomorrow before the museum and shop some more.  

 

We had lunch at Five Guys, which is an American burger chain. Very kid friendly. And they had beer! 

 

The toy store lived up to its hype. An entire floor of Star Wars themes toys, Becky explored that with Noah and Lauren, while I did shopping with Khai and Ally. Liem and his mom Hanh shopped together too. Becky said the storm trooper costume above was 1,000£ !!!

 

Ally was in such a good mood after a new coat purchase, and a milkshake and fries for lunch that she posed for pictures! 

 

  

At this store they have employees demonstrating toys all over. It is 9 floors of toys and 5 demos on each floor. Khai chose the fake snow, the demo is pictured in the next series of photos. It looks like sand and when you had water it puffs up to act like snow. Very cool. I love the girls' expressions in these pictures.

 

 

 

 

When it was time to leave I told Noah he didn't have to hug me or shake my hand, instead all I wanted was a picture of he and his mum. He obliged.

He told me earlier at the museum he doesn't let anyone take his picture. Lauren told me later that was true, she has almost no pictures of him recently. But he was so nice and let me get a couple during the day. 

We said good bye to both sets of friends and we took an Uber to our hotel. We were tired and just wanted our hotel. 

It was an amazing few days with friends from home. 

 

Our room is great, much larger than I thought it would be, and Ally even watched her favorite channel on YouTube, the Cheernastics2! 

After a break we walked 2 blocks to a grocery store for some dinner and breakfast food, and a few snacks. Came back, ate dinner and Ally and I watched Night at the Museum 3 on the iPad together. That movie takes place in the British Museum and it was fun to see exhibits we saw earlier in the day, and plan for our repeat trip back. 

 

Ally loves our room! We do do. But she is thrilled with her own little bed, and absolutely loves the bathroom. She willingly took a shower at night and is planning on a bath in the giant tub tomorrow. 

What a great day!

London Day 3

Another great day in London with friends.

 

Khai and Ally share a room and up in the morning together. They play games together until the rest of us get up. 

 

Today we headed out on the Tube to the Tower of London. 

 

 

When we exited the tube this was our view! There was the castle/fort. 

 

First stop was some food for the kids. Ally tried a new food, porridge!!! It was really hot, but after adding a lot of sugar she liked it a lot. 

 

Just at the entrance of the Tower was a trebuchet. Hilariously Becky told us all about it. 

 

We tried the Beefeater tour, but it was too crowded and we soon broke off and explored on our own. The medieval towers were first. Above are the kids at the throne. 

 

When we exited that section we took a family picture with the Tower Bridge in the background. 

 

 

The walk thru the castle tours continued and we tried on a very heavy battle hat. 

 

 

Then we queued up for the Crown Jewels exhibit. We waited in line about 30 minutes, and at the end were some Royal Guards. 

 

 

No pictures inside that exhibit but was incredible to see the huge jewels. 

 

Next up was the center white tower building which housed the Armaments. Very interesting. Ally and I left after just a short while. We needed a break. The rest of our group toured the whole exhibit and reported it was worth it. 

 

 

Ally had some hot chocolate and popcorn during our break. Then humored me for a another picture in front of the bridge. 

 

Lunch was next, at Wagamama!!! Ally tried yet another new food, ramen. She loved the hot noodle dish with chicken. 

We were all pretty tired and decided to head back to North London and the house via Kings Cross Station. The famous station from Harry Potter. 

 

It was so cloudy and cool all day. 

 

The infamous Platform 9 3/4 the line was too long for us to wait and pay for a picture at the vignet they have, but it was cute and fun.

The station had a small shopping area and Liem got a few Harry Potter books and Ally got a London journal.

 

 

After the station we walked to the British Library and saw some amazing things in the Treasure Room. 

The Magna Carter, a first version of the King James Bible, documents from the 700s of the Quran, original Beatles memorabilia like the first draft of Hard Day Night, and other incredible things. Very cool. 

 

Two of us moms took a bathroom break and while we were gone, Becky caught the kids in this state. Journaling and Reading. 

Gotta Love it. 

 

Khai and Ally on the bus. 

Dinner was a yummy new pizza place and then back home for some quiet games and reading, talking and blogging before bed.