London sights--Day Trip 2

Our second sightseeing day trip took us to the places that we saw from the top of the Wellington Arch on our first day trip--much more interesting up close.

First stop, Big Ben and Parliament. Big Ben is actually housed in a tower wing of the Parliament building and is the first thing you see when you come above ground from the tube. The clock face is enormous (approx. 13 feet across), and the minute hand sweeps the equivalent of the height of a grown man every five minutes. When the bell rings, the sound fills the streets with its rich tones, impressive enough to stop even the most guide-book-driven tourist in their tracks. (Interesting factoid: Big Ben is actually the bell in the tower and not the clock like most people think. This is also not the first bell. The first, cast in 1858, cracked while being tested, and they made the current bell in 1859. When it also cracked a few months after being put into use, they simply rotated the bell so that the hammer wouldn't strike the crack and left it. Couldn't they have done that the first time?) The Parliament building as a whole is definitely a must see! It's a breathtaking example of old-world architecture, rebuilt since the fire 0f 1834 in all its glory. The powers that be didn't invite us in, but we thoroughly enjoyed walking around the walls and taking in the view of the Thames, Eye, etc. Funny how they don't let you go in when they're in session...

Next stop, Westminster Abbey.
The abbey is across the street from the Parliament building and is even more impressive. A small Benedictine monastery built sometime around 920 and then enlarged by King Edward (the last Anglo-Saxon king) around 1040, Westminster Abbey is in use and has been the coronation church since 1066. The building is phenomenal, a stunning juxtaposition of aged stone, stained glass windows, and intricately-carved spires, gargoyles, faces, animals, etc. No tours were being given because they were holding a special service (world prayer day?), but we enjoyed walking the grounds and looking at the church's exterior. Definitely a must see. (Also, with the right incentives, Aubrey, Laurel, and Kyle could probably be convinced to share an interesting sensory experience related to the abbey with you...)

Final stop, the Jewel Tower. This was an unexpected treat. We went to it because it is another freebie with our English Heritage membership, but we actually quite liked it. The little tower is right next to Westminster Abbey, and you wouldn't even notice it if you weren't looking for it because you can get in free. Commissioned to be built in 1365 by Edward III, it was the "King's Privy Wardrobe" (which is a fancy way to say "closet and treasure house"). It's also one of the only two sections of the original Palace of Westminster to survive the fire. Inside is, you guessed it, another museum; the first floor is a display about Parliament, and the second floor is a display about the tower itself. The structure is in remarkable shape for its age, and I enjoyed looking at the tower much more than the displays. It is even still surrounded by the original moat (sans water), and it's a great picture spot.

(London sightseeing important tip: Make sure you take change with you when you go into central London, as this area only has pay restrooms. You may be lucky enough to find an attendant who takes pity on you as you dance outside the turnstyle because you weren't prepared and don't have 50 pence, but don't count on it!)

London sights--Day Trip 1

We've gone down into the city three different times already, two sightseeing day trips and once to go to a Broadway play for Jessica's birthday.

Our first sightseeing trip took us to the most important place in London for a family with preteens: King's Cross Station. The tube that runs closest to our house actually goes to King's Cross, so we just hopped the tube, making sure to "mind the gap," and we were there in about a half an hour. (There are signs all over the tube stations warning you to "mind the gap"--watch the hole between your train and the platform and preferably don't fall into it-- which give our children endless fodder for "talking British," a skill which Eryn is determined to polish before returning to the states.)

The first thing you notice when you get to King's Cross is that the station is HUGE. We podunk American's actually stood there in awe for a few minutes with our mouths open before venturing off to find platform 9 3/4, which isn't really the section of wall where that part of the Harry Potter movie was filmed. Apparently Ms. Rowling misremembered which station had a solid wall between 9 and 10, and King's Cross doesn't; the wall between platforms 4 and 5 were actually temporarily renumbered for the filming. So first we took pictures where the actual filming occurred, complete with the bridge behind us where Hagrid gives Harry his ticket, and then we headed off to find the picture spot where someone has actually labeled a wall close to the real platforms 9 and 10 and attached part of a luggage trolley. The kids had a great time taking pictures and then taking turns running at the wall. Really. None of them is headed for Hogwarts this year, I'm afraid, but we did end up with a couple of bruises and quite a few dirty jackets. I'm sure the station employees enjoy watching every kids that comes to the station running at the wall, though.


After leaving King's Cross, we hopped another tube and headed south into the middle of London, destination the queen's house. Buckingham Palace is massive and stately, and the grounds take up an enormous plot of land right in the heart of the city. It was a pretty dreary day, and we got there too late to see the changing of the guards (which happens every morning at 11:30). What we did see was the enormous palace, huge gates, hordes of people, and a couple of guards way up on the property. That was it, not even a guard with tall, fluffy hat. I guess we'll have to go back and see those things when one of you visit...hint, hint. All that aside, the palace is quite impressive, and even just seeing it from the outside is an experience. (If you visit in August or September, apparently the nice lady lets you tour her house while she's away on holiday, you and thousands of your closest friends.) We walked completely around the exterior palace walls, spent way too much time in the gift shop (have to remember to NOT let the kids go in places like that), and then went over to the Wellington arch.

The Wellington arch itself is about four stories high and is ornate and impressive, although in a little-known, low-tourist-attraction-rating sort of way. It's crowned with a huge marble carving of a chariot and horses (which I'm sure I have seen in pictures but wouldn't have had any idea where to find until we actually saw it sitting there on top of the arch). There is a smallish museum up inside of it that we spent all of about 10 minutes in since we get in free with our English Heritage membership card, and we enjoyed a quick view of the London skyline from on top, complete with Big Ben and the Eye. The Wellington grounds, though, did have something unexpectedly intriguing: an Australian war memorial that looks a lot like the Vietnam Wall in D.C. We actually spent quite a while at the monument and playing on the nicely-manicured lawns around the arch.

After we finished at the Wellington Arch area, we took a leisurely 45-minute walk toward Hyde Park and the ever-famous Harrods so that we could have dinner in the eerie restaurant in the crypt (an real restaurant in an actual crypt in the old St. Martin's on the Green church). We got there with high expectations and very hungry children, however, just to find that it is being renovated and will open in the spring. Note to self; call ahead. We did discover, however, a wonderful Italian restaurant right next to it. One thing you can say for London, the restaurants may be extremely overpriced, but you can sure get some fantastic food! Some of the best and cheapest food in London, by the way, is served in the pubs, but they only allow kids until a certain time if they allow them at all.

Full bellies sure make for a nicer train ride home than empty bellies make for a couple-mile walk. :D

All things considered, we enjoyed the day immensely despite the weather, even though the younger kids complained that we didn't do anything. For Kyle, Jess, and I, just walking around London and seeing the little of it that we were able to see was exciting. And, hey, the kids got to see platform 9 3/4! What more could a kid want?!!? I would think knocking yourself senseless running into a brick wall definitely counts as doing something.

Living in Oz continued...our Japanese import

Needless to say, the car became more of a priority as the days went by. The last day of December our pin numbers came in the "post," and we finally had access to our own money--YEAH!!! The money that we brought with us had run out, and we were trying to figure out how to simply stay afloat; so we literally did the dance of joy the first time we were able to withdraw money from the ATM! I can't remember being quite that relieved over something in a very long time.

Since we spent the first few weeks we were here doing the unmentionable --WALKING EVERYWHERE-- we're all very happy with it. (Actually, the mile-and-a-half walk in dress shoes to church was a bit much, but it was good for us and we survived just fine.) Add it to the character-building experiences list...

A wonderful brother in our ward drove us around to find a car and act as interpreter/U.K.-car-knowledge guy, and we couldn't have done it without him. Since we're only slated to be here for a year, we basically were looking for something reliable and inexpensive with low mileage--exactly what everyone else wants when they look for a used car. We very quickly discovered that cars here are not built with a family of seven in mind. The biggest type of car that's made in the U.K. is called an "estate car," which is basically a five-seater, short station wagon with two uncomfortable-looking pull-down seats in the trunk area. Since we knew we wanted to sightsee outside of the London area, those pull-down seats may not have been quite as wonderful as they sound for whoever pulled the short straw and got to sit in them for more than five minutes. So we started looking at alternatives.

We actually hit the jackpot when we found a guy who imports minivans from Japan, maintains and warranties them himself, and sells them at reasonable prices, so we bought one from him. Apparently Japan taxes people like crazy after their car hits 100,000 kilometers, so they sell them off cheaply to other left-side-driving countries. Their loss is our gain! The van is a 1999 Honda Odyssey (that the Brits call a "Shuttle"), only has around 60,000 miles, and is in great condition. It also has fun extras like seven real seats, a little bit of storage space behind the rear seats, parking sensors (so I don't hit anything while I'm trying to park in a miniature parking space or squeeze down a street originally built for a horse and buggy), and fold-in mirrors (also useful for narrow streets, and I've actually used them to squeeze through between the cars parked on both sides of a road, sensors beeping like crazy as I went). The best part is that the van comes complete with a built-in navigation system that will get you anywhere you want to go in Japan but nowhere in the U.K. and offers complimentary Japanese language lessons. Now if we could only figure out how to change the time on the clock...

During the car-buying saga, we even had a nice Englishman tell us that all Americans are fat because we get in our cars to go 10 feet and don't walk anywhere. When he realized what he had said, he backpedaled nicely by explaining that even though Americans are fat, we really don't have the infrastructure for public transportation and he supposed that walking really isn't much of an option with all that wide-open space. Though he's basically right on all accounts, we found it very humorous that he actually said it.

I also find it amusing that people keep stopping me "just to talk because they love my accent." We get the "you're from America, aren't you" query all of the time, and then there's invariably some form of wink accompanied with an "I could tell from your accent." I even had a guy from India tell me that he loves talking to Americans because we speak English so much more clearly than people from the U.K. and he can actually understand us; he obviously hasn't ever talked to someone who grew up in the deep south--sorry, Monica, big grin. Anyway, I don't know what they're talking about, since I'm not the one with the accent (big grin).

Living in Oz...

Once we found a house to live in, "real life" began, whatever that is...

The children actually started school two days after we arrived, and the bus picked them up at the hotel until we moved into our house a week or so later. They are attending an American-based international school, which we chose so that their curriculum and credits would be disrupted as little as possible and they will be able (hopefully) to transition easily back into school in the states when our time here is over. We actually had quite a time getting their applications and everything taken care of before leaving the states, but we feel quite blessed that they all were accepted. School is held in an 150-year-old mansion. The campus looks like the front of an ivy-league postcard, and the school comes complete with a world-class chef and its very own ghost. Their classmates are from all over the world, everyone is very friendly, Jess says there aren't even any cliques, and our kids absolutely love it.

Kyle also started work two days after we arrived, commuting by bus into Uxbridge from our hotel. It was about a 45 minute ride by bus, but now that we're in the house it's a 5-10 minute walk and then a 10 minute train ride on the "tube" (London's underground). Work has been challenging because it's a new project with all new people and many, many details to iron out, and Kyle's working long hours.

The strangeness of starting school and work without really living anywhere yet aside, London was SO INTERESTING those first few days (heck, it still is!). Everything was different--the vocabulary, the buildings, the plants, the people, the streets, and the entire feel of the place, like something really old that had been given countless facelifts and you're not sure whether it just had one or whether it already needs another one.

After just over a week in the hotel (complete with trying to find and buy school supplies, figuring out how to eat without spending $200 a night, trying to get bank accounts set up, etc.), we moved into the house. Our first mistake, er, challenge was furnishing it. We rented it unfurnished (a mistake we'll not repeat), and completely furnished it ourselves with the "help" of IKEA. Not the best experience ever, to say the least, but most of the furniture we purchased arrived the day we moved in. The next few days were spent assembling furniture, most important pieces first, of course, and life slowly started feeling more normal. Though the battle with IKEA over the items we paid for but were not delivered still rages, we were pretty happy when the last assembly screw on the items we did receive was turned, let me tell you! (We also learned some very important lessons about making sure up front that you actually get everything you pay for when you make a huge furniture order...)

The next challenge was figuring out how to live. This involved little details like setting up utilities without a bank account, trying to get access to our money (which took almost four weeks), figuring out where to buy food and how to get it back to our house without a car, contemplating where to put your stuff in a house with no closets, etc.

After buying a pay-by-the-minute cell phone and finally having some account information, We have learned first hand how many trips it takes by train and on foot to get basic groceries for seven people and then how often you have to shop and with how big of a backpack to maintain it. I did discover that if you take a large rolling suitcase with you to the store, it makes it easier to get more groceries back to the house--you laugh, but it worked! It's a character-building experience, too. (I've since discovered that lots of people have their groceries delivered here--would have been nice to know...)

After our first few weeks here, I've decided that having a place to live and having food to feed your family is very high up on my "like it" list!

Stonehenge

What can I say about Stonehenge? It is what it is--a completely cool circle of mysterious rocks in the middle of nowhere England that you simply have to see to have the complete U.K. experience. Everyone from here "ho hums" it and says it's not worth the trip, but I've wanted to see it my whole life. It's about a two-hour drive southwest of us, and it was our first road trip after getting the car. (The trip was definitely not a disappointment, even if just for the "ooh aah factor" of the beautiful drive through rolling countryside with farms partitioned off by lines of trees or neat rows of shrubs and surrounded by patches of Robin Hood-worthy forest.) Though many people just stand outside the fence and take pictures, we opted to pay to go in and take the audio tour, which turned out to definitely be worth it! The audio tour was quite fascinating--filled with medieval legend, explanations of the barrows (burial mounds) all over the property, and a ton of other interesting information. The entire experience was, well, just plain cool. I guess you have to be there.

Kyle remembers cool details: "One funny thing about our trip was that Derik was more interested in the Barrows than in the stones. When the sun sets there is a point where the light hits the stones just right and they look red. Very interesting for blue stones to turn red..." (Thanks, Kyle!)

Dover Castle and the Wartime Tunnels

This is one of the most interesting places I've ever been! (Though I'd love to take credit for it, I didn't take this picture; but it gives you a great view of this massive structure.)

Dover is on the southeastern tip of the island near Kent, the city of white cliffs. The castle began as an Anglo-Saxon fort, then William the Conquerer strengthened it and Henry II and Henry VIII both made additions. Aside from being absolutely beautiful and too cool for words, it has been a defensive stronghold during wars involving Britian ever since (Napoleanic, WWI, WWII, etc.). Carved out of the limestone, there is a series of tunnels underneath the castle. Started during the Napoleanic wars, the tunnels have since been added to and are several miles long. The tunnels have housed medievial soldiers down to soldiers during WWII. During WWII, in addition to housing several thousand troops, the tunnels served as a hospital/communications center. The central command center is even where Churchill viewed/orchestrated the Battle of Britian.

While visiting, you get to explore a large section of the castle, go on a tour of the wartime tunnels, and explore the other tunnels on the property. We thought this was a two-hour sightseeing trip, but we spent an entire day exploring and were trying to see more as the sun went down and the property was closing. It's about a two-hour drive from our house through beautiful countryside that looks exactly like you dream it would, but it was worth it. We are bringing anyone who comes to visit us to this interesting place--definitely a must see!

Our New Place

So, the first item of business when we got here was to find a place to live. The realtor showed us all of the available properties with four or five bedrooms that were within driving distance of the kids' school--a total of one property. After being assured that it was a nice house and quite a good value for such a safe area, we signed on the bottom line (mostly so that we could be done moving and be out of the phenomenally expensive hotel we were staying in near Heathrow Airport). Our rent is going to be 2200 pounds a month (which will be somewhere between $4000 and $4500 a month U.S. depending on the exchange rate!). We're trying not to think about that too hard...

Our new place is duplex (here they call it a "semi-detached house"). The main floor has a small entryway/hallway, a medium-sized kitchen, two main rooms that are about the size of bedrooms in the states (family room and dining room?), and a tiny closet under the stairs that was converted to a bathroom almost big enough to use. The upstairs has a bathroom with a shower, two good sized-bedrooms and three "box rooms" (closets the Brits think are bedrooms) just big enough for a single bed and a small space to stand next to the bed. There are no closets, which makes storing the things you packed across the ocean quite problematic. It also has a one-carriage garage and a partially finished attic. That's it. I would guess it's no bigger than 1400 total square feet, but that's a very rough guesstimate, and it might actually be generous. It does have a garden (back yard) for the kids to play in when it's warm enough or not raining, which is nice.

Though we keep shaking our heads and chuckling as we turn sideways to get past each other in the hall, people from the U.K. keep telling us how spacious it is, and one of the missionaries (from Italy) said that it is "quite posh for England." Go figure!

All things considered, it's a nice little place, and we're quite comfortable. We try not to think about the astronomical rent, and it is definitely larger than our camping trailer!

Hmm, the picture makes it look WAY larger than it is. Maybe it's true what they say about photography adding 10 pounds--it even applies to houses! If you look closely, the front door is a standard size and the garage section (far right) is about 7' across; it'll help put it in perspective. :)

London--Really?!!? Didn't we just move to Texas?

You truly never know what life has in store for you and what might be just around the corner! We are now living in London after taking a job in Texas--who knew? Though we've known for a while that a big change was coming for our family, we honestly had no idea when we packed up and left Colorado that we were moving to London. Our plan was to sell our house, buy a house in Dallas, and settle in. Apparently, that wasn't the master (or the Master's) plan. SO, we're in London for about a year, and THEN we're going to have the Texas experience (again). The kids are attending an American International school and loving it, Kyle's working very long hours, and I'm trying to figure out how to maintain a family of seven with a washer just big enough for a day worth of clothing for two to three people. Though we miss family and friends, we're loving the adventure. And, yes, Stonehenge really is as cool as it looks and driving on the left side of the road truly is enough to make even the calmest American white-knuckled the first few times. Just remember to repeat the following the whole time you are taking your life and the life of your passengers into your hands, "Drive left, look right, drive left, look right..." (big grin)!