Holiday

Dadda and I left London this afternoon to come north to visit the Cloke's, old family friends, who live in King's Lynn, Norfolk. (I realize this means nothing to you if you're not looking at a map but it's where we are.) Here are some pictures of our adventures of the last week.

My celebratory dinner of finishing the semester last Thursday before Dadda got here. Dadda the night he got here, I kid you not, less than 3 minutes after he got into bed.

Saturday morning we went down and walked through the markets and shops of Portobello Road in Notting Hill. We had sunny, blue skies the whole day and it was lovely to just walk and catch up. After the morning spent shopping I took Dadda on a private tour of the highlights of central London starting with Buckingham Palace. We continued down the Mall to Trafalger Square, and then down White Hall to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey finishing off with a walk down the Thames to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Sunday before church we took a walk through Hyde Park and came across the Royal Albert Hall. And now Dadda "knows how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall." My church building in South Kensington. I probably should've posted this long ago but here you go. And yes, it was that cold. After church we went to the Chelsea Football Club stadium and Dadda enjoyed being there and the stadium was huge!!!

I showed Dadda my classrooms at school on Monday before going to Abbey Road Studios. We just walked around and enjoyed being where some of Dadda's favorite music was created. He said it was worth the whole trip to be there and I'm glad I was able to share it with him. Monday night Dadda treated to go see Les Misérables. And it was so good!!!! I'm such a theatre nerd. :)

Dadda after getting his haircut. Tough guy!

Dadda and I really wanted to go to the Tower of London and we ended up spending the whole day there just wandering around the castle looking at all the torture methods and, of course, the Crown Jewels. It was great. We had a tour of the Tower by a "beefeater" (I'm not sure why they're called that but they are so we went with it) and he just had a cool uniform. He was pretty funny and knowledgeable as well. The Tower is an official residence of Her Majesty so the royal guards are present. And we of course had to have a picture of Dadda with them. Silliness in the Tower. You could try on the helmets and shields and stuff as part of the Henry VIII exhibit. It was cool. The Tower Bridge at night.

Harrod's is celebrating the 70th anniversary of "The Wizard of Oz" by becoming the Emerald City.

We had lunch at the Hard Rock Café where we got to see some priceless pieces of Rock'n'Roll history. We were also able to stop by the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, London.

We found the Inns of Court and Dadda's going inside to do a bit of lawyering.

Unfortunately Dadda's here with me and I like getting all the tourist pictures. :)

Continuing with the Beatles Homage we found the Apple Studios at 3 Savile Row where the last performance on top of the roof happened on January 30, 1969. I really enjoyed being there. :)

We spent Thanksgiving day at Greenwich where we got to stand at 0 degrees on the Greenwich Mean Time meridian line. It was very interesting and educational to look at all the different clocks and see how time, in a way, was harnessed.

And, for our last night in London and for Thanksgiving, we rode the London Eye. It's the really, really big ferris wheel right on the Thames and this was the view of Parliament as the sun set. We were lucky to have had good timing with the sun setting and with the clouds that came in and it was a great end to a great week in London. Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Fish'n'Chips for Dadda and pizza for me. It was very delicious and a great way to have Thanksgiving.

Friday morning I had to say goodbye to Joan and Arthur and to 30 Elms Avenue which I was very sad about. I was very grateful and lucky to have been placed with them as my home stay family and I was glad I got to know them.