Londontown

Back in February, My mother and sister and I took a trip to London for 5 days. It was a total whirlwind trip  but totally worth it!
I arrived on Saturday morning after a long night. I had just celebrated my birthday with friends hosting a dinner party and my early morning flight out of Basel was at 7am. I had to leave Zurich at around 445 in order to get there on time. I was exhausted! I was arriving a few hours before mom and Megan and so went to our hotel. Checked in (Well first I took a long 1.5 hour nap in the lobby while they got the rooms ready) and then slept until they arrived. Feeling a little more refreshed, Megan, Mom and I ventured out to the London Eye (my birthday treat!) followed by an amazing dinner at an Indian place (with the lack of spice I get in Zurich this was a welcome change. My mouth may have been on FYAHHH but it was totally worth it!) We called it an early night preparing to venture out the next day for some full on tourism.

waiting for the London Eye

Mom and Megs on the Eye

We took turns for the Classic picture in the phonebooth. Mom was REALLY EXCITED about it.

Sunday morning after our "English breakfast" we headed out to a quick stop at the British museum to see some Cleopatra stuff for Mom and the Rosetta stone. We then headed to the Charles Dickens House. Which I do not recommend. Some of the parts unfortunately looked like they had been put there by a high school group. (think matted pieces of paper on the posterboard a la history day?). The coolest museum there that we saw was the Foundling Museum. This museum is all about the Foundling Hospital where children were abandoned by their parents when they could no longer care for them. Each child was tagged with something so that if the parents came back they would be able to recognize them.   If you ever get the chance it's definitely one of the cooler museums I've seen.  We followed this with High Tea! Mom had booked us High tea at the Cadogan Hotel. Super fancy when we showed up in our jeans!   We finished out the touring with a trip to King's Cross station to take pictures of us "going through the barrier" like HARRY POTTER!!!

Classic Pharoah picture....is there such a thing?

Charles Dickens House

My Alma Mater....

Pinkies up!

Platform 9 3/4.

Monday was filled with walking around the city. We hit up the Millennium Bridge (another Harry Potter place!) We managed to get a look into Westminster's evensong (i think that's what it's called?) very cool to hear the monks singing. St. Lucian President was being honored that day with us. Very appropriate! That night we saw Children's Hour with Keira Knightley, and Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men). I had high hopes for the show and was a little disappointed but it was overall still pretty good!!!

Tuesday was the last full day in London. Megan left that afternoon and so Mom and I headed out to Hampton Court to take a look at the Castle out there. It was an interesting display of the time of Henry VIII during different times in his life. The whole set up was really child friendly and an interesting place to run around in! (oh my goodness, clearly I have been with Children too long!!) We ended the day with a quick dinner and then were off to see Billy Elliott. I had been wanting to see this show basically since it came out. and it did not fail me! The 12 year old boy (Billy Elliott) was an absolutely fantastic dancer! (as he hopefully would be after 3 years of training for this role) All the children were phenomenal as were the adults!

A few randoms from the trip.

Cheers!

epitome of London all in one!

Mom left Wednesday morning leaving me to my own devices. I took a walk around Buckingham palace and soaked up the last of the English before heading back to Zurich. A really fantastic trip!!