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March 2005: Justin's parents were here for a few days, so we left Malachi with them and made one more trip to London, just for the day. There were traffic and parking issues getting to the tube stop; we ended up leaving out of Debden, a little later than we planned. We finally got to London late morning, close to 1100.

Our first stop was to Westminster Abbey. The Abbey itself is ok: expensive, and a bit overdone with all the graves inside. It's more of a who's who of English corpses than a place of worship. But it's fun just walking around that area: Westminster, Houses of Parliament, tourists everywhere, police guys in their funny hats. And it was a nice, sunny day.

After that we ate at KFC (which Erin remembered the exact location of from our first trip in 2002) and then toured the Tower Bridge. We had to move through it quickly, so we could fit everything. But we were able to walk across the top, enjoying views of London, and read a little about the mechanics and history behind the bridge.

We made a short walk up the Thames to the HMS Belfast, a now retired British WWII war ship, acting as a museum. It was interesting, and there was a lot of information presented (i.e. letters to home, orders, newspaper articles) that made the self-guided tour a lot more interesting and we were able to see the personal perspective of war. But again, we didn't stay as long as we could have, in the interest of seeing other things.

Next was the British Museum, which is huge. You could spend days in there and still not thoroughly see everything; we had a little over an hour. We spent most of the time looking at ancient Greek and Roman stuff and then lots of Egyptian mummy stuff. The mummy stuff seemed to be very popular since each case was surrounded by tour guides explaining the history of each mummy and then the results of the CAT scans that are done on them instead of taking them apart. We also browsed through the currency section and learned the origins of money.

After that was Harrod's, which now is just an overpriced mall. Erin got a chicken sandwich for dinner, slightly over $20. Justin decided he wasn't that hungry.

Our last stop was to the Lyceum theater to see The Lion King. We got off the tube and had 15 minutes to find the theater and get seated. After walking up and down the street not finding exactly where we wanted to go (we had no map for the day) we stopped and took a bike taxi thing (a small cart attached to a bicycle) to the theater. We both probably enjoyed this relaxing ride through the West End more than any other part of the day - too bad it was only about 4 minutes. The reason we wanted to see it was that we had heard from so many people how great it is. But because we had heard so many times how great it is, we were expecting to see The Greatest Thing Ever to be Presented on Stage. It was very good, but we had set ourselves up for disappointment. The costumes were well done, music was great. Plot same as the movie, but humor amateurish. It did make for a late night. The play ended around 1000. We got to our car after 1100pm, and made it home around 1230am.

That should be it for London; we saw everything on our list.

August 2003:

Since we have only a few months before a simple trip becomes an impossibility, we decided to pop down to London for a day to see a few more sights and a play. We started at a reasonable hour, driving to Epping and hopping on the tube. The drive was an hour and the tube about 50 minutes.

Our first stop was to the Royal Mews, the office in charge of transporting the Royals by land for official things. Most of it centered around the horses, especially the history, but there were a few Rolls Royces. It would have been better if there had been more horses. The stables were nicer than some people's houses, and the harnesses more expensive than most people's wardrobes.

After the Mews we wandered over to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. The entire area was flooded with people, so we didn't get much of a view, but we saw enough to get the general idea.

After lunch we toured Buckingham Palace. It is similar to other palaces: very fancy, with lots of history. The distinctive thing is that Buckingham Palace is currently in use as a Royal residence. It's only open to visitors during August and September.

We next wanted to see Madame Tussaud's wax museum, but it was £20 per person, which was much more than we wanted to pay. So instead we made the short walk over to 221b Baker Street (which is actually in-between 237 and 239 Baker Street) for the Sherlock Holmes museum. Erin called it the "Star Trek of England", since for some people, "Sherlockiana" goes far beyond a hobby; according to the museum guide, "thousands of people all over the world write to Sherlock Holmes, they form clubs and societies in his honour, and they celebrate his anniversaries." Since we hadn't read any of the Sherlock Holmes books, we didn't understand the significance of most of the museum, but we did learn a few interesting aspects of Victorian life (especially cocaine).

We tried to see Trafalgar Square, but they were setting up for some silly concert, so there were fences all over and unnecessarily loud "music" being played on the sound system. So instead we ate dinner and headed over to the West End for our play.

"The Mousetrap" by Agatha Christie at St Martin's Theatre is the longest running play in the world, currently in its 50th year. It is a murder mystery. We both very much enjoyed the play but cannot give away the ending - you'll have to see it yourself.

After the play we took the tube back to our car, and then drove home, stopping only at McDonald's for ice cream. One note on the trip: chivalry is not yet dead, but it has had a sex change operation. On the occasions that we were on the tube with no vacant seats, only one person once offered his seat to 7-month pregnant Erin, and that a young lady no older than Erin herself.

April 2002:

We traveled to one of England's lesser known villages: London. We left on Friday, after work. It took us about an hour to get to the outermost tube stop - Epping.

We parked there, got on the tube, rode the tube into London for 45 minutes, which got us to our seats at Les Miserables just as the lights went down (Justin just put our bag of clothes under his seat). The play was great. Justin had seen it a few times before, but it was Erin's first time. Very much worth it. Tickets were £24 (approx $36) for both of us.

After the play, we got back on the tube and rode to our hotel, about 10 minutes away. The hotel at which we had reservations said they were out of rooms because of "flooding" on the 5th floor (we think they overbooked themselves), but they gave us a voucher for the hotel across the street. Then the next morning we came back to the original hotel. Both were small but adequate. The continental breakfasts were actually pretty good. Justin had tea in the mornings. We reserved the hotel for £104 (approx $150) for the two nights. It is located just north of Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens. Not a bad area. Only a block from a tube stop.
Saturday morning we went on a boat ride down the Thames. It was ok. Then we walked around to see different buildings. We saw Houses of Parliament (Big Ben)

Westminster Abbey. There was 6 hour wait to get in, because the Queen Mum was lying in state.

Then Buckingham Palace

Then Tower Bridge

Then lunch at Burger King. Then St. Paul's Cathedral. It is much more ornate (and newer, built 1675) than the other cathedrals we've seen. And we climbed the stairs up to the top gallery thing which lets you look out on the city. Not much room to move around up there.

Then Tower of London. The tour guide was excellent. We heard all the history, then saw the crown jewels. They also had hourglasses.

Our dinner that night at Bella Pasta gave us a lasting impression of English customer service.
Sunday we walked around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park (we did church in the evening). Then we checked out of our hotel, got on the tube, and 2 hours later we were home. We had a good time, saw a lot, but it seemed like a very long weekend. We both decided that we've done enough sightseeing for a little bit. Time to stay home for a couple weekends.

Our favorites:
Les Miserables
Tower of London
St. Paul's
Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park


Just ok things:
River tour
Big, famous historical buildings


Never do again:
Bella Pasta


The tube was an excellent means of transportion; it was just a little expensive. But it didn't help we were new to the system, and so probably did not buy the most efficient packages.