Flat

We rented a flat!
It's a compact studio in Clapham South. (There are multiple apartments in this building). We loved it right away. The neighborhood seems great - full of shops and restaurants, and across the street from a big park. It's also just two blocks from the Underground. We move in on Saturday.

City of History

There are so many things to see and do here, I'm sure we could see something new every day and still not see and do everything.

We've seen some amazing art at the National Gallery; we've checked out the Museum of Natural History (although we only had time for a few of the exhibits, and so are going to need to go back); we've seen some street performers at Covent Gardens; and we've walked around Picadilly Circus.

Trafalgar Square - there was a Malaysian festival going on. The National Gallery is here.

Lots of water fowl - most notably swans - at the pond in Kensington Gardens.

Dave with a statue of power and energy we found in Kensington Gardens.

The Museum of Natural History - a very cool building. And very interesting inside.

This is Dave with a full Diplodocus skeleton in the front hall of the museum.

"Shrek the Musical" is playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. How fitting. I didn't, however, see many muffin shops.

Katie's Birthday

So today we went to be inducted by Impact Teachers. Fun times... but getting across London is not actually as fast as you'd expect with all the Tube lines. So what we saw today: Trafalgar Square, Big Ben/ Parliament (stunning view as you leave Westminster Station), Westminster Abbey, and the West End. We decided to have cake at a west-end sidewalk cafe in honour of Katie's birthday, and then spied a show that was starting in the next ten minutes across the street. On a lark, we asked what kind of deal we could get on Rush tickets, and were handsomely rewarded with seats in the sixth row for half price. It was a gorgeous theatre, and a rockin' show called Million-Dollar-Quartet, about the one night Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins all played together at the record label they all started on.

We then walked across the Thames and then home.

First Day in England

Hello Gang,


We flew out of Edmonton last night at 10pm mountain time, and arrived in London at 2pm GMT. Wow, it's so good to be here, after all of our planning and dreaming. Elinor drove us to the airport from Red Deer, and Doug, Jaimi, and Katie met us at the airport.

What a fun time! We sure love our family. Anyhow, in London we journeyed to our hostel right next to Hammersmith station, deposited our bags, then explored. We checked out Green Park, Buckingham Palace, and just a tiny bit of Hyde Park. It was my first time in the London Underground, so getting to the places we wanted to go took a little longer than they should have, but we minded the gap.

One thing we thought was interesting, was the monuments by St.James' park honoring the allies of Brits during the World Wars. Canada has a huge gate right next to the palace. However, we also did note that every former colony's gate post had a child like Cherub on top of it. I speculated that this is because the UK thought of Canada etc. as children, the scion of the mighty empire, though they honoured our sacrifice.

Things then got dark, and we decided to head in for the day as Bec's leg was bothering her.

Our hostel is run by a bar, and it's pretty fun, but we are looking forward to having our own place.

We will add more pictures later, but we are running out of battery, and the connection in here is horrible.

Homeless

We've moved out of apartment and are crashing at various relatives' houses, before we fly away. We are officially homeless.