Mike and Polly come to town

Mike and Polly went on a trip to Italy with some friends, and the best part about it (for us anyway!) was their layover in London.  It was so fun to see them here, and we had a great day out.

Royal Academy of Arts

HMS Belfast, a real WWII warship turned museum

Inside the bowels of the warship

Brazilian restaurant on a very colorful street we found

British comedy

A Week with Dev-o

Devon came to visit for a week!

It seems that some of the best summers of years gone by were ones where Devon and I spent a full week together...  This was no different.  We had so much fun.

Tuesday -

 We met up at the Rosetta Stone.

 Then we went to Covent Garden, and I was actually in a street act.  That man is about to do a head stand on my back.

We met up with Dave and went for dinner at a really cool restaurant that is on the 7th floor of a building in Leicester Square.  You can see all across London from the balcony.

We finished the first day by going to an improv show in Covent Garden.  Devon had said one of the things she wanted to do while she was here was listen to people talking in British accents, so I thought we may as well listen to people who also happened to be funny.

Wednesday -

We went to the Warner Brothers studio where they had all the movie sets that were used to film the Harry Potter movies.  Everything was there!  All the costumes, props, and everything had extraordinary detail.  It took hours to see it all.

 Diagon Alley

 



We then made our way to 221b Baker Street, to see the Sherlock Holmes museum.

A visit to London may not be complete without a stroll or two in a Royal Park.  This is Regent's Park, which has great roses.

Randomly, we saw a movie premiere.  Leicester Square is the place for movie premieres, and there happened to be one when we were going by.  We hadn't heard of the movie, Ill Manors, beforehand, and after watching the trailer, we don't have much desire to see it, but it was cool to see some celebrities, that we didn't recognize, walk by on a red carpet.

 Then we went to Matilda.  It was amazing!

 Dave and Devon being cool on Millenium Bridge.

Thursday -

Life still had to go on for me, so on Thursday I worked during the day.  Devon had a merry time seeing the changing of the guard, some other London sights, and War Horse.  We all met up again in the evening.

 Devon and Shakespeare's Globe Theater

On the bridge to my top London building, St Paul's, with some nuts.  This bridge always smells like caramel.

 Another movie premiere!  These don't happen every day...  

This was for Prometheus, a movie I had heard of, and am much more likely to see.  (At least Dave is.)  But the carpet was blue...?  Dave got there before Devon and I, and he saw all the big celebrities from this movie.

 Prometheus! (we didn't go to it, though)

When in London, go see shows.  That's our motto.

Friday -

We started the day off by going on a Thames Clipper ride from the east end of London through to Waterloo, to see the city sights by river.  This is the O2 Arena.

Tower Bridge.

A giant photograph of the Queen and family along the river.  London got very decorated for the Diamond Jubilee, with flags and things like this everywhere.

 A picnic outside the Tate Modern Museum.  We visited the museum, too.

It ended up being a day of museums.  We visited as many as we could.

Natural History Museum.

 Science Museum.

...full of questions we should always be asking.

 Victoria and Albert Museum.

We went to the Friday Late Party, so we listened to some great guitar music as well as wandered the exhibits.  Then there were these awesome spool chairs to try on the way out.

 We rented bikes for a late night ride through Hyde Park.

And we biked by this!  By day, Buckingham Palace.  By night, festival of lights.  They were getting set up and testing out the lights for the huge Diamond Jubilee Concert that would be happening in a couple of days.

Saturday - 

On Saturday, Mike and Paulette came for a visit!  ....more about that day in the next post.

Sunday - 

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?

     I've been to London, to visit the Queen!

Pussycat, pussycat, what did you do there?

     I frightened a mouse, under her chair. 

Another thing Devon wanted to do while she was in London was see some royalty.  Well, as Dave and I have learned by living here, it's not that easy to do.  But, this weekend was the Diamond Jubilee!

To celebrate, there was a flotilla of over 1000 boats of all different shapes and sizes down the River Thames.  There was in the midst of the flotilla a Royal Barge, which had the Queen and members of her family.  There were thousands and thousands of people lined along the bank of the river.

 Go Canada!

 There she is!  In the white dress with the white hat.  It's the Queen! And other Royals.

 

 Good times had by all.

Another little walk...

One of our favorite things to do in London is walk along the South Bank.

Love the Dogs

Dave and I had a fun night out in London.  I had two different events that I wanted us to go to, and I knew they were in roughly the same part of the city.  Turns out they were right next to each other! That never happens in a city like this.  We usually consider things close if they are a 20 minute tube ride or less, let alone sharing the same parking lot.

The first event was an art sale.  There is an art studio complex in Wimbledon, the largest in Britain, in a building that used to be a factory, but has since been turned into a complex with over 200 studios.  Twice a year they open the doors to the public for a sale.  It was fun to wander the enormous, never ending building, and see the different modern art from the different artists, each studio having a distinct style.



Then, we went to a greyhound race.  There were races every 15 minutes all night.  We tried to pick the winner for the first race we watched, and our dog ended up loosing by a lot.  Then, Dave began to develop an eye for the dogs, and picked the next two winners.  It was fun.