Mar 16

Today I got up and finished packing and left for Victoria station to meet mom, dad and Hannah.. I was a few minutes late, but it was okay because they were an hour late. We took a taxi to the hotel and stayed there for a little while and everyone but me took a short nap.

We went over to the Natural History Museum and saw a few things in there, mostly the dinosaur bones and the photography exhibit. The photographs were of animals, and landscape and were really amazing. They liked it but were also very tired. After the museum we went back to Victoria station and found a restaurant next to it and ate dinner. It was a nice pub, we decided to get traditional English food, so we had a meat pie and toffee pudding.

Mar 17

Today was the first full day of the vacation. We tried to do as much as possible, because they really aren't going to be in London for that much time. So first we went to Leicester square and went to the half price ticket office to see if we could get seats for that night. I wanted to see "Speed the Plow", but they didn't have any for that. We ended up getting tickets for "The History Boys".

After we got the tickets we waked over to the National Gallery, I think we spent about an hour and a half in there. I took them to all my favorite rooms, and the ones with famous paintings. It really saved a lot of time from me knowing the museum so well. And they got to see all the good stuff. I told them a little about some of the paintings I had studied and pointed out some hidden things. Then we went over to the National Portrait Gallery next door. Mom and Hannah went into the Vanity Fair exhibit and they really liked it a lot. Then I took them on a short tour of the museum. I bought a copy of that Run DMC photo that I liked so much from the Vanity Fair exhibit. It was a good purchase.

Then we walked over to China Town for some shopping and lunch at a really good place. After China Town we went over to the London Eye, we booked tickets earlier in the day. It was really fun, it takes 30 minutes to get around and it seems a lot faster than that. You can see so much of the city from there, we could even see Diorama. We got a lot of good photos from there. After we got out we went and looked at Big Ben and the house of Parliament and took more pictures. We got a couple of family photos by strangers, so maybe one will be good.

After that it started to snow and started to get dark, so we went to our play "The History Boys". We got front row seats, and it turned out to be a really good play. It was funny and had a couple songs and a few dramatic parts. It was a good mix. The play was about these kids about to go off to college and their teachers preparing them etc. It kind of reminded me of the Dead Poets Society in some ways.

Mar 18

We went to Buckingham palace today. Dad and I went on ahead and Mom and Hannah shopped along the way. We were going to see the changing of the guards at 11:15 so we went a little early. When we got there, there were about 6,000-7,000 people. I thought the queen was coming out or something, I mean I had no idea what was going on. Turns out that's how many people always come for this event. So we stayed around for about half of it, but honestly it was a waste of time. There were so many people there, and the guards didn't do much at all. Just march around a little and stand there for several minutes then march a little more. I guess since I'm staying in London I couldn't be here for 6 months and never go see this wildly popular event. But if you are here for less than 2 weeks, save your time and see something interesting.

Then we went to the Tower of London. It was a really interesting and I liked the way everything looked. Its like a little village in there almost. There was a huge courtyard in the middle of all the different towers and walls. It was interesting that the building is so old and still there. One building was just of weapons and things, I didn't really like it at all, but I did like the suits of armor from all kinds of kings, it was sort of interesting. One room was a jail and a lot of the prisoners had carved their name in the walls a long time ago. The Tower of London is also where the crown jewels are. There is a big vault room with all kinds of swords and crowns covered in diamonds and precious stones. It worth going to see.

We took the 38 bus to Gill and Als house (my house), it took us about 2 hours to get home, plus we had all of their extra luggage that we didn't want to take to Paris to drop off in my room. They cooked us dinner and it was really good. We brought them photos of our house to show them how we live in Chickasha. They thought it was interesting and they were amazed at how big our house and yard was. Jo is going to New York in a couple of weeks so we were telling her a little bit about it since she had never been. Everyone ate cheese and crackers after dinner. Mom said she didn't want any at first because she thought it would be rude like maybe she didn't like the meal they cooked (which is what I thought when I first got here). A couple weeks after I moved in Al ate some cheese and crackers after Gill had cooked a big meal and I couldn't believe that he was doing that right in front of her. But turns out its not rude at all here, its sort of like dessert. Anyway I think they liked seeing where I lived and Gill and Al liked meeting my parents. We took the 38 bus back to our hotel and got ready for Paris.

Family vacation blog to be continued…