Monday October 6th continued

Today Dick started his conference and I went site seeing by myself. I decided to go to the Natural History Museum. It is only about 4 blocks from our hotel. What a beautiful building. Of course I loved the dinosaur exhibit. They have 14 complete skeletons, 2 animatronic raptors and a full-size robotic T. Rex (I took several short movies of T. Rex). As you can see how large the building is by the dino skeleton in the entry hall. I thought the right foot of the Iguanodon was great. They also had it’s front feet and how they use them like hands with one thumb spike, 3 fingers (to support and walk with) and a flexible finger to help grasp food with. Who knew - not me!

I walked down to Harrod’s after several hours in the museum. It was about another 8 blocks down the road. It is a huge department store and I couldn't afford anything in it. It is like the old department stores in the US. Different rooms for each department and lots of people to help you. A very upscale feel to it. The travel book says that they have been known to turn people away because of their dress! They have a food court where you can eat at counters or just buy food to take-out. They also had fresh meat, veggies, fruit, breads, desserts, just about anything you could imagine.

My feet were hurting by this time, so I decided to take the long way back to the hotel. I saw a lot of the neighborhoods around South Kenningston. All row houses - but very nice and small shops and markets. All was very interesting.

Monday October 6th

Picture of front entrance of Natural History Museum.

We arrived at our new hotel yesterday. It is very nice. Top hat doorman and all. Too bad they do things a little different than we are use to. No clock, ice bucket or ice machine, old plumbing and (mom you will love this) an iron with no steam. That made pressing Dick’s suit a tiny bit harder. Oh, well we can’t beat the price and it’s nice to be in another section of London for a few days.

I guess I haven't said anything about the weather. People say that London is like Seattle in its weather and New York in its people and city life. It's true. We've had rain, lots of chilly wind, beautiful blue skies, and gloomy overcast. We haven't minded it at all, but our friends from Texas are a wee bit cold. Also the time change is odd for us. We are 8 hours ahead of Washington. So when the presidential debate is on 6 PM your time, we will be watching it at 2 AM Wednesday morning. When we come home on Saturday we leave here 8:30 AM London time (12:30 AM) and will be back in Seattle 8 PM (4 AM London). We will have traveled for almost 24 hours.

Our Last Stop Saturday

Our final stop on our cruise was Greenwich pier. I never really thought about it until the tour guide on the boat mentioned that this is the home to Greenwich Prime Meridian. We had gone to visit an open air market that is held every Saturday and Sunday. It was like a food and craft bazaar, only better. Maria and I went to that (we bought good stuff for dinner) and the guys hiked up the hill to the Royal Observatory (top picture) to straddle the prime meridian (longitude 0 degrees). The weather was not so good, rainy, cold and very windy and on top of that they close at 5 PM and it was about 10 after when they got there. So they just took pictures straddling the line that was outside the Observatory. That is the bottom right picture of Dick standing in both the East and West Longitudes. The bottom left picture is from Friday night. Remember I said that we went on a Jack the Ripper tour, well this is the church that is the famous White Chapel. It's a real church.
That's all for now. We are moving to the Conference Hotel tomorrow, so will have to find another Internet site to use.

Churchill's War Room

Dick wanted to see the Churchill Museum and War Rooms, so we hopped off the boat and headed inland (about 4 blocks). It was very interesting. The building it was in is the refurbish bunker that they used during WWII. They had pictures and people to help them put everything back to the original condition. Some of the rooms they just straightened their desks up and walked away after the war ended. They just sealed them up. All they had to do was some cleaning in them. The top picture is of the war room that Churchill and his advisers used. His chair is just in front of the map. The bottom left picture is the Map Room with all the original maps they used. Beside the original rooms, they had a big room that held all the exhibits for Churchill's life and the war years. It was worth seeing. The bottom right picture Dick thought was something you don't always see. This is just down the lane from 10 Downing street. I think that the residence of the Prime Minister is well guarded. The fellow on the right has an machine gun!

Saturday River Cruising

On Saturday we decided that were going to use a boat instead of our feet. We hopped on the City Cruise boat about Noon at the Tower Pier and we headed up the river to the Westminster Pier. You can see we saw many of the famous sites in London. The British Airways London Eye. We realized as we went by that it never stops. As they are emptying one car they are loading up the one in front of it while it is still slowly moving. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. I didn't realize that the clock is so beautiful. A very bright gold. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and Exhibition is quite amazing to see. The Globe is the white building on the right side of the bottom picture. It is a replica of the original down to the thatched roof. Several years ago they were digging a foundation for another building just over the highway from the Globe and they found the original foundation for the Globe. All I know it that there is a nice new modern building on the Globe's original site.

The London Tower Bridge

This is the Tower Bridge. I always thought that it was the London Bridge. There has been 3 London Bridges in history. The second one was sinking into the river mud and so they sold it and it was put up over a man-made lake in Arizona. The one they have how is just a plain old looking bridge. I like this one much more.

Friday Sight Seeing

Friday, October 3 -- We started our day out what seemed to be early. We had breakfast at 8:30 London time (12:30 AM) PT. We didn't get much sleep in the last 2 days. Oh Well! We came to site see and we made the most of it today. We figured out the Tube and then went to Piccadilly Circus to pick up our London Passes and meet up with our friends, Maria and John. After that we again took the Tube to the Tower Hill Station. It is just above The Tower of London. We spent most the day exploring this great place. Not at all what we expected - it was much more! We just about closed the place down, but we need FOOD. None of us had eaten since breakfast. We went to Wagamama's. Japanese noodles and they tasted the best (could be because we were hungry). Then on to the Jack the Ripper night tour. Not scary but lots of fun. Of course we had to talk about it and what we were going to the next day in a Pub. Lots of fun, but we didn't get home until 11 PM