Mostly, I just gotta ...

Mostly, I just gotta move that picture of an Elizabeth in full plate armor. It's the first thing I see when I get on the internet and it's just so wrong it's distracting. But you notice, I don't just take it off. I leave the abomination there.

On the other hand - here are my cute nephews being silly. This may prove to be distracting as well.

I'm so excited: I get to go see them next weekend. Through a series of unfortunate events I'm having to drive Mo's new car to him, and picking up dad's car from him. So we thought we might as well see Monchichi and company at the same time. Yippee!

Dream Sequence?

Elizabeth in armor? What the...! Is this Tilbury? Or is this a dream sequence?

Hope!

Tuesday night it was decided: we're going to London! Mom, Dad, Bean and I are going to London!! I'm so excited I'm not even ashamed of the number of exclamation marks I just used. While we were discussing it, Mom looked at me worriedly wondering if I would mind going to a place I've already been to. As if! The thought gives me hope to get through the next few months. We'll be going in December, not the best tourist time - but no matter - it's also the most "Christmas Caroly" time to go. I'm going to start planning all sorts of things to see and do, and I'm going to keep my brainstorms on the blog.

So, to start out - Tower of London, British Museum, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Trafalgar Square (Bean says he wants to see that), the London Eye (for Dad) - the hunting lodge that I missed last time, a show, like Mary Poppins, the Globe, (apparently there's going to be a Frost Fair!) the site of Richmond Palace (I think just a small part of it is left from Tudor times, but it's where QEI died, and it is something that we can do after the other stuff has closed) - Warwick Castle, maybe, Other palaces, Piccadilly Circus, (again, a good night thing - in fact, preferable at night), St. Paul's, (maybe we could go to the evensong or something like that when the other stuff is closed), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, ok - now I have to make sure that these things are going to be open when we're there. If we plan it right, we could spend evenings studying a bit about what we'd be seeing the next day, 'cause I have a suspicion that most things will close around 4 or 5. But it also looks like there's unique Christmasy things that are going on. I just found a Christmas Past exhibit at the Geffrye Museum.

I'm going to have to check out the London Pass. We're going to probably want to use the Tube, and it's wonderful map. It's going to cost about 80 pounds to get 7 day tickets - 3 adults, 1 under 15 years - Zones 1 and 2. Will need to get tickets to go to Hampton Court.

Oi, I could go on all day brainstorming. I'll just have to stop now.

Ok - I'm going to use this one post as the brainstorming post. I will keep adding to it as I find different things, so that the ideas are all in one location.

A good site for finding trains and such.

Dad just made our reservations at the Jolly Hotel, St. Ermin's. Here's a map.
We're going to see Mary Poppins on Monday.

Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. This is a night time activity. If we want to do it, we have to send in the request by the end of September.
Harrod's
Ancestors theme
Dickens theme
Disney theme
C.S. Lewis theme
Day trip to Oxford
Thames river boat tour
Concert at St. martin's in the field
The Golden Hinde
The Charles Dickens Museum
The Museum of London
The Victoria and Albert Museum
Christmas in London, and another link for Christmas in London
Don't forget the pantomimes . there's going to be one at Greenwich.
Big Christmas Tree and carol singing at Trafalgar Square in the evening.
The Dickens Christmas Festival in Rochester on Dec. 1 and 2. See map. It takes about an hour by train to get there.
London Walks: On Friday's Dickens and the Inns of Court (also on Monday's and Wednesdays). (This could change because I'm posting this while they're not on a winter schedule.)
The Christmas lights on Regents Street.