London - Day Three

We woke up and headed to Greenwich on the DLR, which was great since it's the station closest to our flat, but since it's Docklands Light Rail (DLR) instead of a tube station, it was open. It will be grand to have our station open again tomorrow. I was thinking today that's it's a good thing it was open Friday evening when we arrived or we would have had a REALLY hard time finding our flat! We got off one station early so we could walk through the pedestrian tunnel that goes under the Thames, but it was sort of underwhelming. It kept us out of the rain, though. We saw a Starbucks right outside the tunnel, so we all grabbed a hot drink, as it was chilly and rainy. The coffees weren't good, and Gabe ended up drinking my cappuccino and his tea, which made him over-caffeinated and a bit shaky. We walked through Greenwich in the rain, noting that there was a Marks and Spencer Simply Food near the Cutty Sark, and the kids remembered getting Victoria Sponge cakes in a similar store in the train station on our last trip. We hiked up the hill to the observatory, and explored. We learned about measuring time, why it was important, and the contest to calculate the meridians. It was pretty cool, and we timed it perfectly, because it was jam packed when we left.

After the observatory, we grabbed some sandwiches in some deli, and ate them as we walked up the main street in Greenwich. Then we stopped in the Marks and Spencer, and wished we had gotten our sandwiches there, as they had about a million different ones to choose from. We did get our Victoria Sponge though, and a latte from Costa, which we ate on the DLR back to town. We decided to split up, and meet back up at the British Library at 5.

Toria and I went to Kensington Palace, which was pretty. There were a lot of beautiful gowns worn by royals, including Queen Elizabeth II, her sister Margaret, Princess Diana, and Queen Victoria. Elizabeth had a tiny waist back in the day! She was way smaller than we picture her; Margaret was bigger, as was Diana. Victoria was almost child sized as a teenager and early adult years, but then they had a dress from her older years, and she was about twice as wide. The king's wing focused on George II, and his queen, Caroline. There were beautiful and ornate dresses made of paper, and some real ones too. One weird thing about Kensington Palace was that there were no descriptions of the items on display near them; you had to go to a folder in a particular spot in the room, and read it all there, then go look. We decided to have a quick drink in the gardens before we hit the tube for the library. We went the opposite direction to another station to get a direct shot to the library, and as a bonus we got to see more of the park.

At King's Cross, we tried to get a bus map to use if the tube strike happens. I'm a bit worried about getting to the station to catch our train to Edinburgh! There was a line, and we wanted to look at the library before it closed, so we went on through. At the library, we saw DaVinci's notebooks, handwritten Beatles' lyrics, Beowulf, etc. The Magna Carta was there, too, but we just saw it in Houston, so we went to the book shop instead. Toria got two books, and I just got one and a magnet. We were the last ones out, and just in time to reunite with the boys.

We stopped at the Tesco to refresh our milk and fruit stash, then came to the flat and cooked dinner. We had some trouble cooking with the gas, so some of it was a bit well done, but it was good. We had a mix: lasagna for Toria, chicken for parents, and pizza for Gabe. Timing it all in the oven was tricky. Nice to have an earlier night, though! We're trying to decide what to do tomorrow. The girls want to go to Hampton Court and Kew Gardens, but not so much with the boys.