The Wandering Davidsons: Day 6 - Tower of London, London, and Wicked!!!

We took the train into London!!! Even waiting to take the second train after peak hours, we still didn't have a place to sit. Someone was finally kind enough to offer Hannah a spot so she could feed Xander, but the little old lady next to her glared daggers at her the rest of the way in. The English are not what you would call really friendly and helpful. Anyway, it took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get from Hove to London Victoria Station. We walked out of the train station, and got right on the Underground. No, I didn't take a picture of the "Mind the Gap" sign. After living in the DC Metro area for a few months, I figured the Underground was similar to the Metro. It is, and it isn't. It is in the fact that it is an underground train that takes you from point A to point B. It isn't in the fact that it is completely inaccessible to anyone in a wheelchair, crutches, or pushing a stroller. Buzz carried the pushchair down stairs just to have to carry it back up another set 10 feet later. In the one station that had elevators, we walked a half mile to get to the elevator that took us up just one floor, then another quarter mile to get to the next one to take us to the surface. It was insane! Sometimes it felt like we walked farther underground than we would have walking to the next place we wanted to go. Crazy! It will be very interesting to see how they manage during the Olympics. Anyway, enough complaining.

Our first stop of the day was the Tower of London! We walked along the ramparts that connected the outer towers, ate lunch, walked through Bloody Tower, went through the Armoury, and saw the Crown Jewels!!! We couldn't take pictures in the vault, so I bought the book. The boys LOVED seeing all the armor and weapons. Aubree and I loved the jewels! The whole complex that makes up the Tower is so cool! We had a great view of the Tower Bridge, saw Traitor's Gate, and got to see the spot on the Thames where they filmed an episode of Mud Men (one of my favorite British shows).

After we finished with the Tower, we headed into London to see what we could see. We saw the clock tower that houses Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Parliament Square, and 10 Downing Street (or as much as you can see it from behind the barricades) on our way to Trafalgar Square. The kids were total troopers as we hoofed it from one place to the next. Even though the buildings we were looking at had no real significance to them, they were interesting enough to keep them from complaining.

After we saw all we wanted to see, we ate at a pub at the train station. It was really good food, and a nice time to just sit and relax before we completed our day. Just before 7, we sent Buzz home with Chris, Nick, L'eah, and Xander. The train was PACKED and they ended up standing the whole time, again. But Buzz said that Chris and Nick played with L'eah and were a huge help to him. Aubree, Hannah, and I went to see Wicked!!! We had fabulous seat in the second row of the balcony - we could see everything really well. We agonized over where to sit, so it was a pleasant surprise that our seats were so incredible! I had already seen Wicked, but it was the first time for Aubree and Han, and they loved it! I think we're all plotting how soon we can see it again! After it was over, we went back to the train station to wait for our train back to Hove. We were all able to sit and share a table. The train also had a lot of girls on it that had just been to the Justin Bieber concert. (Aubree's friend Alli had wanted to come with us to be able to go to the concert - they went to Rome instead.) We had a super fun but exhausting day.