London Day 2 and 3: a show and a castle

We spent Tuesday south of the Thames and in East London.  Sarah found the Design Museum by typing 'FUN THINGS FOR TEEN-AGE GIRLS" into a web browser.  It was wonderful.   You can see it at http://www.designmuseum.org/.  The picture of Sarah in front of the pink sculpture is in their lobby.

 We had our English breakfast of toast and jam.  Then our first stop was to walk around the Tower of London.  Then we went across the Tower Bridge to South walk to the Design Museum.

 

 The Design Museum had a great exhibit by architect Richard Rogers.  After that we walked past City Hall and the HMS Belfast, a WWII ship.  Then we took light rail to east London to see the Thames Barrier, a large wall that keeps the Thames from flooding the city at high tide--or when the polar ice caps melt.  Then we went back to our hotel to change for the theater...oops...theatre.

 

 We saw Mamma Mia at the Prince of Wales theatre in Piccadilly Circus.  It was a fabulous show and brought back lots of memories of listening to my ABBA records in the 1970s.  After the show, we got back to our neighborhood about 11pm and Sarah got official English fish and chips from a little restaurant across the street from our hotel.  She liked it with vinegar.

 

 This morning I shut off the alarm at 7:45 and we ended up sleeping until 11:30.  So, we took the tube into the city and stopped at the first little cafe we saw and Sarah got a full English breakfast: fried egg, toast, ham, sausage, baked beans, and hot chocolate.  Just down the street from the cafe we saw this little car; they are all over the city.  Some of them are electric and just get plugged in at night.

 

 We walked past the Queen's house, but didn't stop in.  These guards behind Sarah are carrying automatic assault rifles and may have had a problem with us visiting.

 

 We walked along St. James park and ended up at Westminster Abbey, behind Sarah here.  We sat on the lawn for a bit but didn't go in.  Admission for the both of us would have come to about $45, so we passed.  Admission for nearly everything starts at about £10, or $20 USD.  There's lots to do for free.

 

Then we took the red double-decker bus across the city for about 20 minutes to St. Paul's Cathedral.  We went inside and sat for a bit -- no admission charge there, except for a guided tour.  It was after 4, so they were getting ready to close for services.  We may go back tomorrow and go up to the observation deck in the dome.

Now we are in Hampstead in northern London to visit John Hickey, my roommate from The College of Wooster.  He is in charge of education for Apple Corp. in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.  He has meetings at Oxford and Cambridge and just got a phone call to schedule a meeting with the Libyan Ministry of Education.  He is going to take us to a genuine English pub for dinner.

I still haven't figured out a way to get us to Luton Airport at 5 am on Friday.  I'll work on that later tonight or tomorrow morning.

More later.

Daniel and Sarah