Stepping Out From Behind The Tweed Curtain: Cultural London, the Chunnel and Holland

Our last days in London were very full. We took advantage of our time there by doing daily excursions from where we were staying into the center of the city on the amazing rail and underground network. After the ramshackle Asian experience, it feels ultra-modern over here with immaculate trains running on time, and the best part is how easy it is to get anywhere one wants to go on public transit. It is quite a contrast. So far the kids have been free on much of the transport (or very cheap) which has helped our pockets tremendously.

As planned, we spent Easter weekend in London with Jonathon and his family. We were happy to see that the Easter bunny even comes to Europe and delivered a bounty of good quality chocolates for all. Kai and Pippin had a great time doing the garden Easter egg hunt with Madeline and Olivia. Note the yummy chocolate cow that both of them found hidden in the garden. The kids are still happily gnawing at it days later.

Our daily routine has been to pack lunches in the morning (saving big bucks in expensive London) and then to train to a certain area of the city to take in the various offerings that are available. Even with the concerted effort we made to see what we could, we barely scratched the surface of this incredible city. The best part of all is how much one can do that is free!

This blog entry is quite dense in photos so that we can cover some of the territory - because we took in so much! The London Eye is great to look at from a landmark point of view but it is apparently a bit of a sleeper with regards to the ride experience. It is slow and costs mucho bucks . . . so we enjoyed it from below.

The street acts provide hours of viewing pleasure in London. They are everywhere and there is an astounding amount of creativity and variety to take in. Sometimes it can be problematic because one will be en-route somewhere and then can get very delayed and distracted by the various offerings.

Westminster has many things to take in: the stunning parliament buildings and Big Ben are quite the sight especially with their setting along the Thames, Westminster Abbey proper (though it is very expensive to actually go inside, something in the range of 28 pounds for a family -- and the exchange is very close to double), St. Mary's Cathedral, multitudes of old and new statues, protesters (when we were there a large group of Sri Lankans were protesting the killing of Tamils in their homeland and were wanting the British government to get involved), and lots of very lovely, old, stately buildings.

A recent addition of Madiba to the statues at Westminster - from his recent 90th birthday celebration.

Kai and Pippin had many questions about the protests. After taking in all the recent Thailand turmoil on the "telly" (as the Brits call it) both kids had lots of curiosity about why people get so passionate in their protests. Seeing that we had just left Thailand, the protests seemed that much more real to them. Interestingly, the few days before we left Bangkok, we all kept remarking that there seemed to be a lot more security everywhere and clearly something seemed to be brewing. The Tamil protests have an individual who has been on hunger strike for over 9 days and it is getting a lot of media attention in the UK.

Then a shortish walk away is Buckingham Palace! What a sight. The day we went, the sun was shining and the flowers were out in full force. Very lovely. We had fun watching the guards have an apparent inspection of their post by another group of guards, we think one was a superior of some sort. Quite the pomp and splendour. Kai and Pippin thought it was fun to watch, but weren't so keen on the intense looking guns that they hold. Gone are the days where Britain is devoid of guns. It seems like every time one turns in any direction, one sees men with huge semi-automatic weapons with bayonets on the end. Added to the visible security, are the constant overhead announcements asking the public to be weary of any suspicious unattended parcels and then there are camera's on every street corner filming you wherever you go. Furthermore, many of the places one goes where large groups will be means that there will also be guards at the entrance searching one's bags and making sure you don't have any weapons or explosives. It feels a little like one is in the film "Brazil". It has become a distinctly "big Brother" type of society with lots of rife paranoia and fear to keep the masses in line. I hope Canada never becomes this . . .

Kai and Pippin got a real kick out of taking one of the old-style double decker buses to the Natural History Museum. It lunged and lurched like crazy on the top, and we all agreed that it was a little like taking the Night Bus in Harry Potter.

We took in the Natural History Museum for a whole afternoon. The museum itself is an absolutely amazing and beautiful building. The exhibits were amazing and one could spend hours in one of these places (if one did not get stimulus overload after the first 2 hours).

The main hall where one of their large dinosaur skeletons is housed is breath taking. Each tile and molding appears to have been hand made specifically for this building. In each room there is a different motif related to the type of exhibit. Our only limitation, was that it was Easter weekend and so it was very crowded with tourists like us and the local Londoners.

On our last full day in London we took in the Tower of London, the spectacular fortress and castle where kings and queens have reigned from since the 1100's. It displayed a very interesting, and rather brutal history. There were torture chambers, prison towers filled with ancient graffiti from the various well-heeled prisoners, as well as residences housed within the walls of this enormous place. Even Anne Boleyn was one of the prisoners housed in one of the towers before her execution. During our time at the Tower, two highlights in particular caught our attention. One was seeing the Crown Jewels -- yup, Queen Elizabeth II's crown, sceptre and orb, as well as previous monarch's finery. It was all pretty spectacular -- especially seeing the largest diamond in the world -- The Cullinan -- which is part of the Queen's sceptre. The true highlight, though, was the exhibition called "Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill." This was a fantastically put together exhibition of King Henry VIII's armour and weaponry -- the real stuff. We were absolutely awestruck -- the level of craftsmanship and detail was absolutely amazing. The exhibition was put together to follow Henry through the years, from young man right up until his end -- with his armour expanding in girth along with him. Apparently it was thanks to his only male heir, Edward, who at the age of nine had the foresight to have his father's weaponry, armour, and spoils of war carefully catalogued and then stored for posterity. Had this not happened, it is unlikely that much of it would have survived. We could have spent many more hours in this exhibit, but at some point Kai and Pippin hit information overload and I (Skye) was reminded of my youth when my own parents would 'drag' me to amazing museums for whole days, with me starting to complain and whine after about 2 hours -- my Karma for this is definitely coming back to me!

All in all, London was a great start to our European adventure. Our hosts Carol and Jonathon were absolutely stellar and helped to make our stay comfortable and fun, with nightly dinners and visits.

So yesterday, it was time to head on to Continental Europe. We started the journey with a train ride from Addlestone into London Waterloo station, from which we had to navigate ourselves, with the help of Jonathon, into the London Underground for two different tube rides to get ourselves to St. Pancras Station. The reason this was hard, was because it was rush hour and we had to lug all our gear into the crowded platforms and trains. Live and learn - next time book those tickets at times that are not so busy with city commuters. The Chunnel experience turned out to be very easy and incredibly fast. Downtown London to downtown Brussels in 2 hours. Hard to imagine that it is even possible. The train was traveling at what felt like 200 kms an hour. It was all very space age - like when one includes that fact that one is traveling deep under the earth's surface under the English Channel.

The Belgian and Dutch countryside was lovely as ever with their rich green colours and all the spring flowers in evidence all over the place. It was all very lovely to take in from the speedy window of a fast train. Here we are after arriving at Ian's in Eindhoven in his very swanky high-rise apartment.

We had only a half an hour to drop off our baggage at Ian's and then we hopped on another train to Utrecht to see our good friend Nada and her husband Hedzer (we rushed off to see her since she was leaving the next morning for Croatia). We had a lovely evening with them and as you can see the kids were in top form.