Here we are in England!  We spent three days in London, and today we’re headed north to Hartlepool.

Christmas in London was every bit as fantastic and memorable as we were hoping it would be.  I’m thrilled because most of the time real life doesn’t quite measure up to the shiny, high expectations in your head.  When an experience turns out better than you’d hoped, what a wonderful surprise.

Here are a few excerpts from emails I sent to our folks and a couple of friends, for anyone who is interested in what we’re doing.

Day One:

We spent the afternoon at Harrods, which is near our hotel.  It’s a madhouse this close to Christmas, although most of the people seem to be tourists like us.  We actually heard very little English being spoken around us.  It was hard to navigate through all the bodies, much less get any real shopping done.  Josie bought a stuffed dog (to replace the one she bought at Harrods in April, which was ripped to shreds by Max within days of getting home) and now is happy.  She’s been lamenting that loss for months.

View from our hotel

Tomorrow we’re planning to go to Trafalgar Square to see the giant tree, and Hyde Park for ice skating.  The kids are viewing the ice skating as one of the main attractions of the vacation, so I hope it turns out well.  The weather tomorrow is supposed to be pretty good.  The rest of the day we’ll just play by ear. We’re not sure what to expect the day before Xmas.

Everything on Xmas day is going to be shut down (including the tube) so we may just wander the vacant, foggy streets of London and pretend we’re back in Charles Dickens’ time.  They have an organized Charles Dickens walk at 2 p.m. that could be pretty cool. We visited his house last time we were here and that was really neat.

Day Two:  Christmas Eve Day

Great day!  We slept in until nearly 10:00 a.m. but that was nice as we all badly needed the sleep.  We walked over to a nearby Starbucks for breakfast.

We decided to walk to Hyde Park after Starbucks (going through Green Park) and passed Buckingham Palace on the way there.  We happened to show up right at the changing of the guard and got to see the whole drum/marching band parade leading up to it, the changeover, and the old guards all riding away on matching black stallions with huge red capes.  All the police officers there for crowd control were on horses, too, so the whole production had a medieval vibe.

Kids in Green Park

The ice skating rink over in Hyde Park was sold out … turns out you have to buy tickets for a specific time and today’s were all gone.  Adam bought tickets for us; our appointment is Boxing Day (Dec 26) at 6:30 p.m.  We can go over there after dinner and skate in the dark.  It should be really pretty with all the Christmas lights up. The entire park has been magically transformed into a circus — what we would more accurately call a street fair.  It’s called “Winter Wonderland.”  They have all kinds of shops, booths, food, beer gardens, rides, games, people dressed up in costumes.  It’s very festive and really cool.  Anyway, we can go back the day after Xmas for our turn on the ice rink.

Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park

We spent quite a bit of time at the circus in Hyde Park, then walked over to Trafalgar Square.  The tree is big, but not a very pretty specimen.  I don’t know what kind of evergreen it is, but it’s kind of ratty and only had a few strings of blue lights on it.  Not super impressive.  The art museum was closed (so was the Natural History museum) so there wasn’t much to do there.  We ate lunch in a pub, then walked over to the London Eye where they had another (smaller) street fair going on.

Kids in Trafalgar Square

The weather has been pretty much what we expected.  Yesterday was supposed to be the only rainy day (phew!) and today was overcast and probably around 35 or 40 degrees.  We brought enough clothes that we were all warm enough, but I bought Josie a new scarf because she was getting a chill down the front of her coat.  It’s really amazing how much warmer you are with a scarf wrapped around your neck.  It was only $7 or so.

Getting bundled up — cold but not rainy

Tomorrow a lot of things will be closed, but they are having two different walking tours – one at 11:00 a.m. for Samuel Pepys, and one at 2 p.m. for Charles Dickens — that are free.  You just show up at Trafalgar Square by the big tree and join up.  They take you by restaurants that are open, so we should have no trouble getting food.

“Hey, look kids — there’s Big Ben and there’s Parliament.”

One of many hot chocolate, tea, and coffee breaks.

Day Three: Christmas Day

Merry Christmas everyone!

We had a great day here in London.  Not very many things were open, so after finding a place for breakfast, we spent a couple of hours just wandering the streets.  It was peaceful and nice.  We had a chance to see things like Westminster Abbey without throngs of people.  It was closed to visitors on the inside, but even walking around the outside of the buildings was interesting.  The weather was great — above freezing, not very windy, and no rain.  All bundled up, we were perfectly warm and comfortable.

Josie in front of Westminster Abbey

No visit to London is complete without cramming into a red phone booth

Breakfast — a wee bit chilly next to the door

After we found another open restaurant for lunch, we took a taxi to Piccadilly Circus (the theater district) and were surprised to find a lot of things open and crowds of people.  All the tourists here in London who don’t have homes to be on Christmas Day ended up in Piccadilly Circus it seems.  Anyway, we decided to skip the Charles Dickens walking tour because the kids complained vociferously about “boring learning stuff and walking” (we missed the Samuel Pepys tour because we slept too late) and ended up visiting the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

Heavy crowds at Piccadilly Circus this afternoon. Holden in blue coat racing off to the M&M Store – thank goodness it was closed or we would never have been able to pull him out.

Hot beverage break before we head into Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum

Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum

Giant chair inside Ripley’s

That was way more fun than any of us expected.  It’s a 5-story building just stuffed with weird things ranging from two-headed sheep and 6-legged deer to Spanish Inquisition-era torture devices, and took several hours to go through.  We saw The Last Supper painted on a grain of rice, went through a very disorienting mirror maze (that actually started to get scary when we couldn’t find our way out), Marilyn Monroe’s bedroom furniture and make-up case, shrunken heads, a lock of Napoleon Bonaparte’s hair, a nest of petrified dinosaur eggs … the collection of weird and fantastical stuff in there is truly amazing and nearly endless.  The kids LOVED it, so money well spent.  We were grateful to have something entertaining to do today, too, since we thought it would be our worst day on the trip with nothing to do.

The maze of mirrors at Ripleys – definitely the highlight for the kids today.. we got lost and spent WAY too much time trying to find our way out.

London at Christmas is an interesting experience.  The English take it pretty seriously as a holiday, but (like everything else they do) it’s all dignified and somewhat reserved. There isn’t any of that manic, almost frantic American Christmas vibe at all.  It’s really nice, and seems to be a lot less stressful for everyone.  I don’t think they have that sense that they MUST HAVE A MAGICAL TIME, NO MATTER WHAT!! that we all pressure ourselves into feeling.  I also get the sense that present-giving is much less a part of the tradition.  Most of the shops have a few Christmas decorations up (strings of lights, santa hats on the mannequins) but aren’t aggressively selling merchandise labeled as Christmas gifts, Christmas sale, etc.  It’s just lower-key.

Tomorrow we’re getting up early and driving out to see Stonehenge.  According to what we’ve read, it’s about an hour and a half drive from our hotel.  We’ll toodle around in the countryside for most of the day, then head back to London for dinner.  We have our ice skating appointment at 6:30 in Hyde Park.

Day Four, Stonehenge and Ice Skating

Remember how I said the English are dignified and reserved?  I take it back.  Last night after dinner in Piccadilly Circus, we went window shopping.  It was dark by then but even the closed shops had lights on in their windows, so everything was lit up and really pretty.  We stopped at one window display that had brightly colored silicon-and-stainless steel items arranged on little stands. It looked at lot like an Apple Store display, but Isabella and I couldn’t figure out what the items were.  After discussion, we decided they were some kind of cool new ergonomic curling irons.  Then Adam whispered in my ear “Brenda, this is a sex shop.”  So, not new-fangled ergonomic curling irons. I grabbed the kids and said, “Oh … time to move along!”  Isabella picked up on the change of attitude and kept badgering me to tell her what was in that window (“just never mind, it’s not important” only made her more determined to know) until I finally took her aside and filled her in.  She barely had time to process her horror that such things existed when we turned a corner and came face-to-face with a lingerie window display featuring anatomically correct mannequins. She said in a thoroughly disgusted tone, “This country is full of perverts.  When are we going to France?”  I didn’t have the heart to tell her what the French are famous for.  She’ll find out next week.

Wandering through the West End

This morning we got up earlier and headed out in our rental car for Stonehenge.  It’s about an hour and a half drive from London, out in the middle of a windy field. They have it all cordoned off now so you can’t get near the stones.  Too many people were chipping off bits to keep as souvenirs, and therefore ruined it for everyone. There actually isn’t much to do there.  You walk around a big circle admiring the stones from afar.  All around the site is an electrified fence with grazing sheep on the other side.  It really is just a big pile of rocks standing in the middle of still-used farm land.  The sheep don’t seem impressed that they are living right next to a world-famous archeological wonder.

Stonehenge

An aside:  the expression “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” takes on new meaning.  It’s literally true, with “other side” being the one without the sheep.  The sheep field is always practically bare dirt, while the field on the other side of the fence is filled with thick, juicy green grass.  No wonder they are always trying to get over there.

Our days have mostly been structured around Holden’s stomach.  His life revolves around his digestive system.  He wakes up in the morning talking about food. “What’s for breakfast?”  While we are eating breakfast, his focus turns to lunch.  “What’s going to be for lunch?  What about snacks?  Where will we eat dinner?  Are we going to have a dessert?  Will we stop for drinks later?  Can we have hot chocolate?  If they don’t have hot chocolate, what can I have?”  This leads directly to his secondary concern: scoping out bathrooms.  We’ve spent a lot of time each day alternating between finding restaurants and finding toilets.  This wasn’t a problem in London because it’s thick with both, but Stonehenge is out in the middle of nowhere.

After Stonehenge, we drove to another henge about 20 miles away in Avebury.  This one is less famous, but much bigger and not cordoned off.  If you are willing to hike through the mud, you can go right up to the stones.  The sheep here are right in with you, not separated by a fence or anything.  Needless to say, the kids were more interested in the sheep than in the henge.  Since it was Boxing Day, the one restaurant was closed — no food, and no bathrooms.  Holden was getting desperate, so we left without seeing much.

Henge at Avebury Village. This is precisely what they would frown upon at Stonehenge.

Ram telling us to get lost.

On the way back to London, we found a little restaurant called The Bell.  It didn’t look like much from the outside, but it turned out to be the coolest little quintessential English pub, right outside Marlborough.  They had a big sign saying “Dogs are welcome, and if they stay on their lead they can have a treat from the bar.”  (The English love their dogs.      They seem to be allowed in nearly every establishment.)  There were two dogs in there already, which the kids thought was just about the neatest thing they’d ever seen.  Dogs in a restaurant!  The food was fantastic, too.

Back in London, we parked our car at the hotel and took a taxi to Hyde Park for our turn on the ice rink.  Our tickets were for 6:30 p.m. and it’s a good thing we got there early; ticket holders were already lined up at 5:45.

The kids have never been ice skating before and it was a lot harder than they expected.  There was a lot of falling down.  My upbringing in Alaska came in handy in this one instance and I was able to impress them with my mad skillz (which basically means I’m able to skate backwards and I didn’t fall down even one time).

But I must say, the kids did a better job than all the Arabs.  Lots of Arabs were on the ice, and they did not fare well.  Grown men were clinging to the wall, falling hard, and looking both pissed and embarrassed.  The women at least were laughing and having fun anyway, but I got the idea the men thought they were going to hit the ice and be awesome, because they are accustomed to being rich and awesome and manly at everything they try.  Having little girls literally skate circles around them wasn’t doing their egos any good.  Adding insult to injury, a peanut-gallery of young boys was grouped on a bleachers-type structure above the rink, pointing and laughing at everyone who made the mistake of falling down in front of them.  They sounded like a group of British Nelson Muntzs (“Ha ha!” with an accent). They saved their most derisive jeering for the Arab men. The grimmer and more clench-jawed they became, the funnier it was.  Adam said to me, “Oh, come on.  You have to give them a pass … they’re from the land of sand and camels, they can’t be expected to know what to do with ice.”

We were allowed to skate for one hour.  Adam and I figured we’d only stay for 30 minutes or so, but the hour just flew by and suddenly they were kicking everyone off the ice.  Over!  As we were leaving the circus, Isabella marveled over the fact that the first time she ever ice skated was in Hyde Park at Christmas.  How many people have that experience?  I think the kids will all remember last night for the rest of their lives.  It made a big impression.

On the ice rink

Day Five: Hartlepool, Northern England

Well, that brings us up to today.  We’re in the car headed north, and we just passed the edge of Sherwood Forest (of Robin Hood fame.)  The next town is Nottingham. There is something mindbogglingly famous around every corner of this country; so much so that it starts to get overwhelming.  American literary heritage and traditions are so heavily influenced by England, it creates a bizarre sense of having stepped into a fictional world made real.  It would take years to see it all, and we only have a few days.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with the guy rebuilding Adam’s Land Rover in Hartlepool.  He has to pick out all the goodies he wants included before they ship it to Savannah.  Adam has been looking forward to that for months!