Fancy a museum visit?

Early December felt more like a gentle October with wispy white clouds dotting the clear blue skies.  We spent quite a bit of time at Coram's Fields.  

As much as I love playing with the kids there, Alisa and I also wanted them to experience some of the many museums here.  

Fortunately, being about 10 minutes from the British Museum has been great. We go for a half hour or so to look at Greek architecture, mummies, or the Rosetta Stone and then come home.  Having experienced this museum a few times, we were looking to explore some new ones.

With Alisa working at Imperial College, this worked out great. Imperial is right next to three phenomenal museums:  The Victoria and Albert, the Natural History, and the Science Museum.  

We decided to focus on the Natural History and the Science museum since they were more kid friendly.  On consecutive days we took the bus down and that gave us one day for each museum.  

The Natural History Museum dates back to 1753 when a famed collector died and allowed England to buy his 71,000 piece collection for a pittance.  Then the architect who designed the Royal Albert Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum won the right to design the Natural History Museum in the 1850's only he died unexpectedly and an obscure architect took over.

He did pretty well.  For the complete story and phenomenal pictures (far better than mine), check this link out:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/history-and-architecture.html

This place has expanded significantly since the 1850's and the collection has only become more impressive.

When we walked in, we came right up to a complete stegosaurus skeleton (her name is Sophie).

Sammy and Lanna were fortunately more intrigued than intimidated, so we decided to make our way to the dinosaur section.  As we walked through this massive place, we encountered impressive collections of complete ichthyosaurus fossils, birds of all feathers (including a Dodo subspecies), and Hintze Hall.

A gorgeous room housing a complete apatosaurus skeleton among other fantastic displays.  Lanna loved it!  She  ambled enthusiastically throughout the giant space weaving through the crowd.  She navigated well and would stop from time to time to say hello.  As much as she has charmed most of Europe, not everyone falls victim to her 4 toothed smile.

From there we went to the extensive and awe-inspiring dinosaur exhibit.  Not only were complete skeletons awaiting us at the entrance, there were several others hanging along the elevated walkway through the exhibit.

Our dino-greeter was my personal favorite, the triceratops.

Joey and Sammy were so thrilled!  

The walkthrough ended with a double decker sized animatronic T-Rex.  Sammy was less than thrilled and did not stay long.  Joey remained thrilled and stayed for a picture.

After the dinosaurs we looked for the fabled 25 foot giant squid named Archie.  Archie was given to the museum and is intact, stored in a giant glass container.

In their new Darwin Center they had more glass jars and containers than I could count filled with specimens of snakes, turtles, birds, sharks, and parasites among many other creatures.

Sadly, no Archie was to be found.  They are keeping her in a special place where only 8 year olds and higher can go.  You can see Archie here:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/giant-squid.html

Joey took that bad news in good stride.

Before leaving the Natural History Museum, we went to see the Blue Whale display but that was closed for some minor changes.  We instead saw this saber tooth tiger.

We left the Natural History Museum and found a laid back pub for dinner.

The next day was devoted to Science!

Right next door to the Natural History Museum is the Science Museum.  We followed the same routine from the day before:  Bus 14 and look for "fancy cars" on bus ride (the boys have several Bentleys and Rolls Royces with a handful of Ferraris and Lamborghinis, they still get excited about Porsche's but Jaguars don't count).

The Science Museum remains very kid friendly with excellent displays.

Here's their site:  http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

It may have been too old for them, but when we walked in and saw the giant model of a lunar landing with a giant scout rocket looming over their heads, the boys did think this museum was super cool.

Beyond the space exhibit was an enormous room filled with trains, cars (including a stack of 5 cars on top of each other), and an airplane!

They went and found the oldest train called the Rocket (although Joey reports that the Rocket was no faster than us running at full speed).

And a Model T.  

We enjoyed that room for a while until lunch.  Alisa came to join us which we all loved.

After lunch Alisa had to return to Imperial but we went to the basement and found a dynamic kids area!

There were giant building blocks, inspiring Joey to build the Leaning Tower and Sammy, somewhat sullenly, to build the Eiffel Tower.

They had a water area that Lanna found particularly enjoyable.

All the kids had a great time there actually.

In between playing with water or blocks, there was an area focused on sound and music with buttons that light up!  If there's anything Lanna loves more than water are buttons that light up when you push them!

We went to a demonstration about rockets after frolicking in the water.  It was sparsely attended but what it lacked in attendance it made up for in explosions of helium balloons and gas filled pringles cans!

Joey and Sammy volunteered to show how Newton's Third Law worked.  Joey is the rocket, hence the amazing hat.

They thoughtfully gave me earphones for Lanna given the intense detonations of the balloons.  It was loud!

Lanna, Sammy and I left after the demonstration and before the bonus helium balloon was exploded.

Joey was pretty excited about rockets after that.

We enjoyed a gingerbread cookie and some hot chocolate before going back to the water display before meeting Alisa.

Beyond these major museums, we decided to visit the small museum dedicated to Thomas Coram and his "foundlings" that he took care of in the 1700's.  

The museum can be found here:  
http://foundlingmuseum.org.uk

The museum is small but intimate.  The best and most enjoyable thing for the boys was coloring in pictures of the tokens left for the children by their parents which could be used to identify the parent if they achieved the means to resume care for their kids (not all of the kids there were orphans).

Lanna's favorite part was the music!  George Frideric Handel was a major patron for Coram and even wrote The Foundling Hospital Anthem which you could listen to.  Lanna would NOT put the headphones down.

Since the museum closed about a half hour after we got there, she had to put the headphones away.  

Among the many things to do in London, there are museums everywhere!  We've had a chance to enjoy several of them and look forward to seeing more soon, especially the Royal Air Force Museum with over 100 planes!

Time for the Tower of London

Perhaps emboldened by the frenetic, non-stop activity with Aunt Megan's visit followed by a dynamic day at Stonehenge, I decided to take the kids to the Tower of London to start the week.  

We had been in London for over three weeks and not made it that far east.  The closest we came was St. Paul's Cathedral and that trip spurred me on to finally see this legendary place.

What could go wrong?

Packing up and heading out was pretty straightforward at this point, it just continues to be time consuming.

The plan would be to walk down toward Covent Garden, an easy 20 minute stroll which we had done a few times for the London Transportation Museum.

From there we would catch the 15 bus since it went directly by the Tower.

The mid-morning walk went quickly and easily.   The day was bright and cheery and the boys and l were very excited to see the Tower. Lanna was so relaxed that she passed out. 

Then we got to the bus stop.  Many stops have a real time updates for the bus and when it will arrive that scrolls continuously on a readerboard   The 15 bus wasn't even listed which made me concerned.

After waiting 10 minutes or so and asking one of the other bus drivers, we still had no idea if the 15 would ever arrive.  We found another route that would take us close and we planned to take it.

Then the 15 came into view!

"Daddy look!  LOOK!  It's a Routemaster!" Joey yelled excitedly.

Joey never ceases to amaze us with what he will remember and when he remembers it.  The routemaster is an old Double Decker made between 1954 and 1968, which we learned about at the Transportation Museum.  I had no idea any of them were still running.  Joey quickly recognized it and both he and Sammy were so ecstatic to ride a route master!

Turns out, the routemaster still runs sometimes on the 15 route:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g186338-c186641/London:United-Kingdom:Ride.The.Heritage.Routemaster.Buses.html

We flagged it down.  It stopped.  You can only get on the back and the attendant there looked at me with Joey and Sammy hopping up and down and Lanna sleeping in the stroller.

"Sorry, no strollers."  

I asked if they would take the stroller if folded up.  They would.

Then I quickly decided to take this routemaster so the boys could experience it (and because this route would take us directly to the Tower while other routes would not).

I told Joey and Sammy to get on the bus and they both clambered on board enthusiastically.  I swiftly unbuckled Lanna and folded up the stroller.

But not swiftly enough.  The bus started to drive away with my two distraught sons staring at me from the back!

Fortunately through my years of coaching swim team and playing team sports, I have done a considerable amount of yelling. I am quite good at it.

"YOU STOP THAT BUS RIGHT NOW." I yelled.

The bus stopped.  So did many pedestrians walking around me.

Then I jumped aboard with my still sleeping daughter in one hand and the stroller in the other and lead my boys to the front of the routemaster.

Traumatic as that episode was, they quickly recovered and became mesmerized by looking out the front of the routemaster's window.

Given the thick traffic, the boys had A LOT of time to enjoy the routemaster.  Part of me thought walking would have been quicker.

Eventually we did arrive to the Tower and we hopped off the bus.  I took some pictures as it drove away this time with all my children at my side.

Finally we were here!  After a quick walk over and getting the annual membership (I highly recommend this for anyone visiting for several weeks as you can go to the Tower, Hampton Court, Kew Palace, and Kensington Palace as many times as you want with a membership and it's highly cost effective).

Here are the kids at the entrance.

Given the stresses and delays of the day and since the boys had done so well, we went right to the cafe for a treat.

They were pleasantly astonished to find out marshmallows could also be pink.

After a much needed rest at the cafe and jacked up on pink marshmallows, we stormed out to the Tower!

On the way in, we had already passed by the Medieval Palace and Bloody Gate.  Along the way they had excellent statues of the animals that once lived in the tower including lions (there for over 600 years), tigers, a polar bear and an elephant.  

Given the fact we were planning to come back a few times and the lateness of the day, the kids and I went for a walk on the walls to start.  It was a great way to traverse the area, giving you some excellent views to the north, south, east and west. 

Atop the walls before we even started the loop, there was a great view of Tower Bridge.

We continued along, learning about the guardhouses and history of each of the towers we passed through.

Joey and Sammy particularly enjoyed the guard display where you could try on their helmet.

"I liked it, but it hurt my head." Sammy reported.  No surprise as it probably weighed 8-10 pounds (easily a quarter of Sammy's own weight).

We continued along with Lanna toddling since the parapets were wide and without gaps to allow a baby to fall through.

They spent a good long time in the area that used to house the Tower animal menagerie, complete with open cage that Lanna loved going in and out of.

In the past, the Tower was also the city zoo since the royal animal menagerie had an extensive and diverse collection of animals and reptiles (I found it entertaining that the snakes were often warmed on the oven to battle the chilly England winters).

Unlike the zoo, however, there really was no separation of the animals from the visitors and the display mentioned a young woman who was petting a tiger was suddenly attacked and lost her arm and, shortly afterward, her life.

Given that the only animals there today were the children running amok, everyone left there intact.

Outside the menagerie there was a beautiful view of downtown London.

When we returned to ground level, we were surprised by an inspection of the Royal Guards stationed outside the Royal Jewels.

Then they went on a patrol of the grounds.  Joey accompanied them to ensure all was well. I encouraged Sammy to join him but he wasn't quite up to the required conditioning and speed of the Guards.

Once safely returned from inspection, we explored the White Tower, the centerpiece of the Tower with its stout square structure and four towers.

The boys loved the first floor, filled with knights, horses, and armor.  Joey was taking pictures of nearly everything (to be featured later in another Joey photo exhibit).  They feature the "Line of Kings" which has been a display idea for several centuries.  But don't listen to me, here's the Historic Royal Palaces link:

http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/visit-us/top-things-to-see-and-do/line-of-kings/visiting-line-of-kings/introduction-to-line-of-kings/

There were three floors to visit in the White Tower and we spent most of the time on the first floor.  As time grew short, we went through the two other floors a little more quickly (more on them in a future post).

When we had completed the tour of the White Tower, the kids and I headed out.  We had found a bus on the other side of the Thames that ended right near our apartment!  Given the ride would be a long one, I wanted to get there before rush hour.

To get there, we crossed the Thames on the Tower Bridge.

That was amazing.

Standing there in the middle we looked back at the Tower of London and down the Thames.  

Joey, now with a keen eye for any "fancy" car, quickly yelled out, "Old Aston Martin!"  And he was right.  We got a quick shot of it before it was out of sight.

The bus ride back wasn't as bad as I expected but it wasn't great.  It did provide a unique view of the London Eye with Big Ben as we crossed the Waterloo Bridge.

And then Sammy rested after his long day.

We arrived just a few minutes away from the apartment and with Sammy and Lanna safely in the stroller, Joey and I walked back in the cool London night.

Bluestones and Sarsens and Trilithons

I really really wanted to go to Stonehenge. I'm not sure why, but it's something that has always fascinated me. So once we dropped Megan off at Heathrow, we headed out into the English countryside to see a giant rock arrangement.

The crazy thing is that Stonehenge is just sort of sitting there, by the side of the road, in a completely normal looking field. You can almost drive right up to it, but since we are already English Heritage members and could get in for free with our membership, we did it the official way and went to the visitor center.

Once we unpacked everyone from the car, our first stop (after the bathrooms, of course) was the new visitors center. It was really well done, as Jay will remind me, as are all the English heritage sites. They had movies about how the site was built, artifacts from the excavation around Stonehenge, recreations of houses and tools and clothing, and a lot of new information for all of us. Very cool! They also had a fake stone that you could try to pull.



There are actually two types of stones in Stonehenge: smaller bluestones (2-5 tons) and larger sarsens (25-30 tons). This is a sarsen. We could not move it. Somehow, the ancient people brought these stones more than 250 km to the Stonehenge site, perhaps using logs like the model shown here to move the stones. They then shaped the stones using simple tools like hammerstones.

We decided to take the shuttle bus halfway to the site and then walk the rest of the way. Of course, immediately after we got out of the bus, Sammy declared, "I'm tired of walking." Please note that he had just sat in the car for 2 hours and then stood around in a visitors center for 30 minutes and then ridden a bus for 5 minutes. I swear, we are not abusing this kid by making him run marathons. Luckily, I discovered an amazingly effective distraction that we may have to use again. We had to walk through a cow pasture to get to the Stonehenge site. Naturally, this cow pasture was dotted with cow pies. So I told Sammy that he had to be careful where he walked so as not to step in cow poop. He loved it! All he could talk about was avoiding the cow poop. He walked the whole way without complaining, and once we left the cow pasture, he found that stepping in mud (as long as it was confirmed by an adult to actually be mud) was equally fun. He got his wellies nice and muddy! No complaining from him at all!



As we walked through the cow pasture, we came upon some barrows. These are burial grounds from the people who used Stonehenge. They dot the surrounding landscape, in this case in the middle of the pasture, in other cases in someone's backyard.



After this peaceful walk, we arrived at the Stonehenge site which was a little more crowded. It wasn't a particularly warm day, but it wasn't windy and the sun was breaking through the clouds. This made the visit chilly but bearable, and more importantly, it made for beautiful pictures.



Lanna was mostly stuck in the Baby Bjorn due to excessive muddiness, but that always makes for cute selfies. Jay's beard was really coming into its own, making him look almost prehistoric himself!



We even got a kind stranger to take a family picture. Note that she offered to do this as her own toddler was falling in the mud off to the side. Sammy doesn't look great here, but it's the best we could do.



The first stone you see up close as you get to the site is the heel stone. This is an unshaped sarsen, the largest on the site. When you see this, you realize how much work they did to shape the other stones and it makes the whole thing seem even more impressive. The heel stone looks a bit like a turtle head sticking out of the ground, but we missed the opportunity to have Sammy make a turtle face for the camera.

Right near the heel stone, a little further along, is the slaughter stone. It is a fallen bluestone that gets its name not from its function but from the fact that it turns red when it rains (likely due to iron in the stone). It is lying in the foreground here (there were birds bathing themselves in the puddles that formed in the holes in the stone!)

As you walk around, you move closer to the stone circle and learn more about the site from the audio guide. There is actually a circular earthwork enclosure (aka a ditch) that surrounds the stone circle and was built around 3000 BC, as well as an entrance avenue and 56 pits (aka Aubrey holes). These are hard to see from ground level but quite visible from aerial photographs (see the English Heritage site link at the end). The two concentric stone circles were erected around 2500 BC. The vertical stones are actually set in holes in the ground. They were then likely pulled upright using a timber A-frame structure and fiber ropes. They then used wooden platforms to raise the horizontal lintels to the tops of two vertical stones to form each trilithon. The most amazing part to me was they shapes the vertical stones and lintels using a tenon on the vertical stone and a mortice hole on the lintel, plus the two adjacent lintels were attached to each other by a shaped groove and tongue. I learned how to do this with my dad using wood. It is incredible that they did this shaping in stone. These were some impressive engineers!

In these pictures, you can clearly see the tenon sticking up from one of the vertical stones.





You can't walk into the stone circle these days, which maybe takes away from the experience somewhat. But a lot of damage has been done to the site over the years from all sorts of people from visitors to archaeologists. Stonehenge also seems smaller than you expect as you come up to it. Not as small as in this video (credit to Jay), which looks like Pi, but small.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyh1Va_mYWI

Yet while you are there, you are struck by the peaceful nature of the site and the enormous historical significance. It's awe-inspiring. These sheep, grazing right next door, seem over it though.



We took the bus back to the visitors center and enjoyed some lunch and hot drinks. We almost lost Sammy, as he attempted to follow Jay instead of staying with me but Jay didn't realize he was following him and blah blah blah. Luckily I managed to rescue Sammy slightly after his panic started but before any well-meaning stranger intervened. Nothing a little hot chocolate couldn't fix. Jay particularly loved the Stonehenge sugar.




It was a great day. It was nice to check Stonehenge off our England to-do list, but more so, it was just amazing to be there. How did I remember all of these things about Stonehenge, you ask? I didn't. I cheated. Here is the English Heritage website where you can read even more amazing Stonehenge facts and see those aerial photographs.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/

Aunt Megan's Eventful Visit, Day 3 of 3

Saturday morning we all got up.  My legs still ached from climbing St. Paul's Cathedral so the prospect of spending some time in the car was preferable to actual exercise.

I was really excited - today we would go to Charles Darwin's Home in Downe, Kent which has been meticulously maintained by English Heritage followed by visiting a Roman Villa in Lullingstone.

On the drive out, we did, in fact, go through the famous roundabout in European Vacation.  I had joked about it in a prior post but now the reality was here!  It's part of the Lambeth Bridge on the eastern side.  You can see it here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Lambeth+Bridge,+London+SE1+7SG/@51.4972223,-0.1262458,16z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x487604c1f9cd9fc7:0x8cccad738c2b5dc0

And, of course, it was immortalized here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc

Part of me wanted to drive around a few times in homage to this classic but most of me just wanted to get through the roundabout safely.

The drive went well overall and became more and more quaint as we got closer to Darwin's home.

Finally we had arrived!  

One of the more influential classes I took in college started off with a slide show of the Galapagos Islands with the lecturer reading quotes from Darwin's diary with his thoughts of the extraordinary creatures found there.

Darwin's time in the Galapagos was crucial to his professional life as it was the lynchpin for his On the Origin of Species which proposed the theory of evolution.

Now I could be in his home and see where he spent nearly the rest of his personal and professional life.

Once again, I want to give great credit to the English Heritage team, who took Darwin's home and did him honor in preserving much of it and using the rest to create amazing displays to succinctly tell his impressive life story.

Their site for Darwin's home can be found here:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house/

The English Heritage website didn't directly say Americans can't work for them, so I'm not ruling it out further down the line.  I love what they do and how they do it!

The house was spacious and beautiful.  We went immediately to the second floor and looked at Darwin's diaries and the route he took with the HMS Beagle.  

Lanna loved running down the hallways.

The boys did pretty well but started to get the glazed look in their eyes and restless feet as the exhibits didn't fully catch their fancy.  Then we found the study and kids area for them. They were so excited to start drawing and coloring!  

In fact, there was a contest for an updated design for the cover of On the Origin of Species, since the weekend we were there was the 150th anniversary of the book's publication.

Here is Joey's entry.  Can you guess what it is?

That's right!  A ring tailed lemur!

Here's Sammy's.  Guess what these are!

That's right!  Crocodiles!  (We know it was pretty obvious).

While the boys worked on their cover art, I went and looked at the exhibits more.

When I saw these, I had to take a picture (again, probably discouraged and/or illegal).  

Here were three of the Galapagos finches that Darwin collected.  As the story goes, the finches and iguanas were the key animals to make Darwin convinced of evolution.  

For the finches, there were 13 species Darwin found during his time in the Galapagos.  And he wrote:

"Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."

He noted the unique beak structure of each finch and how that corresponded to the unique food it ate.  The more Darwin thought about it, the more he became convinced each finch found a specific food to eat and evolved to eat only that food, whether it be nuts (with a large beak to crack them), insects (with a smaller, thinner beak to catch them), or plants (with a longer, thinner beak to penetrate the plant).

Seeing these finches, which played a pivotal role in Darwin's work and his legacy, was inspiring.

I also went down and looked in his study (no pictures allowed there).  One of the staff was there and we talked for quite some time.  The chair and desk were originals.  She would clean the desk and the area as well and she told me she found a photo album his children had made for him.

History often loses sight of the humanity of someone since it often only focuses on their achievements.  Hearing about Darwin's family life while looking at the scuffed leather chair he sat in helped make it more intimate and impressive.

When the kids had finished their drawings, we went for a walk around the grounds, as well as the greenhouse.

Megan saved us from having to do another selfie and took this picture.

I took one last look, thinking about the man who lived and died there 133 years ago.  Then we left.

Our next stop was a Roman Villa.  Again, this was a site protected by English Heritage.  The villa was called Lullingstone and was near Darwin's home.

English Heritage describes Lullingstone's history and significance (again, amazingly well) here:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/lullingstone-roman-villa/history/significance/

Driving up to it, you'd never guess a villa once existed there.  It's entirely covered up and looked almost like a YMCA indoor pool from the outside.

Once you walk in, you realize this is no YMCA.

But they did have excellent baths and a deep well which would be the envy of other villas of the time, or even some YMCA's of today.  The remains of the bath were here:

They had an incredibly well preserved central mosaic as well which depicted scenes from the Aeneid.  

They also had a great activity area to make your own mosaic with tiny little magnetic tiles.  Both Joey and Sammy loved it, although they stood in awe of Aunt Megan's exceptional eye for detail, creating a beautiful mosaic in the display that put the original to shame.  Lanna simply tried to eat the tiles.

We enjoyed this window into the past.  The kids enjoyed it too and really, really wanted a souvenir to remember their trip and their time with Aunt Megan.

Aunt Megan, being a wonderful and considerate aunt, got the boys a great Roman Legionnaire costume with foam swords. She got Lanna an adorable lion stuffed animal (although initially Lanna was cruising around the shop area with two lions in her hands).

When we left the villa, everyone was happy and content.  We did drive by the remains of a medieval castle but didn't get out to look more closely at the weathered walls (all that remained).

The drive back to London was typical - it felt like it took forever given the traffic, but we made it home safely.

The boys loved their swords so much and immediately started attacking each other.  While the boys were distracted, Lanna put on the legionnaire's outfit and loved it!

After dinner we all collapsed given all the activity since Aunt Megan's arrived.

We were all sad knowing that Aunt Megan would be leaving the next day (and that we'd need to get up early to ensure a timely arrival to the airport).  Despite the sadness, we all felt we'd made the most of her visit.