Saturday, October 6, 2007: Iron Man Day

I learned two things about London today.

1. It is an incredibly friendly city to visitors with a smallish bladder, even if you have to pay 50 pence to get into public facilities every once in awhile. A dollar to pee. Worth every penny.

2. You can't throw a tuppence without hitting a Pret A Manger deli. Not that this is a bad thing. Their sandwiches are quite tasty and reasonably priced.

Despite our warnings that we were going to have a long day the boys were nightmares at bedtime last night. Oh well. We still dragged them out of the flat at 9:00 a.m. in order to make our ticket call time at the British Airways London Eye. We had a guided tour at 10:30. It really is quite lovely and a spectacular view of the city. We lucked in to a pretty clear morning. After our thirty minute flight above the Thames we bought tickets for the Big City Bus Tour. It includes 48 hours of touring by bus, a water cruise from the Tower of London to Westminster and walking tours from Trafalgar Square.

We took the bus from the London Eye to the Tower of London on the red line which has live guides. We stopped for fish and chips for lunch and then caught the water cruise to Westminster. This was one of my favorite parts of the day. The pilot/tour guide had the dry British wit I absolutely adore. A pity more people on the boat didn't understand his jokes. He was a riot! Oh, and Westminster Pier was where I had to pay hard earned money to empty my bladder.

We hiked to another Big City Bus Tour stop and took the blue line which has headphones with recorded messages. We breezed past the side of Buckingham Palace, around to Hyde Park, through the West End, Soho and Picadilly Circus. Liam fell asleep on the bus and Colin began begging to get off for ice cream. We decided to disembark at Trafalgar Square and knock out the National Gallery.

A little bit of tort and hot chocolate in the gallery cafe fortified the boys and prepared them for mom and dad to drag them through a bunch of stupid paintings. Indeed they whined a bit, but dad got to see the Monets and mom got to see Holbein the younger's portrait of Erasmus. Little do they know it, but we may return again tomorrow. At least they thought the paintings of St. John the Baptist's beheading were cool. And like all kids they had to point and giggle at all the little baby Jesus penises.

After the National Gallery we let the boys loose on Nelson's column and the lions at Trafalgar Square. All of a sudden these poor downtrodden little waifs with barely an ounce of energy in their bodies could have danced all night. Anyone surprised? Oh that brings back memories of when I was eight and in London with my parents for three weeks in October. Consider this a formal apology mom and dad!



Charing Cross station is right there so we took the Tube back to Canary Wharf where we picked up a few things for dinner and headed back to the flat to recharge for tomorrow. On to the British Museum!