Keith had to work during the day for the rest of the week, so Annabelle and I ventured out either on our own or with Sally, Eva (Juergen’s girlfriend), or Kerry (Rod’s wife). Tuesday, Belle and I visited the i21 office to show off Belle’s "I Heart Spring" shirt and say hi to everyone. Then we headed up the steep hill to the Royal Greenwich Oberservatory, the location of THE Greenwich Mean Time, the place where every day begins! Unfortunately, I left my camera at the office, so I didn't take any pictures, but that did give me an excuse to go back later.
Wednesday, Belle and I joined Rod's wife and children for their play group, then Sally was able to take some time off to tour London with Belle & I. Since my only exposure to London was what Sally & Rob had shown us on Sunday, I let Sally choose where we went. We ended up visiting The Tower of London where we met a Beef-Eater (Do you know what a "Beef-Eater" does/did?), saw the execution site of Anne Boleyn, gazed upon The Crown Jewels, and saw the infamous "tower ravens" who are the size of small dogs! Wednesday night, the i21 guys and an i21 girl (Portia) along with Rod's wife, Kerry, went to see London theatre version of "The Mousetrap", while Sally & I hung out in London, then went back to Greenwich to wait for Eva's arrival.
Thursday, Eva, Belle, and I headed back up the The Royal Observatory... this time with a camera. From the Royal Observatory, there is an awesome view where you are able to see many of London's most famous structures. We stood on the Prime Meridian (the zero line of longitude, see picture), measured how long Belle is against the official "two feet" ruler, and strolled through the beautiful Greenwich Park. That night, Eva, Sally, and I went to see the London theater version of "The Lion King" while Keith traveled ALONE with Belle back from London to the hotel in Greenwich. The Lion King show was amazing. The costumes was probably the most impressive part of the entire show. The woman who played Raffiki was outstanding as well!
Friday, Erwin & Bieke arrived from Belgium to spend the weekend visiting with us. I was on my way out the door of the hotel to meet Sally for lunch, when Erwin & Bieke arrived. The timing of their arrival caused a pretty funny situation. When they arrived, I told them that I was going to meet Sally to grab lunch then head to the office, so they joined me (and Annabelle). Since they needed to put their stuff down and get settled, I was a bit late meeting up with Sally so when we got to the place where we were supposed to meet, I wasn't surprised to see that Sally wasn't there. I figured that she had probably gotten lunch, and headed back to the office, so Erwin, Bieke, and I grabbed lunch elsewhere and planned to head to the office ourselves. (Here's where it gets funny) I decided to leave Annabelle in her stroller with Erwin & Bieke while I went back to the shop one more time to see if Sally was there. While I was gone, Sally, running late herself, nearly whisked by Erwin & Bieke on her way to the shop when she noticed a baby with the same stroller as Annabelle... and the same outfit as Annabelle... and that it was Annabelle! Sally had never met Erwin & Bieke so she was freaked out because she didn't know that they had even arrived and could possibly be there with me. Fortunately, Bieke is a mother herself so she noticed that the look on Sally's face wasn't just one of "awe, what a cute baby", but rather one of recognition and confusion. Bieke quickly said "You must be Sally" which caused Sally's mind to click with the realization of who these two strangers with Annabelle were! A few seconds later, I returned from looking for Sally and they told me the story. According to Sally, if Bieke hadn't realized who Sally was, Sally was about to have taken Annabelle and ran off with her. Can you imagine if I had gotten back to Erwin & Bieke and they told me that some stranger had run off with Annabelle?!? I'm glad that things ended in a funny story rather than a very messy mix-up! :) Anyway, we all went back to the office, where Erwin taught Keith how to juggle while Juergen finished up for the day so that we could head back into London for some shopping at Oxford Circus.
Saturday we headed back to London for possibly the worst day weather-wise of our entire trip. The rain never let up! We looked for some indoor activities, but they all required some time in the rain to get to them. We headed to the Tate Modern museum where we saw works by artists such as Dali, Matisse, Monet, Munch, PicaWarholnd Worhol. The art wasn't nearly as freaky as some of the stuff that I saw in Norway. After spending some time at the museum, we parted ways with Erwin & Bieke who had to get back home, and the rest of us headed to meet Portia for a fancy dinner. On the way there, we passed Shakespeare's Globe Theater, which I would love to go back and visit and maybe even see a play there!
The rest of our time was spent packing, getting a little bit of sleep, then heading to the airport to catch our plane back home.
Pictures of our London trip can been seen on our photo gallery. Also, you can get your own "I Heart Spring" shirt as shamelessly featured on Annabelle during our trip at my iheartspring cafepress shop! :)
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