We all slept hard last night. At one point though L woke me up by repeatedly poking me in the eyeball for water. How did he even find my eye in the dark? Why did he walk all the way around the bed past his father for me? Mystifying parenting questions. But we all managed to sleep into 9am, which is a miracle!
After our hotel breakfast we debated our best chances for a church service, the location, and time. The draw for my non-catholic husband is you get to save the hefty admission fee if you go for a service. 🙄 But we’d missed the morning ones at that point so we hoped to make it to a late afternoon or evening service. So we headed for King’s Cross Station hoping to find Platform 9 3/4 and get a little Harry Potter fix. We’d stupidly left buying tickets to Harry Potter Studio till about a month before our trip. Having no idea they’d sell out as fast as they do. Ugh that’s our biggest regret is had we’d known we could have bought tickets in time. Our kids are HUGE Harry Potter fans, as are we. So we thought we’d do what we could and find the platform and take a picture with half trolley. It was out of the way and by the time we got there it was noonish. We located the platform and the lines were insane!!! Over an hour wait to take a picture with the half trolley. Our kids were super disappointed they weren’t really going on the train to Hogwarts or that we couldn’t get to Diagon Alley. It was totally lame. Here’s the best photo I could get, and it’s of someone else. 😔
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So we waited in line to get into the store. Which only took about ten minutes thank goodness. But was insanely packed with people and the worst place to have a stroller and two kids who wanted everything!!! We managed to survive it though and all we bought were two chocolate frogs, a packet of Berties Every Flavor Beans and a Gryffindor headband for R. They really wanted the large Hedwig, as you can tell.
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We left there and went to see Buckingham Palace. Neat but swamped with people. We took a few photos. Saw the guards walk around a bit, possibly changing of the guard, don’t really know. Then we headed back to the tube for lunch and the Museum of Natural history.
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The museum of Natural History was packed!! Right in the entry there is a cool escalator that goes up through a giant globe. So that’s the first thing the kids wanted to do. I got the stroller and headed for the nearest elevator since it wasn’t allowed. Well myself and two dads with their empty strollers proceeded to take a tour of all three other levels in that museum trying to catch up with our families. It got pretty ridiculous how either we got off on the wrong floor, or the elevator would take us down instead of up. We ended up working as a team for about 15 minutes trying to locate our families. Ah the joys of family travel!
The museum was neat but it was also overwhelming with people and noise. So we tried to enjoy it but that’s an exhausting combination.
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We made it through and just outside they’ve set up the perfect tourist trap. You have to walk past a carousel and and ice skating rink! We gave into the carousel by told them they could ice skate at home for free. 😆
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L of course sat next to some random woman who was riding it by herself. R was in the inside horse so I couldn’t get a good photo of either of them. What’s the point then?!
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We left there to catch the tube to Westminster Abbey. Which was amazingly empty so the kids had a dance party at station stops.
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We figured out that this is Big Ben. I’d heard that they were working on it but didn’t expect all this scaffolding.
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Saw a bit of Parliament. But I’m guessing it’s more impressive during the day.
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But we did get to attend an Organ Recital at Westminster Abbey. It was incredible to hear that old pipe organ play. I’ve been wanting to hear one of those since we’ve begun visiting these old European churches. We didn’t stay for the full mass. It was getting late and everyone was tired, hungry and getting a bit cranky.
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We took the tube back near our hotel. Found a great Thai restaurant and had a wonderful and quick meal.
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Per our usual New Year’s Eve plans it is now ten o’clock. The kids are asleep and we probably will be soon as well. Happy New Year! We are looking forward to starting off 2018 as we love to, with more amazing travel. We’re off to Vienna tomorrow!
