Dec. 15th. The Mists of Kingston

The days are very busy but the time still seems to have slowed down to a crawl. Some of the highlights during the week were a couple of days when the fog had descended upon the river and it felt like we were inside the milky white bath. By noon the ground had warmed up enough for the cloud to start lifting just a bit but shortly after it went back down. It brought to mind the Mists of Avalon. As if, when the clouds would come back up again, the world outside would be completely different. The kids had some fun with it too.

On Tuesday we got together for drinks with Thomas E @ Bishop. What a great evening! He shared amazing stories of traveling the world, and working with 5 kids. Made us feel like woosies. The question is whether to get more kids or travel to more exotic destinations (although some of his would be hard to beat), or both of the above.

We discussed the subject of the customer service here and Tom agreed that much is left to be desired. Coincidentally on Wednesday, I was watching the news and heard the tidbit that explained everything.


Lots of color-oriented stores

On Thursday, we went to see the animated nativity play at Isabella's school. She was Mary. Isabella looked very cute in the white dress and head scarf. The teachers did an amazing job with kids - they were cute and adorable and clearly had fun with their lines. Still, one does marvel at an interesting global tradition of training kids to perform for parents and parents going all "aww" over it. Where this this tradition come from? I do think that Addams family had set the gold standard.

On Saturday we went to London. We decided to go see the Tower of London. We are about half through our term here so it is time to increase our coverage of historical sites. As we walked along the Southbank we noticed large crowds coming out onto the boardwalk from around the London Bridge station. We decided to check it out and accidentally stumbled into the Green Market.

A marvelous accumulation of mouth watering sights, sounds and smells. Should have taken all our visitors to see this. Please come back!

After sampling the breads and cheeses at various stalls, we got in two separate lines and after a 20 minute wait became the proud owners of Grilled Cheese (notice the capitals) sandwich and still bubbling raclette potatoes. Mind you that by that point in time we were far from hungry. Oh, the joys of food!

Following the moment of unbridled gluttony Queen's jewels did not seem to promise that much excitement. We decided to look for some grand views instead and walked a huge circle trying to find the entrance to the Shard skyscraper. At 29 pounds each for adults, and 23 each for children or $166 we decided to stay on the ground. And so went on to the Tower of London.

Tower of London is an interesting site. On one hand it is one of the few places of earth that holds this much history. On the other, the way that this history is dressed into the easily digestible factoids and "legends" almost makes it all look fake like a Disneyland. Read the fact bites on the site, they are interesting.

So the Royal Jewels... This is how it is designed. There is a separate building where the royal crowns and other symbols of royal authority are housed. When you come in, you get a bit of a warm up as you walk through large rooms where you can see the coronation video of Elizabeth II. Then you get on the moving belt and it whisks you past the crowns. You scurry to read the signs: "Ruby this," "Diamond that," and the belt drags you by. And then it's over.

There were just two other places where Dan and I had a similar experience. In Milan, we waited for several hours in the rain to see the Last Supper. Once we finally got inside, we were instructed to look at the reproduction on the wall while listening to the audio guide "to get in the mood." When the audio was over and we turned around to look at the real thing, we were immediately directed outside because our time was up.

The other time was at the Louvre. We squeezed our way past the crowd of revelers to finally get a look at Mona Lisa and got our own dumbfounded looking reflections from the glass the painting is covered with. It was also much smaller than we imagined. We were so surprised that did not put up any resistance as the crowd pushed us out again.

At the Edinburgh castle they also have one set of the crown, scepter and a few other items. But there, the warm up is much longer and you get to look at those things at your own pace and that makes all the difference.

We continued our tour and covered all of the required sites. The mint exhibition is very nice. Kids liked the interactive displays. Wall walk with the stops at various towers was good too. But by the time we got to the White Tower with its collection of armor an a mixture of other things sensory overload had started to kick in.

But the day was not over yet. We got back home and after a quick re-charge took a bus to Kew Gardens to see the illuminated Christmas Trail. What a shameless rip off! There is a large amount of booths outside of the trail selling everything including the winter coats. The actual trail is just a few of lit up trees and portions of the trail.

There are also some a few weird gramophones saying non-nonsensical things for kids amusement.  And of course more concession stands along the way. Oh, well. In a couple of weeks we will be back in US and kids will visit the illuminated trail at the Bronx Zoo with grandparents and see how it is really done.

We relaxed on Sunday. Started to pack for Friday. Wrapped presents for teachers. Went to our favorite burger place GBK near the theater. Finished watching the Children of Captain Grant mini-series.