National Maritime Museum

Yesterday, for our outing we went to Greenwich and visited the National Maritime Museum. Unfortunately, we don't really have any pictures of the actual museum because our family photographer (Jason) is starting to get sick and wasn't really feeling like taking pictures. Plus, for reasons I don't fully get, you can't take any pictures in just about any museum in London. Now, there might be a few places where you can but it seems like they all have signs that say no photography and the guards are not shy about enforcing it. So I will just have to tell you about it.

It's a museum all about the sea and Britain's presence on it. There was a bit about the ocean itself, a lot about the British navy including some uniforms and some about immigration to the Americas with what the crossing was like. There was a section on Atlantic trade. On such a topic, a lot of the room was about slavery. After reading the book based in Nigeria, I was all about the section on the slave uprisings and emancipation. I was thinking, go slaves! There was a big room with sea art which was Jason's favorite place, he loves paintings of ships. Then a huge room about Admiral Nelson. They had the coat he was wearing when he was shot at the Battle of Trafalgar (side note, the reason Trafalgar Square is named what it is, I didn't know when I went there) as well as a few other clothes of his and describing the battle, what the navy was like then, and the aftermath of his death. Apparently, he was a pretty popular guy.

Our little social butterfly.

This was all pretty interesting although we moved through it pretty quickly because we were all kind of tired. The best part, by far was when we rested on a big open area near the cafe. It was on the second floor and had some glass cases with stuff on the sides but mostly it was all open. We decided to let Anna out and just crawl around. She loved it. At first I would kind of follow her around. She crawled over to a group of moms with little babies (the oldest was 4 months) to say hello. Then we thought we would just let her go and see how far away she would go (the place was pretty empty). As she was going, she would turn back and see that we hadn't moved and we would wave at her and she would keep going. She ended up going over to this lady and when she stooped down to say hello, Anna stood up using her knee for support. At this point, I joined them. The lady was very friendly (saying she would like to have one like her as a grandchild, who wouldn't?) and Anna loved her. Then she noticed another little girl walking with her mom and wanted to go say hi. I went with her this time and they had fun checking each other out and Anna was grabbing for her nose. It was very cute. I keep hearing about stranger anxiety but I don't think Anna has it. She pretty much likes everybody.

Jason is off school this week so we are taking some time to do some site seeing. Yesterday, after a casual morning, we just walked around London.
First, we went to Baker Street to visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Well, at least look at the outside and the gift shop. We're not really big enough Holmes fans to justify the entry fee (I've read the stories but it was a long time ago and Jason never has). The gift shop was cool though. Also, a couple of doors down, there was an Elvis store and a Beatles store.

From there we went to the Houses of Parliament. Jason had heard there was a part of it that was opened to the public so we thought we might be able to visit that. The guy at the gate said that all we would be able to do without our Embassy getting involved would be to sit in on a meeting of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, right then there was a two hour wait but if we wanted to come back later it would likely be shorter. That wasn't really in our thoughts for right then but now we know for some other time.

Then it was on to St. Paul's Cathedral. We had been there before with the walking tour with Jason's class but we wanted to go again. We spent some time outside of it first before going in. When we got in though, there was a sign saying they had an entrance fee! Strangely, we didn't pay to go in last time and we weren't about to for a re-visit. So now we were 0-3 so it was off to somewhere that we knew would be free. (Side note, when you live somewhere, at least for us, it's harder to pay money to do things than if you were just a tourist because when you are on vacation, you're in the paying money mode whereas when you are at home, you are in the being frugal mode.)

So, as a safety, we went to the Tate Modern. It's a famous modern art museum that is inside of an old power station. At this point we were kind of tired so we just kind of cruised through it which is just as well because we aren't huge modern at people anyway. Jason was saying, he is kind of picky about his modern art. I'm not sure what the criteria are but some he is not interested in at all while others are very interesting to him.

Then it was time to head home. We were able to get back to have a normally timed dinner and get Anna to bed mostly on time. We were tempted to stay up and watch election coverage but as the earliest polls closed at midnight our time and I am just getting over a cold while Jason seems to be coming down with it, we decided that sleep was probably more important.

What was I thinking?!?

A little while ago, I had a moment of self-realization. I was thinking about the books I read and what I like and don't like and why. I realized that what influenced how I felt about a book was more about who the main characters are and less about what happens to them. For example, I had just finished The Stanford Lasses which had a lot of hard things happen, in fact I almost didn't finish it, but I liked it anyway because the people and their relationships were so great. Then there was The Kite Runner where I felt like the main kid was just annoying at every stage of his life.

So, armed with this new-found knowledge, I went to the library. I felt like a whole new world had opened up to me. Gone were the days of shrinking from a book because it looked like there would be hard things in it. I was almost giddy with the possibilities. Which would explain my choice. Half of a Yellow Sun is about the Nigerian civil war in the late sixties. Talk about jumping in the deep end. With my Nigerian brother-in-law I have a new found interest in the country and I told myself it was time to read something with some substance, not just all the fluff books I'm used to.

I think I liked it. It's the type of book that takes some processing time. At the same time, though, you almost don't want to process it because it's hard stuff. While reading it, though, it occurred to me that the author could have made it much worse. She chose to follow the middle class so they didn't personally starve to death even if people around them were. Plus, it was broken up into parts and half way through the rough war part, we skip back in time to before the war and have a bit of a break before reading about the end. It really helped.

While reading it, I couldn't help but think about all of the problems in Africa that we, the colonizers, have caused (I'm guessing that was the point). Jason and I have talked about this before along with problems in the Middle East. The way we just drew lines on the map and assigned countries to people who have no interest in being together or even hate each other. Then we wonder why they have these problems. Well, knowing why things are this way doesn't solve the problem and I'm a problem solver type so next comes the inevitable question, what can we do? Jason, in his sage wisdom, points out the only thing we can do is to preach the gospel and through that, peace will come to Africa.

A Low-Key Halloween

Anna as a ladybird (or ladybug as they call them in the US) with two antenna.

Many people have asked me, "Do they have Halloween in England?" The answer is yes but, it's not a very big deal. There were things in the stores that did seem to be bought, I did see decorations out and even a few carved pumpkins. However, on Friday night when I was out, I saw no trick-or-treaters on my street and only a few on the larger street up the hill. I also had a hard time finding a baby costume and had to get Anna's outfit at the toy library (they have dress-ups).

That's not to say that the evening went completely without celebration. I called my friend Jana (who is American) and we were going to get together and do sugar cookies. Then she called me later and said that a friend of hers was going to have a bunch of people at their place and eat cookies and chat and would we like to come? I had met that friend before and said sure. I was a little worried about Anna because we were going after the hosts' son had gone to bed but they said we could put her down at their house if we needed to.

Caught in the bright flash with a cookie. She looks almost guilty.

So I dressed Anna up in her costume, fanagled her into her stroller and away we went (Jason wasn't there, there was a lecture at school he wanted to go to and we said he could join us when it was over or just have some alone time at home, whatever he wanted). After a bus and a lot of walking we got there. I knew most of the people, there was just one couple I hadn't met before but they were really nice and it was a lot of fun. People appropriately oohed and ahhed over Anna in her cute outfit and she had a blast playing with the little boy's toys.

Asleep waiting for the bus.

We stayed way too late. Anna was going strong but it might have had something to do with the un-iced sugar cookies Janna gave her or the lollipop I let her have a taste of then had to wrangle it out of her hands. Jason decided not to join us but it was ok. When we finally left, Anna fell asleep in the stroller. Unfortunately, she was all warm and cozy on the bus but when we got off, she had a bit of a rude awakening in the cold night air. She was shaking all over she was so cold. So we rearranged her blanket to cover more of her and Jana gave up her scarf to put over her head (I was kicking myself for not bringing her hat, I was worried about her 'antenna') and practically ran down the street to get inside as soon as possible. In spite of all that, it was a lot of fun.

A Walk About Town

Anna and I in front of Buckingham Palace.

The other day, for my weekly trip into town, Anna and I just walked around. The weather was so nice I even took my jacket off at one point. We visited Buckingham palace and got there just as the changing of the guard was ending (oh well, I wasn't trying to get there for that so I was pleasantly surprised).

The guards as they were leaving.

Then we walked through St. James Park which is right there and then down to the Thames River.

The view of the park from the far end. Through the trees you can kind of see Buckingham Palace.

We ended the day walking along the south bank for quite a way before catching the train home. Again, we can have Anna play tour guide.
Here I am in the middle of the bridge to cross the river. Naturally, the sun came out just before the picture but that didn't stop Mummy from taking it. You can see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the background.
And here I am at the end of the bridge. Mum thought it was a cool looking bridge. I thought she was being silly.
Along the river at this point were a bunch of street performers who wouldn't move until you gave them money. Mostly they were painted all gold or silver (one was even blue) and dressed in period costumes. Mum only took a picture of this one because the hand was actually playing the guitar.
I got out of the stroller to see this other bridge (what is it with her and bridges?). This one is the Millennium bridge and it's just for pedestrians. The ground was really cool and ridged and I didn't want to hold still long enough for the picture to get taken, I wanted to explore. Mum wouldn't let me do that though, how unreasonable. The dome in the back is St. Paul's. This bridge is cool too but you can't tell because of all of the people on it.
We also visited the Globe Theater. It made us think of Uncle Ben, especially as there was a pub next to it called the Swan. Someday Mum says we will take the tour that goes inside it but for now, we just saw the outside.

So those were the highlights of our walk. It was a lot of walking and started getting chilly by the end of it but was fun to see more of the city.

I am the weather

(Groundhog Day) I am amazed at how good the weather has been since we got here. I was totally expecting to not see the sun from the time we left India to the time we arrived in CA. Fortunately, that has not been the case at all. It has been surprisingly sunny and even warm at times. Of course, not warm enough to compete with India but we have adjusted well. So naturally, as I was thinking of this post, it snowed in parts of London on Wednesday morning. Apparently it's the earliest it has snowed in something like 40 years. Fortunately, as I was getting sick, I didn't go into town that day (we went in on Monday instead).

Crawling and Other New Anna Things

I got the video to work! Now you can all see her crawl.

Her is Anna demonstrating her new found mobility. She's been doing this for a little while but I finally got it on camera. She is getting faster at it. Fortunately, not so fast that I can't get to her before she gets where I don't want her to get (such as down the stairs). Although when she wants something, it's getting harder to keep her from it, especially now that she remembers things after we hide them (darn that object permanence). Jason had to construct a barrier between her and the corner where we keep all the toys.

I can already tell that walking is not far behind. She stands so much it's almost hard to get her to sit (I read a headline for an article that said "Encouraging your baby to stand" and I just chuckled) and is cruising along the furniture. She also walks quite well while holding onto our hands. Jason says we need to start pushing her down.

A couple of other things she does now, she is starting to wave. I was out with some friends and they were holding her while I went to get something. When I came back, they said she was waving at some Indian ladies. I guess she recognized their clothes and felt like she knew them.
For reasons unknown to us, she is starting to growl. We have NO idea where this came from because neither of us growl. She's all set to meet her Tartini cousins now. She also will talk but move her hand back and forth over her mouth while she does it. I think she picked that up from me. When she wanted to be loud in places where she shouldn't be, I would put my hand over her mouth and quickly take it away. She started making noise on purpose to hear it. I'll see if I can get that on camera. It's pretty funny and Jason laughs every time she does it to herself.

She also has four new upper teeth making it a grand total of 6 in her mouth. She is no longer allowed to chew on our fingers. The top ones all came in within 2 weeks of each other which really disrupted her sleeping. Now that they are all in she is sleeping fine. I had hoped there would be a bit of a break before more teeth came but she is drooling and chewing again. Hopefully that phase will last a while.