Lord Mayor's Show

To finally finish off last week, on Saturday we went to the Lord Mayor's Show. The history behind this is, in 1215 the King said the residents of London could elect their own mayor. Then, after the election, the mayor would have to go to the king and present himself for approval and pledge allegiance to him. They still do this to this day but with only one change, the role of the monarch is carried out by the judges of the Queens Bench at the Royal Courts of Justice. The oath of allegiance is the same and the new mayor travels the same route. Over the years, this has turned into a huge thing. There are bands, soldiers from various eras and companies and floats from various groups around the city. It's so big, in fact, that it is longer than the parade route and lasted almost an hour and a half.

I don't quite get the Romans. Maybe to remember how London started?

It was pretty cool. As I said, it went on forever and there was a lot going on. Anna loved it, especially the marching bands. I had her in the wrap and we were able to find a place where the crowds weren't too bad so she could see. There were still a fair few people and quite a few kids. We got there just as it was about to start. Part way through, it began to rain. We did have an umbrella but only one and we all got a little wet. It stopped raining before the end but not until after quite a bit of rain. I felt bad for the people marching.

Before it started, there were people selling things like flags and whistles. I don't know if they do it for all parades or just this one but that's quite an idea. Needless to say, it was pretty loud, especially at first. Fortunately, as the parade progressed, most of the kids forgot about their whistles and it got quieter. Unfortunately, the little girl in front of us didn't falll into this category. She felt a need to blow it quite strongly at any military group, of which there were a lot. By the end, I was so annoyed.

This is the coach that the Lord Mayor went down in but we were able to see it up close before it started.

In spite of all of that, it was a cool parade. They actually have a return processional but we didn't stay for that because we figured it would just be the same thing. Instead, we went to the British Museum and looked at the Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek stuff. There were more people than I was used to being there. We decided it was because it was a Saturday (have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying this off-season travel).

This doesn't capture her enjoyment. She had a blast.

Then they had fireworks. I wasn't sure what Anna would think of them but we figured, there's a first time for everything. It was very crowded and we were quite a distance from the barge that was setting them off. This time I didn't think Anna would be able to see in the wrap so I pulled her out and put her on my shoulders. She LOVED the fireworks! The noise didn't bother her (we were far so it wasn't that loud) and she was memserized. One good thing about living so far north, and it being winter, is that they could start the show at 5 and it was plenty dark enough.

We could have gone home at this point. It was early enough Ann could have even been to bed on time (which would have been good as she was getting a gunky nose and it was a big day). However, since the fireworks went over so well, we decided to go to another show. An area near us does a big show every year for Guy Fawkes day . We heard it was a good show and it didn't start until 8. So we had time to have dinner and take the train to the place. There were a lot of people here too and it was pretty crazy. They had a big section of the heath sectioned off and people were lining up along the fence waiting for it to begin.

While we were waiting, they played some music (ironically, they played opera. That would never have happened in the US) and we waited until ten after which seems to be the usual late start time for displays. It was really windy and they made an announcement that people on one side should be careful of smoke and debris (another sign we were not in the US, they would have canceled it for sure). These ones were AMAZING! We were able to be front and center and I didn't have to take Anna out of the wrap (SO glad I didn't have the stroller, it would have been horrible) for her to see. The wind blew the smoke away so it didn't mess with the show and there was a lot going on. On top of the aerial ones, they had ones on the ground and it lasted for half an hour. They also had music going during the show. Some of the songs seemed a bit odd (like Seal's I Believe I Can Fly) and some made me laugh (Eye of the Tiger) and it ended with Time to Say Goodbye.

I was a little worried about Anna because we were so much closer this time but it seemed to only increase her enjoyment of it. Not even during the finale when there was a lot going on and it was really loud and bright did she have a problem. Then it was time to go home. It was near where we go to church so we decided to walk home. I don't know if there would have been a faster way to go but we followed the bus route. I was really glad we didn't have to take the train (it was packed getting there and I can't imagine what it was like getting back). The walk was a little long but not too bad and with all the people, we mostly muscled the cars out of the street. We finally got home and collapsed into bed exhausted. It had been a very very busy day.

Becoming Brit-ified

We can tell we have been out of the US for a long time. We are starting to not notice things that are different. I notice it especially with things relating to cars. I'm getting used to which way to look when I cross the streets (although the words on the ground that say "look left" or "look right" also help). Then the other day, we were walking along the sidewalk and we saw a car where the driver's side was on the left and it looked strange to us. That's when you know it's been a while.

I'm also starting to laugh at the tourists. Today on my weekly trip into town, I went to the National Gallery which is right on Trafalgar Square. To add to that, I got off the tube at the stop that is right by Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. There were some people taking pictures on the steps and as there were so many of them, I thought something was going on on the river (where they were aiming their cameras). So I looked to see what was going on that was photo worthy but didn't see anything. Then it occurred to me that they were just taking a picture of the river. I chuckled and just thought "ah, tourists".

Then when I went to Trafalgar Square and saw the other tourists taking pictures of the buildings, I thought back to when I was first there. Trafalgar Square was the first place we went to in London after getting here and sleeping. I remember being amazed that I was here and just in awe of the whole place. That area of town is different from every other city I had been in before. The buildings look like something I would expect to see in a Jane Austen movie with the way they curve along the street. It really is a unique place and I am amazed at how quickly I have adjusted to being here and it's not new or novel to me anymore.

New topic, the museum was really cool. At first I just started wandering the galleries but was in the 17th paintings which isn't really my forte (although I've discovered I really enjoy the Dutch painters of this era). Naturally I was overwhelmed with everything and started just glazing over while I wandered the rooms. Then I discovered they have this way cool thing in the basement. They have computers that you can go to and look up what paintings they have in the museum and learn more about them. Or you can learn about the artists. Or you can print out a tour of paintings to see on themes or artists. Or you can look up pictures and put together your own tour. So I did just that and then went and looked at a few of my favorites (mostly impressionists) and was able to look at the others in the rooms that they were in and in the rooms on the way to where I was going without getting overwhelmed with it all.

The Tower to London

On Thursday we went to the Tower of London. Since we take the train in we were able to use a two for one coupon. Unfortunately, we got out of the house a bit late and only had two and a half hours before it closed. This was not enough time. We started out with a tour by one of the yeomen. They are the tower guards (also the Queen's person body guards for big events) but mostly they are tour guides. It took an hour and our guide was great. He had good gruesome stories and was lively and pretty funny. I had Anna in the wrap(so not stroller friendly) and she just stared up at him the whole time. The tour was a great way to start because he talked about the history and we touched on what a bunch of things were.

Our Yeoman tour guide. He told Anna that she had the best hat in the group.

After that, we had some time to roam on our own. We went to see the crown jewels (no pictures in there). They had a video playing of the crowning of the current queen and an explanation of what all the ceremonial things were. We didn't stay and read them all because we thought there would be explanatory place cards by the pieces (there weren't) and the information was just to keep people occupied while they were waiting to see the pieces. Then when we got to the pieces, there was a moving sidewalk that went in front of them. Fortunately, since it was mid week, rainging and the off season, there was almost no one in there (yeah for the off season!) and we could step back as we needed to to see them some more. They were amazing, naturally. Of course, I cannot believe how heavy they must be but wow.

One of the many carvings.

Then we went to the Beauchamp Tower which was used as a prison for various people. They had carved all sorts of things in the walls at various times. Some of them were really detailed and some were quite long. The bottom floor talked about the different prisoners and the upper floor had the carvings.

The White Tower

From there we went into the White Tower. This was the original Norman castle/palace that was built and the rest of it was added at later times. Now it's used as the armory. They had all sorts of armor and weapons. There was a section that had wooden statues of the various kings' horses. They are working on putting together their armor to put on the horses to have a whole display. I guess they used to have that so that there are even wooden heads to go in the helmets. Like an early wax museum. I think it's kind of creepy. They also had various torture devices as well as a beheading chopping block and axe. There was also a really cool old chapel that looked all dense and medieval.

After that, we had to leave. It was getting dark and had started to rain. I could have easily spent more time there. We told ourselves that we will have to go again the next time we are in London.

The moat that is now filled in with grass. It's wider than you would have thought because, as our tour guide said, it's not Disneyland and it was a defensive moat. So that was farther than an archer could shoot with accuracy.

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.