London Day 3

Day 3 began with a stop at the Horniman Museum, which I really enjoyed. It has a quirky but wonderful taxidermy exhibit of many different animals. It also has a permanent collection of hundreds of historical musical instruments. When we visited there was also a beautiful exhibit of nature photography. The museum is just around the corner from Christian and Vicki's house. One of the amazing things about their place is that they are essentially on the park that houses the museum. So their back view is of trees, and they have a large green space for the kids available sunup to sundown.

As we walked past the Museum, we appreciated this very English take on meeting Santa Claus.

After the Horniman we headed to the area near London Bridge and Christian's work. Our first stop was to get lunch and treats at Borough Market. In the spirit of catching up on comfort food, we ordered delicious Ethiopian and ate it on the sidewalk.

After taking in the sights, sounds, and smells, we made our way along the south bank toward the Globe theater and the Tate Museum, before crossing the new Millennium Bridge toward St. Paul's. We passed this huge portrait of the bard.

The Globe with the Tate smokestack in the background.

Millennium Bridge (which also, by the way, featured in a Harry Potter movie):

The Thames under the Shard:

St. Paul's:

Our good friend Sydney MacGilvray had planted the idea of visiting Hamley's toy store during our visit. Hamley's is, we discovered, older than America. It is also 5 stories high, and crowded. Our first stop was the top floor to visit the bathrooms. Thanks to a request from Cy, you can now all appreciate what the urinals look like in a famous toy store.

Charlotte and Cyrus were allowed to find themselves Christmas presents, and the grown-ups shopped for presents for the non-present (haha) children, so we could do a gift exchange back at the house. The kids weren't the only ones impressed by Hamley's.

We also finally got a couple of photos of the crown jewels to share...

The place was filled with kids and toys and salespeople, and at some point two of us were happy for the chance to pop outside for some fresh air. Cyrus, for his part, called it "heaven".

From Hamley's it's not far to Picadilly Circus, but it was also getting toward evening. Happily, Vicki (who had just finished a meeting) was able to join us as we wrapped up (haha) at Hamley's and she led us along some nearby streets -- and ultimately to the second floor of a nearby pub where we were all glad for a break. Everything was done up for the holidays.

It felt a bit colder this day than other days--and we were ready to go see Gus, Sol, and Xan for fun on the home front. In reviewing my photos from this trip, I learned I didn't have many photos from the evenings with all the cousins together. But honestly I was happy to get home and put my feet up. Luckily, the next day I have a lot of photos of the kids. Here is one photo from our arrival at the house. This is the evening view from the front door, looking back down over London.