Some events in the past week

Here are some of the activities for us since last Sunday (Sunday, April 14-Saturday, April 20).




Hillsong Church Service

You all know who I'm married to.  You know there's no way I could report on this.  I'm sure my lovely wife will, however.  Some photos:

Stratford-Upon-Avon


On Monday (April 16) we took a day-trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon.  It is just over a 2-hour train ride each way (about 2.5 hours once you factor in walking from the flat and the tube to the train station).    This is Shakespeare's birthplace, however, so we figured it's worth a day.  For one (relatively reasonable family) price you can get into all the buildings related to Shakespeare.

We got into:

Shakespeare's birthplace house. (he was born in the 1500s - pretty cool that it's still around).
Nash's New House.  A house near where Shakespeare lived later in life.  The actual house where Shakespeare lived was taken down.  But this had some information on the dig.
Hall's Croft.  This was the house one of Shakespeare's daughters lived in.  She married a wealthy doctor.  It was pretty cool.  It also had two interactive kids program one for kids who are Zeke's age and one for kids who are older.
Anne Hathaway's Cottage.  Anne Hathaway was Billy Shake's wife.  She lived in a nice cottage, although the walk over there felt longer than the one mile that was mentioned on the signs.  (Especially from the kids.)

It was also a neat little small town.  We had a long day (left our flat at 6:20 AM, back in at 7:50 PM), but it was fun.  Some photos:

Kew Gardens and Kew Palace


Here's an old tree.  The oldest, in fact at Kew

Rooster.  He was cranky.

Wife, she was not cranky.  She was brave enough to climb to the treetop walkway (and she doesn't like heights.

Wife and Allison went back down the steps immediately, while I walked with the boys across the treetop walkway.

Two views from the top - the 2nd has Allison and Amanda down on the ground.

These are the Olympic rings made of flowers.  They're too big to get into a photo.

This was a card room from Kew Palace.  George III stayed here.  It's funny, but in England they don't think of him as "the twisted bastard that fought America in the revolutionary war"

Closing dinner

Last night was our closing dinner.  We had reservations from a place that said they could accommodate the 30 of us.  When we got there, they had a tiny room for 20 of the group, and the other 10 were in another area.  This, to me, was just unacceptable.  We're meeting for a group dinner/celebration.  We want to be a group.

I immediately called a place three blocks away and asked "Can you accommodate a group of 30 if we come over in 10 minutes."  They said yes, and we were out the door.  For someone who is as dull as me - that was pretty cool.

The dinner itself was quite fun.  We had all the students, one professor, and Heather, along with my family.  The students actually gave me a present, as well, which I wasn't expecting but was really nice.  Everybody had a good time.

Friday touring with my parents

On Friday (April 20th), I took the students to the airport and got them checked in and stayed with them until they went to the security line.  My parents arrived in the morning for their first trip to London.  When they arrived, my wife took them out touring.  First they hit Buckingham palace, and then walked through the park, which is where I caught up with them.  My dad put a piece of bread in his hand and became "the bird whisperer".

We got tickets to the do the London Eye.  We had pre-ordered the tickets (got a nice discount) and wen through their "4-D experience".  Basically, it was a nice 5-minute 3-D video of shots from the Eye and around London.  A photo as we're approaching the London Eye.

On the eye - that small building to the right (both above and below) is Parliament and Big Ben.

Saturday, April 21:

We had another tour of Tower of London (required tour for all visitors) and then went to the Fulham vs. (a suddenly good) Wigan game.  The game was outstanding (2-1 Fulham!) and we learned from last time to get seats a little higher up.  It was a great day.  Some photos:

We got the tour, of course

The raven was close

Tower Bridge in the background

 At the Fulham game

Zeke doesn't like when the paparazzi try to take his picture

23rd row was great - could see all the action unfold:

This has nothing to do with today, except we saw it again on the way back and had to take the picture.  This sign is a block from our flat.  I think it's self explanatory:

Misc events in the past few weeks

I've put in updates on our trips, but between the trips and the last update, we've had lots of fun and have seen lots of cool places.  Some highlights:


Matilda: Our family went to Matilda with our great friends (both Amanda and me and they have two kids who are friends with our kids).  (Here's one of the songs from it ...)  I like musicals, and Matilda is easily one of the best I've ever seen.  The theatre was pretty cool too ...

Some other photos with our friends and/or kids with their friends (at tower of London, Windsor Castle, and Hampton Court Palace):

I went on two sports facility tours with our students: Wimbledon (just me) and Lord's Cricket (family came along).  Both were quite informative and fun.

Above was Wimbledon, below is Lord's Cricket

Shakespeare's Globe:  Our group got a tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  The guide was good and entertaining, and it was a beautiful and untypical 75 degrees for our tour, which never hurts:

Banqueting House

We got a membership to “Historic Royal Palaces”.  The annual membership was pretty inexpensive – cheaper than two trips to the Tower of London, in fact.  For this, we can get in free to the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace, and the Banqueting House.  We decided to go into the Banqueting House, which seemed to us like the “throw-in” attraction to get it to 5 places, but still, we could get in free and it is where Charles I was executed.  Kings in England don’t get their heads chopped off often, so we figured this was worth a look. 

It was one room.  A big room, but still, only one room.  It was worth seeing, I suppose, but we were expecting a bit more.  Still, the kids got the handsets, and afterwards we walked through Covent Garden where we saw a cool street performer get out of a straight-jacket in 3 minutes.  That was pretty awesome  (Although we think he actually did dislocate his shoulder to do it - that part was a bit disgusting.) 

Oxford and Mini-Cooper:


We had a great tour of Mini-Cooper.  The guides were enthusiastic and the seemed to be genuinely happy to be doing what they were doing.  (They were semi-retired from mini-Cooper and had created this tour.)  Good tour.  We got to see the Austin Power's Mini-Cooper, too!

A couple pictures of places from the Harry Potter movies at the University of Oxford - can you recall what two scenes?

Favorite Pub (name) we've been to:  

We left the Tower of London and were looking for a restaurant when we stumbled into the this gem.

Fuller's is a chain - so the menu was one I'd seen before (and was perfectly good).  But the interior was great.  One portrait of Henry VIII, and the rest of people who were executed under his orders.  Pretty cool.