Today we explored Camden to find the Chipperfield office (William's workplace). After walking around Camden for a while, we found William's office. It is a fairly unassuming building. Here is the picture of the outside. William starts work tomorrow.

The transportation in London on the subway or tube is great, but we do a lot of walking around - especially since we are new to the area and are exploring. Ethan has been getting tired of all the walking. So we came up with the idea of getting him a scooter ( a traditional push scooter). This has been one of our best ideas yet. He loves it, and it makes our errands go much faster!

We have an application out for a flat just outside of Highgate Village. The flat is called a "garden flat," because we have a back porch and a front porch or small garden area out front. Highgate Village is an extremely old village which is charming and has many cute pubs, restaurants, and shops. We are close to the tube stop as well and several parks for Ethan. Here is a picture of one of the main streets in the area (Hornsey Road - we will live directly off of this street).

Highgate Village at dusk:

Here is a picture of the street where you will find our flat (Fitzwarren Gardens). It is a ground floor flat (more like a brownstone with one apartment above ours). It is currently being renovated - new flooring (hard wood) paint and tile. We should be able to move in on the 21st of January if all goes as planned.

Above and below our pictures of us standing by the front gate of our flat. The bay window in the background is our front window.

The picture below is of Archway Road - We will live on top of the hill above this major street. Notice central London in the background. Also below are some pictures of me and Ethan at one of the neighborhood parks with a duck pond - Waterlow Park - in the old manse, now in the National Trust, there are community events: small concerts, plays for children, etc.

Notice the gloaming . . . it gets dark here around 4:00pm - that has been a big adjustment!

Today we did two exciting things - We went to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and we went to a Star Wars Exhibit! The Changing of the Guard Ceremony takes place almost every day, and basically it is when the Queen's guards have a shift change. However, it is quite a ceremony. The new guards parade down the street accompanied by a marching brass band. Above is a picture of Buckingham Palace (notice it was sunny today!). You might notice that there were lots of people; Ethan sat on dad's shoulders to get a better view.

If you look carefully inside the gate, you will see the Guard lined up ready to leave the Palace.

Here's the band . . . They played several tunes, but the most surprising was the Star Wars overture which we all thought was funny for the Queen's Guards to be playing and funny because we were on our way to the Star Wars exhibit at the Westminster County Hall.


After watching the ceremony, we walked through St. James Park to get on the Tube (subway) to go to the Star Wars Exhibit. St. James park has a pond with a ducks, geese, tons of pigeons, some orange-beaked black chicken-looking birds, and, strangely, white pelicans. When we first saw the pelicans, one of them was twisting his neck to the side and trying to eat some grass - it was really funny. Here is a picture of the pelicans.





The next picture is the view from a bridge crossing the pond over St.James Park looking towards "Duck Island." Notice the London Eye in the background.

After going to Buckingham Palace, we headed towards the Star Wars Exhibit which was put on by LucasFilms and had many of the original costumes and props from the real filming of the movies. We all enjoyed viewing some of the original concept sketches for the characters. Below is a picture of Anakin's fighter jet - notice R2D2 in the back.



Here is a picture of me and Ethan with R2D2.


Perhaps the most exciting part of the exhibit was Jedi School. We all got to attend Jedi School where you train to become a Jedi, but Ethan was randomly picked as one of the six kids who got to receive some actual light saber training!! Below the kids have just received their light sabers and are getting ready to practice some moves with their teachers.

The Jedis have learned their moves and now each one of them has to individually face Darth Vader to graduate (notice the Storm Trooper in the background). All of the Jedi's defeated the dark side!


Here is Ethan with his Jedi teacher after class.

All in all, saved the galaxy and had a spot of Indian take-away to top it off . . . a good day.

Yesterday evening we went ice skating at Somerset House which was built in the early 1800's to house government administration, but since has been converted to a museum/art gallery and place to ice skate in the winter and to see concerts in the summer. The building is just beautiful!

The ice skating was different from ice skating we have done in the past, because a light rain was falling while we were skating which turned into heavier rain towards the end of our hour. The rain led to puddles of water on the rink which did not have any effect on Ethan's enthusiasm for skating. I was surprised that it did not make the ice more slippery (William was not surprised as this is obvious to him.)

Ethan was his usual dare devil self and wanted to go fast. He fell repeatedly, but did not hurt himself and usally laughed when he fell. He was soaking wet by the end of the session - in fact we all were soaking wet due to the rain. (William claims that he was not soaking wet; but I disagree as he did not wear his coat today, because it was too wet). I also fell one time. (William was very pleased that he did not fall at all.) Below we are skating in the distance (what you cannot see are the beautiful torch like - gas lights that surround the entire rink -really awesome looking!

We also went to a playground yesterday where Ethan had lots of fun and got to play with some kids for a short time. The weather is supposed to be sunny this Saturday (tomorrow)- we are looking forward to a break in the rain.

We left on Monday, January 7th 2008 to head for London, England for William's internship with an architecture firm. Our flight from Austin to Chicago was delayed, so it turned out longer than anticipated. Here are some pictures of Ethan and William playing MadLibs before the flight and Ethan watching a movie on the plane.

We finally arrived in Chicago and had to run to our flight to London which involved going through security again. We made it only to be delayed on the runway for another 2.5 hours due to a thunderstorm. The first hour of the flight was very, very bumpy - one of the worst flights I have ever been on. However, it finally smoothed out, and we arrived safely. Ethan did great on the flight despite the bumps. By the way, our plane was huge - a 747 - here is a picture of the plane and our seats on the flight to London...

Collecting all of our luggage (six large, large bags) and several smaller bags and going through Customs and Immigration was a breeze. We had a driver waiting for us who took us to the hotel (best decision we could have made - despite the price). Our hotel is called LaGaffe and is located in Hamstead in north london. It is in a really cute area and has a small Italian restaurant and wine bar on the ground floor. Our room is tiny, but it does have a little extra room with a bed for Ethan. We are very happy with the hotel which also has a nice breakfast that is included in the price. Here are some pictures of us walking around the neighborhood of Hampstead.

Today is actually Tuesday, our second day in London. We took our first subway or "tube" ride to central London to do some fun stuff with Ethan. We spent the morning running errands (bank accounts, cell phones, and apartment searching). We went to central London to go to the London Eye which is the worlds largest Ferris wheel - actually it is little observatory carts (enclosed with heat) on a Ferris wheel type structure. Here are some pictures!

Here is a picture of Ethan getting on the car and another close up picture of what one of the cars look like.

Ethan takes a look down - we were up really high - it was a bit scary!

This is a picture of Parliment and Big Ben (the clocktower) from the Eye.

In preparation for Christmas, Ethan and Grandpa Ed hung Christmas lights on the house. Ethan was "the general" helping grandpa Ed hang the large ornaments on the trees out front. He moved the ladder himself and tied the ornaments on his own. Here he is tying the ornament string.

Ethan than makes sure the placement is just right!

Ethan is helping grandpa hang lights on the front porch.

Dad even got in on the action!

The light hanging took several days. Ethan even got to get on the roof of the house (under close supervision by Grandpa Ed). Here is a picture of him looking through the second floor window.

The house looks just beautiful. The guys did a great job. Here are some shots of the lights.



Here is a shot of the back looking from the back porch into the back yard.

The next day, we purchased and decorated the Christmas tree.

Here Ethan and Dad hang the star!

What a great looking tree! Dad takes a cookie break after working so hard.