We visited Hampton Court Palace today. Hampton Court Palace was a favored residence of Henry VIII, an obligatory residence for some other Tudors, a retreat for some of the Stuarts, kind of a hangout for the Hanovers, and then more or less an administrative burden for the later monarchs. But it is a great example of the typically British architectural pastiche, combining Tudor neo-Gothic construction in brick with an earnest effort in Georgian neo-classicism overseen by none other than Christopher Wren during the 1700s. We rode one of the overground British Rail system trains for a short 30 minutes Southeast of London to the Palace from Waterloo Station. That was a fun experience for all. Here we are outside of the train!

Once we arrived Ethan met some "courtiers." He asked them whether or not there had been any battles at the palace. Ethan learned that there had not been any battles at the Palace and that most battles take place at castles.

Another exciting feature of the castle is the hedgerow maze. Ethan and William studied the map before entering the maze. When we entered the maze, Ethan took off. William and I were hopelessly lost until Ethan came back for us and announced that the had found his way out of the maze. He quickly led us out of the maze without any problems.

Here is Ethan at the center of the maze!

The Palace has some really nice formal gardens complete with fountains, inquisitive swans, and manicured trees. Here are some pictures.

Ethan actually had a "run-in" with an aggressive swan who thought he had some food. The swan kept following Ethan around - which Ethan thought was pretty funny.

Today we went to the British Museum. The British Museum is huge - lots to see. Since the museum is free, and we know that Ethan will not spend all day looking at things at a museum, we decided to see only a small part today and make muliple visits throughout our stay. After viewing the Rosetta Stone, we focused on the Eqyptian rooms. Of particular interest were the mummies.

Below is a real mummified body . . .

After a morning at the museum, we went to find a nearby playground billed as one of "London's Best" at Coram fields. Strangely enough, the playground is located on the grounds of a former orphanage (which includes a musem about the orphanage which we skipped). They also have a small petting zoo, a football pitch (soccer field), and several playscapes. The playground had a really great playscape, but the best feature for Ethan seemed to be the Zip Line. Here are a few shots of Ethan in action on the zip line!

Ethan found a boy his age to play football (soccer) with on the pitch. English kids (even young ones are really good a soccer). It is definitely the national sport. However, Ethan did very well and was excited to make a friend and get to play. The funny thing was - the boys wanted to play soccer using the entire width of the field. The second picture can give you an idea of how far the goals were apart (about 100 yards!). They were both tired out after about 20 mins. of playing.

Ethan on one of the playscapes.

Today we went to the Science Museum while dad was at work. We navigated the tube easily and found the Museum without much trouble. The Science Museum is huge, I mean the biggest one I have been to. We spent almost the entire day there and did not see it all. We will definitely be back - it is also free!

There are lots of hands on activities for kids which makes the Museum really fun. One of the highlights was a science show we attended where we learned about making a strong bridge. Ethan learned that the weakest point on the bridge is the center, and the show explored different ways to design bridges to make them stronger. Ethan was picked to be the safety manager (HA HA) and got to help with some of the experiements during the show.

Here are some pictures of Ethan in the science show (below).

The kids at the science show also got to sit on a chair with 500 nails, because of the way the nails were distributed evenly and close together it did not hurt at all!

I also took some pictures of our hotel LaGaffe in Hampstead today. You will see on the ground floor there is an Italian Restaurant and wine bar. Our room is actually in another building behind the cafe. Here is Ethan standing at the entry garden of our hotel.

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.