Friday, March 17, 2006

“a very fine cat indeed”

And this is the last post about my parents’ visit, which is probably just as well, considering they left nearly a week ago.

Once we got back from the western wilds, we had a few days to hang around London. They’ve been here before, and had done some exploring in the few days before we left, so we saw some of the big sights, but also a good many second-tier—but still very interesting—bits of history that London has to offer.

For example, we went to Samuel Johnson’s house and learned all about dictionaries. Here are Mom and Dad reading the laminated pages that make up the do-it-yourself tour through the house. (I paid an extra 50 pence admission to be allowed to take pictures inside—well worth it, don’t you think?):


Samuel Johnson’s cat, Hodge, is memorialized outside. The statue’s inscribed with the title to this post:


We went to Greenwich and learned about astronomy and navigation (the clocks there are very very cool, by the way). We also got to stand on the prime meridian. In the Eastern and Western hemispheres at the same time—crazy!


Although I got no pictures, we also went to Sir John Soane’s Museum, which is a really interesting museum in the house of the architect, and is notable for both the design of the house and the staggering amount of things he collected that are on display.

We saw some Tier 1 sights, too, including Westminster Abbey, which, shockingly, I had yet to visit (although I’d made more than one attempt since moving here, but was always thwarted by poor planning). We also ran down to Buckingham Palace one morning to see the changing of the guard:


The Queen was not in that day, so we didn’t get to say hi.

And the trip wrapped up with a trip to a pub:


Back to day-to-day life next week.

2 Comments:

At Sun Mar 19, 12:07:00 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Meandering comment: your parents (hi to them, if they see this comment) look like they had a great time...50p sounds a little steep to take snaps inside, although if that was needed to get the picture of Hodge, then well worth it...I thought the Prime Meridian would be more impressive than that, its just a line, really...I am pleased that you got to Westminster Abbey, although I would be curious to know whose tomb you and yours found most moving...ok, enough of this.

p.s. We Like Pub Pics!

 
At Wed Mar 22, 06:27:00 PM EST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow! Your mom looks JUST LIKE YOU in these photographs!

 

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