Look Kids, Big Ben

Feeling like we needed a big dose of English, we boarded a plane (or rather a tram, a bus, a plane, a train and a cab) up to London last weekend. It was a short, two day visit but we managed to pack a lot in. For the most part, we were dorky tourists jumping from attraction to attraction, but we also had great visits with my childhood friend, Penny, and our college friend, Christy.

After having read “The Elephants Visit London” before the trip, the boys were enthusiastic about exploring the city and seeing the sites. Eli couldn’t get enough of the red, double-decker buses and got a kick out of spotting Big Ben and then calling Daddy “Big Ben” all weekend. The boys also enjoyed riding in the black cabs, chasing birds in St. James’ Park, watching the Changing of the Guard at Kensington Palace, riding the London Eye, and pretending to be Peter Pan at the Princess Diana Memorial Playground at Kensington Gardens (a must-see if you have kids!).

We also had a great time reconnecting with old friends and introducing them to the boys. On Saturday we took a taxi out to West London to visit Penny at her new house in Brentford. The boys had fun feeding her fish, chasing her cat and throwing sticks (and themselves) into her pond, while Penny, Ben and I had a nice dinner together. We met up with Penny again on Sunday for lunch and got to meet her boyfriend, Alan. It was so nice to reconnect with Penny after so many years; we are already planning a Basel visit for later this summer.

Christy and her husband, John, came up from Horsham to join us in the city on Sunday afternoon. They helped keep track of the boys at the crazy Peter Pan playground and then we went out for Mexican (when in Rome…). We enjoyed hearing about Christy’s new business venture—Christy’s Cupcakes—and her experiences selling the American-style cakes to local biddies. We’re hoping Christy and John (and some samples) will come see us in Basel soon, too.

The only thing we didn’t manage to fit in was shopping. I was pretty much drooling out of the cab windows as we passed all of the shops on Oxford Street. Having also found that London, surprisingly, is cheaper than Basel, I’m thinking there might be a return trip in my near future!