Trip to London

Yesterday we made the trek down to London. All of the kids’ passports are expiring in March, and we needed to visit the US Embassy there. We left the house around 8:45, walking to the train station. We took a short train to Stockport, and then the 2 hour train to London. It was the first trip for Brea, Bryce and Caleb. We arrived in London around 11:30. We next made our way down to the Tube where we got tickets and took two trains toward our destination. We then made a short walk to a store to get passport photos made. We had to go to a special place near the Embassy, as US passport photos are supposed to be different in size to British ones (I can’t tell the difference). We then walked down to the Embassy and had lunch in Roosevelt park (adjacent to the Embassy). It was a fairly sunny – albeit cool – day. After lunch we still had a few minutes to spare, so we walked a couple of blocks over to Hyde Park.

The Embassy was extremely secure – guards with machine guns – metal detectors. In fact, the entire front of the embassy is being fortified with all sorts of barricades and barriers. We eventually made it through security and into the long waiting lines. The kids thought it was a horribly long wait (it was tolerable) and in their boredom deduced that there are 21,839 dots on the ceiling of the Embassy waiting room
(in case you ever wondered).

After the Embassy, we made our way to the British Museum (after another tube ride). It has some of the world’s most rare and famous antiquities. However, by this time everyone was dragging (Philip had come with us straight from work and only slept on the train) – and feet were heavy. We trudged around for an hour or so – looking at ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics on all sorts of statues and tombs…Assyrian wall carvings (in stone) of their many conquerings (including some from biblical stories), Roman and Greek statues. We ran out of steam at the Chinese Buddhas.

We then made our way to a pizza place for some authentic (and expensive) cuisine and then back to the train station. The timing of getting back to the train station was during rush hour, and the Tube was incredibly crowded – amazingly crowded. The platform itself was so full, no one could get on it. And when the first train came – and was already packed like sardines – we watched as a few pushed their way on, and we pushed our way (hanging on to little hands) closer to the front. We finally squeezed onto the second train to come along, Caleb barely getting in before the door closed, and we made a very intimate ride back to the station

After we arrived at the station, the boys were still hungry and finished off a couple of Burger King burgers. We got on the train for home at 7:30 – and finally got into bed around 10:30. It was a LOOOONNNNG, but fun day. We were glad to realize that we have another 5 years before the kids’ passports expire again. And then the thought hit – oh no, our Irish passports expire next year!