I've now been teaching the 2-year-olds at my church on Wednesday nights for a year! It's hard to believe how much they've all grown up since last May. Last night we went outside for a few minutes, and took a bottle of bubbles. Hank kept saying, "Big one! Big one! Do a big one!", but seemed happier when there were lots of little ones to pop, instead of the few large bubbles I could do at a time.
These kids have meant so much to me, and I'm sad that they will promote in a couple of weeks, but I'm looking forward to another great year with the next bunch!
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With planning for this England trip in October, Phil's blog the last couple of weeks, and helping my friend Liz get ready for a summer in London, I felt like posting my must-sees of the city:
SHOPPING
Notting Hill & Bayswater, Portobello Road Market, Whiteley’s Mall, High Street, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Harrod’s, LUSH, Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road bookstores, Camden Market
FOOD
Wagamama, Khan’s, Pret a Manger, Café Nero, Lord’s Delicatessen, Muffin Man tea shoppe in Kensington, just off of High Street Kensington, Dionysus
THEATRE
Les Miserables; anything at the Globe Theatre; Anything by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, but especially the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged; Mousetrap - Personally, I thought it was kind of boring (having already read the book), but it’s very famous; Lion King
SIGHTSEEING
St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Poet's Corner, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, National Gallery, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Museum, National History and Science Museums, Royal Albert Hall,
Hyde Park, Kensington Palace and Gardens
Off-the-beaten-path recommendations:
Kew Gardens
Benjamin Franklin House – I volunteered part-time here in 2001; it’s the last remaining BF residence in the world, and is where he lived before the American Revolution, trying to reconcile relations b/w England and the colonies; they were renovating it to be a museum, but I don’t know if it’s open yet
Dickens Museum
Carlisle Street, off of Soho Square – where the Manette family lived in Tale of Two Cities, my all-time favorite book!
Carnaby street, Soho
Highgate Cemetary
HMS Belfast
Churchill’s War Rooms
Greenwich – Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian and Thames Boat Tour
10 Downing Street
These kids have meant so much to me, and I'm sad that they will promote in a couple of weeks, but I'm looking forward to another great year with the next bunch!
************************************
With planning for this England trip in October, Phil's blog the last couple of weeks, and helping my friend Liz get ready for a summer in London, I felt like posting my must-sees of the city:
SHOPPING
Notting Hill & Bayswater, Portobello Road Market, Whiteley’s Mall, High Street, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Harrod’s, LUSH, Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road bookstores, Camden Market
FOOD
Wagamama, Khan’s, Pret a Manger, Café Nero, Lord’s Delicatessen, Muffin Man tea shoppe in Kensington, just off of High Street Kensington, Dionysus
THEATRE
Les Miserables; anything at the Globe Theatre; Anything by the Reduced Shakespeare Company, but especially the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged; Mousetrap - Personally, I thought it was kind of boring (having already read the book), but it’s very famous; Lion King
SIGHTSEEING
St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Poet's Corner, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, National Gallery, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Museum, National History and Science Museums, Royal Albert Hall,
Hyde Park, Kensington Palace and Gardens
Off-the-beaten-path recommendations:
Kew Gardens
Benjamin Franklin House – I volunteered part-time here in 2001; it’s the last remaining BF residence in the world, and is where he lived before the American Revolution, trying to reconcile relations b/w England and the colonies; they were renovating it to be a museum, but I don’t know if it’s open yet
Dickens Museum
Carlisle Street, off of Soho Square – where the Manette family lived in Tale of Two Cities, my all-time favorite book!
Carnaby street, Soho
Highgate Cemetary
HMS Belfast
Churchill’s War Rooms
Greenwich – Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian and Thames Boat Tour
10 Downing Street
what...no diagon alley, leaky cauldron, or Hogsmeade?!? oh what i'd do for a butterbeer right now! hee hee
Way to go, Amanda! I was going to suggest those. Or Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station.
Or, another literary allusion, maybe 221B Baker St.
On the serious side, "The Mouse Trap" is still the longest running play anywhere in the world, and is worth seeing.
OK ... too much butterbeer!
I did get to go watch all the festivities around the premiere of the first movie, in Leicester Square. I took my video camera, and have footage of most of the stars arriving and greeting the fans. When Warwick Davis (Professor Flitwick) arrived, I yelled, "Willow!", and he turned and waved at my camera! That day is one of my all-time favorite London memories.