Friday started out with a big and hearty full English breakfast in our hotel. The kids eat for free so for London the breakfast was comparatively cheap. Right after I went shopping at Victoria’s Secret – without the kids as they are not the biggest fans of having to wait in the stroller. So Mike took the kids and met up with Katie & Reza in Hyde Park. Together they walked up all the way to the Princess Diana Memorial playground at the north end of the park. On the way they were met by tame green parrots (probably escapees from a zoo) who would even eat peanuts out of one’s hand (note to self: bring some next time), ducks, geese, squirrels and the palace guard on horseback.
I met up with them at the playground – a really neat one with lots of exciting stuff (like pirate ships or musical instruments) for Nate & Noam to explore.
Thankfully the weather held up (not a given in England).
After a quick lunch (they had awesome flapjacks, we so need to find a recipe for those) we went on the Natural History Museum. Entrance is free, but they encourage you to donate some money to help financing. They have all kinds of old bones / fossils there. Nate was blown away, especially by the dinosaur exhibition.
Unfortunately we did not have the time to look at all exhibits as we had to make one more shopping stop at a very special shop – Fortnum & Masons. It’s pretty much like the KadeWe of London. Lots of delicious and fancy food (Orange marmalade, biscuits, honey just to name a few). Afterwards we headed off on our own to get a brief glimpse of Buckingham palace followed by typical British dinner: Fish & chips at a small restaurant mostly frequented by locals (we love those places).
Once we got back to the hotel we put the kids in our tub to wash off all the Princess Diana Memorial Sand. They still put up a fight but after a while they finally fell asleep. They had really had an exciting day and all this had to be processed first.
