April 2012: Fun London (blog post title by Mallory)

At the end of April the kids and I had a 4 day weekend, so we made a quick trip to London.  Yes, we'd been there before, but there are so many things to do there -- we could go back again.

My "favorite" part of every airplane trip -- going from the terminal to the plane by bus.   There are some routes out of Budapest airport that have a jetway directly from the terminal to the plane, but too many of the flights require you to take a bus ride from the terminal out to the plane sitting somewhere on the tarmac.

London didn't disappoint on its reputation of being rainy.  We went to see St Paul's cathedral -- both from the outside, the inside...

and from the top.

Really nice views of the city up there, despite the wind and rain.

We warmed up afterward with lunch at a Wagamama noodle place,

right outside the Tower of London.

We went to the British Library to see their collection of old manuscripts (the Magna Carta, Shakespeare, the Beatles, Jane Austin-Heidi's favorite part, etc.).

Grant outside St Pancras station.

We made a stop by Covent Garden for a little shopping.

That night we went (at Luke's request) to Ripley's Believe it or Not on Piccadilly Circus.  Luke has wanted to go to one of these places for years. 

It didn't disappoint.

All sorts of strange things in that place, from oversized chairs,

to people taking pictures of people taking pictures,

and even a "Big and Tall" section.

Later that night, out in the rain at Piccadilly Circus, we didn't have to compete with anyone for this photo op with the Eros statue.

We spent a few hours at the Natural History Museum -- the line to get in was enormous.  Luke had to go to the bathroom -- really had to go.  To prevent Luke from going behind the bushes, I finally walked over with him towards the entrance and asked the security lady if he could just go inside to go to the bathroom.  She told him to go ahead, but said that the rest of us should go with him, so that he wouldn't get lost. We all found new appreciation for Luke's small bladder -- normally it slows us down rather than speeds things up.

The museum is in a beautiful building.  In addition to the normal exhibits,

like dodo birds,

strange scaly mammals, and

giant skeletons, we also saw the special exhibition called Animal Inside Out, with  

skeletons, muscles, organs, etc. from all sorts of animals.

Nash is contemplating Darwin.

We also surprised the kids by taking them one afternoon to the Garrick Theatre to see, not Chicago, but ...

a show called Barmy Britain - based on the Horrible Histories books and TV series, which the kids have all liked over the years.

Mallory posing as Henry V.

On Monday morning we took a train about 30 minutes outside of London to go to the....

new Harry Potter Studio Tour.

A few months ago it opened, and we heard about it so decided to take the kids to see it.  The buildings are on the site of the movie studio where they filmed a lot of the Harry Potter movies.

Inside the buildings they have lots of the sets, costumes, props, etc. from the movies, including Harry Potter's room under the stairs.

Here is the entrance to the dining hall at Hogwarts.

All around the dining hall they had various props and costumes from the movies.

A mini Privet drive.

I don't remember which movie that house is from.

The triple-decker Knight Bus.

This is the bridge to ..... I can't remember.

This is the model of Hogwarts that they used for any of the shots of Hogwarts.

Props galore...

Mallory and the Ministry of Magic.

One of the professor's rooms.

Diagon Alley set.

The Weasley's house.

The Chamber of Secrets entrance.

Hagrid's hut.

Dumbledore's office.

Mallory, getting a stamp in her Harry Potter passport book.

One of the moving staircases.

Harry's dormitory room.

The yule ball stuff.

The Hogwarts dormitory - Gryffindor Common Room.

Mallory, holding Hermione's wand.

And later that night, we split up -- the boys and I went to see Les Miserables, and Heidi and Mallory went to see Wicked.  All in all, it was a really great trip -- so much to do in London.