Europe Trip: May 3 to May 9 Part 1

Frankly I don't remember what day we did what, in what order, and how long it took us and what we ate, and it's not really that important. This is the time we spent in England. We stayed with our friends John and Christin Whitton and their two little ones in their little apartment in Chigwell. They were there for a year for John's school. It was so much fun to see them, and I think we stayed up late talking every night even though we were all exhausted. Then Joshua would stay up even later, struggling with jet lag, and crawl all over us while we tried to sleep on an air mattress in their living room. Christin was starting a new "diet" which avoided animal products like milk, eggs, and cheese, as a protest to the animals' living conditions. Unfortunately that's just about all we eat, so we stocked up her fridge with all sorts of delicious dairy and eggs. She did make this delicious granola that John said tasted, "like old people." I thought it was fine.
Most of the days we were there, we'd take the Tube into London and see the sights. We got Oyster cards, but didn't end up getting a week pass because one or two of the days we were there we didn't end up going into the city, so it wasn't really worth the extra cost. We went to church with them on Sunday and man, I was sooo jet lagged and tired. I ended up sitting in the foyer for sacrament meeting because it was hot, and I just could not sit in there anymore. Remember now, I was about 7 months pregnant. One nice lady asked if I was OK and I had to explain that I was jet lagged, and pregnant, and tired, but fine.
Christin and her two kiddos were able to come with us to a few things, but her youngest was sick that week, so he was cranky, and Christin was tired, so they didn't end up coming to many things. Mostly because London is not very stroller friendly. There are many tube stations with only stairs. No elevators or escalators. Joshua enjoyed playing with N, but she was in a stage where sharing is not an option, so for several months after coming back, when we'd mention N, he'd say how she'd say, "No! Mine!" We have since seen them again and their friendship has grown past that.

 Here they are playing at a park near their house.

 Dave and Joshua washing dishes together in the cute little kitchen.

 Playing at the toy museum.

 Building (and knocking down) towers at the toy museum.

 Building more towers.

 Pretty sure this tower lasted all of 10 seconds.

 N playing with the magnetic hair for faces at the toy museum.

 Joshua was more interested in the magnets than the hair. To be honest, the hair didn't move around very well.

Later they headed home for nap time while Joshua made us some lunch at the toy kitchen at the toy museum.
Quick side note: Transportation was very pricey in London. We spent probably about $20/day just to use the public transportation. It would have been more if we had used any buses. The weekly pass was not considerably cheaper. One nice benefit about London is that most of the museums are free. If we lived there, we'd probably go to this museum at least once/month. Since transportation was so expensive, we tried to go to one area, and explore the whole area on foot, rather than hopping on and off the Tube to see everything. This meant that there was a LOT of walking. They do say that walking is a good way to get rid of jet lag. Oh our feet ached by the end of the day. Even Dave's and Joshua's. After a day or two, Joshua got carried a lot. Like I said, London isn't stroller-friendly, but maybe some sort of back-pack carrier would have been a good idea.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Sightseeing