We are back from our trip to London!  We had a lot of fun and the trip was great!

Here we are waiting at the airport.  Our flight left at night, so we were dressed in our pajamas.

Waiting for the Sky Train!  Did you ever see such cute international travelers?

We slept almost the entire flight, although we were still very tired when we got to London.  We relaxed and walked around Hampstead, our neighborhood, for the first afternoon.  Here we are on our first night in our flat, watching Cbeebies and insisting on wearing our rain boots.

Mar came over to say hello!  We loved her instantly.

Jet lagged babies.

Here is our neighborhood.  It was so charming!  Mommy and daddy could live here with us easily.  Mar lived only a few streets down, so we got to see her a lot.  Here we are about to go exploring on our first day!

We started with some pastries.  We get to have sweets on vacation.  We also love croissants.

There was a little park in our neighborhood, so we got to play at the playground with the other kids.

Blurry…and we aren’t so fond of swinging.

Walking around our neighborhood with Mar… and we see some Chinese dragons!

The Victoria and Albert Museum!!!

 

Mommy is taking photographs while Daddy and Mar hold us.  We didn’t think it was as interesting as mommy did.

Big city dudes.

Hyde park.  We have the most fun in the parks!  And there were even ducks and swans at this one!

Mar love!

Monday we rode on the Underground, which we called the “train”.  We liked getting on it…until we got bored of riding it, and felt smooshed by all the people, and then we liked getting off!

Little babies, Big Ben.

We visited the Natural History Museum.  It was in the neatest old building, and we were both really impressed by all of the animal bones.  In fact, we often said “wooooowwww” in the museums.  

We kind of concerned mommy and daddy when we saw a human skull and started laughing…?

Avery was asleep for the first half of this, but Aurelia really liked looking at everything.

Pretty building!

We refreshed ourselves with a much needed brownie.  (Yes, mommy did make sure we had healthy food back at our flat.  Yogurt, peanut butter and fresh fruit every night, plus Cheerios, so we did not always eat junk food!)

We visited the famous Harrod’s shopping center.  The food hall was huge, and they had quite an impressive toy selection.

We had so much fun running around here.  And of course we were asking “peees peees peees”.

We visited King’s Cross Station, and the famous Platform 9 3/4.  It’s a beautiful station, and had a really great chocolate shop.

The next day mommy went to the Clothworker’s Center and got to look at 18th and 19th century clothes – yay!  We played with daddy and Mar until she was done, then we went to Westminster!

Beautiful day in London!  Here is parliament.

Westminster Abbey, where soooo many famous people are buried.  There was Poet’s Corner, where we saw the graves/memorials of Jane Austen, the Brontes, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot).  We are sure we will like reading all of these authors when we are older.  Queen Elizabeth and many other monarchs are buried here (Edward the first, for example).  We also got to see the chair, known as King Edward’s Chair (named after Edward the Confessor and carved around 1300!), on which many monarchs have been crowned (the Stone of Scone was not there, though).

At the abbey.

We are good city babies.

Just watching palomas by the abbey.

National Gallery and Trafalgar Square.

“Aguaaaa!!!”

Avery liked Van Gogh’s crab painting.  Aurelia was asleep for Cezanne, so daddy propped her head up for the photo op 😉

Beautiful view of Trafalgar Square from the National Gallery.

The famous Oxford Street.

Look at these crazy Underground escalators!

Back at home!  We learned how to climb on the furniture and we were really proud of ourselves.

We had a play date at the playground with Mar and Lenny.  So fun!

Getting good at the slide.

Now on our way to the British Museum.

Love these buildings.

The British Museum!

Lovely inside.

We got to look at Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek and Roman art.  Pretty impressive.

So many things to see, we have to look up!!!

Brownie break!

Our favorite part was playing outside.

 

Covent Garden at night.

An impressive church in our neighborhood. On our way to the metro to go to Buckingham Palace.

Playing at St. James’s Park.

Birds!  Even a sick looking goose that mommy was really trying to keep away from us.

Buckingham Palace. We watched the guards doing their funny walk.

A special exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts: Painting the Modern Garden, from Monet to Matisse.  Lots of Impressionists, like Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, Pissaro, Klimt, Klee…it was a great exhibition.

 

Rusinol.  This painting was amazing.

We were so good.  Slept right through it!

Fortifying ourselves at Paul, our favorite French cafe.

Real flowers on the promenade.

Love those classic phone booths.

Last morning, saying good bye to our cute neighborhood.

Bye bye playground!

Adios Mar! Te echamos de menos ya!

Playing at the airport before our looooong flight home.

We had such a good time in London, and are such good international travelers!  We were glad to be home and see our toys and run around our house, though!