This day we took a different route on the H.O.H.O. (hop on, hop off) bus tour than we had taken before. Since we had previously hopped off at the Tower of London, we had never really finished the rest of the bus tour and the tickets we bought were for 72 hours plus the walking tour and the river cruise. We must get our money's worth! This time the bus was just recorded commentary vs. the live guide. We brought our own ear buds. (See how Goose's are pink?)
And see Jason up there, sitting by himself in front of all the rest of us, ear buds in both ears?
I had Easton and Dalton in front of me and Autumn next to me and, I'm a mom, I can only have in one ear bud at a time.
We rode around again:
This time we got to see Westminster Abbey:
The kids got bored:
We had probably seen enough of London by that point so we hopped off and headed to Harrod's. I had wanted to see more than we saw the first night with the Disney Cafe fiasco. They had a "Christmas World" and I was on the lookout for this year's nutcracker among other things. We did the Christmas World.
I did not see any nutcracker that I wanted. :(
Instead we happily spent most of our time on the toy floor.
"A lion! Take a picture and send it to Caise!"
"The Gruffalo! Take a picture and send it to Jess!"
"Take a picture and send it to Gramoo!" (Her name is Lucy, if you didn't know.)
"Take a picture and send it to Lauren!"
"Giraffes are Carson's favorite! Let's take a picture and send it to Carson!"
"I just checked...this giraffe is a girl."
Dalton used some of his own pounds given to him by a friend of ours to buy a very small Minecraft mystery box:
Easton came up empty-handed on his search for a stuffed dragon souvenir so he decided on a stuffed BB-8 from the new Star Wars instead, but he had to pay for part of it himself (with pounds from our friend) as it was significantly more than either of his sibling's souvenirs.
So both boys got something at Harrod's.
This means Autumn did not.
This means Autumn was sad.
Poor Goosey Girl.
However, probably the funniest moment of our trip happened when we arrived back at Paddington Station after that. We got off the train and there was a pigeon walking along the platform. Soon the doors started alarming that they were closing so, speaking as the pigeon, I was like, "Oh no! I'm gonna be late for work!" and whaddya know: the pigeon hopped right on the train! I wasn't fast enough to get a great pic but just to the left of the yellow pole up by the far door you might be able to see him up there headin' to work. Oh how we laughed. We see birds (and sometimes mice) on the tracks and platforms all the time here in Berlin but never have we seen one on the train. Too funny.
We headed to the flat for some lunch and then we had plans to meet up with our landlord in the afternoon. Our actual landlord of our flat in Berlin...not the host guy from Airbnb. Our landlord is German but she lives in London and we are friendly with her. She has been known to stop by and visit when she's in Berlin and she's often mentioned meeting up with us should we come to London.
She had wanted to take us to Afternoon Tea. This was something I really wanted to experience while in London and she had everything all set up. The night before, however, I was looking up the place to know where to go: The Landmark Hotel. Then I saw the price. And the menu. Oh my gosh, you guys, it was £45 a person! A person!!!! This is equal to about $66 or 61€!!!! I did not see a discount for children listed. And then the menu was not at all vegan or child friendly. So really only I would have enjoyed any of it. It was too fancy for the kids, even the desserts would have made them gag. The tea sandwiches were all watercress or with crème fraîche or other fancy schmancy nonsense. The scones had currants or other fruity bits. Autumn would have loved the environment, the boys would have hated having to be calm and regular for so long. And Jason would have had tea and that's about it. Our landlady was totally going to treat us to tea. But I could not do that to a person. Not when it would have been such a waste of her money.
We asked her if we could switch it to something else at the last minute (early that morning) without penalty from the restaurant. She was understanding but at the same time was like, "Aw, I really wanted to show it to you, it's very special." However, if she can swing that, then we're paying her way too much rent. (£45 x 6 is £270 that is $400 for a friggin' afternoon tea.)
Instead we met her near a tube stop and walked over to a place much more suited to the Setzers: a place called Le Pain Quotidien. We only wished we had discovered it earlier in our trip! All these veg and vegan options. A delicious bakery. Organic ingredients. We decided: we are definitely coming back here. It is rare to find a place all 5 of us want to eat.
Even with coffee, baked goods for all, and tip for 6 I think it was still only about half the cost of one person to have tea at the Landmark.
We parted ways after visiting for awhile and hopped on a bus towards Piccadilly Circus. On the way, we passed a Disney Store. Our family loves Disney Stores and we don't have one in Berlin. So we jumped off the bus and went to check out the two story store.
Cute Cinderella carriage on one side:
It's just a giant pumpkin on the other:
Dalton has a stuffed version of this troll he bought himself at the Disney Store in Colorado over the summer.
He named it Depot. Side note: I thought it was a dumb non-name (but I didn't say that to Dalton, of course) and then Autumn started school and she has a "Depo" in her class!
Pull my finger!
We then went to Rainforest Cafe (another place our family loves to visit when we have the chance) to put our names in for a table. One family cut in front of everyone in line saying they had a reservation...well their reservation wasn't for, like, 2 1/2 hours from then! So, they got put on the list just like the rest of us...only they got put on in front of everyone else already waiting in line! For a party of 5. Just ahead of our party of five. (I was very next in line after about 15 minutes of waiting.) Grrrr! We had a 45 minute wait or so (theirs was, like, 40). To kill time we browsed in the shop a bit and walked over to Piccadilly Circus to see it at night.
We also checked out a few other stores before heading back for our table. They sat us right next to the family of cutter-in-liners. But I was nice. I even gave them a spare coupon. Go me. 'Cause dude, I could not allow anyone--even rude line-cutters--to pay full price. Sure Rainforest Cafe is always expensive--you're paying for the experience but a kid's meal at the London location is £12.75. This is nearly $19 American dollars! For a drink, main dish, and dessert. At the Rainforest Cafe in Anaheim (the location frequented most by our family) a kids entree is maybe $6-$7 and they drink water. Happily. Anyway, we ordered them stuff to share from the grown up menu and they were happy as little
After Rainforest Cafe we headed back to the flat for bed. Our time in London is winding down. Day 6 is here.
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