Sunday, April 10, 2011

LONDON!

We only had a couple of days in London but we went at full clip every hour we were there!  How we love that city! Because of the short time frame and because didn’t have a car, we didn’t even get to see any of our beloved friends from our years spent there! But we did see a lot of fantastic “other old friends”…the sights of London!
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Our hotel was right in the middle of walking distance to everywhere! It’s an inconspicuous place called The Shaftsbury” (seen between those two flags). The cabs may be the more important part of this photo. Gotta love those London cabs!
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I spent some precious time at Trafalgar Square feeling as though i could hug those big old lions!
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They have a new “ship in a bottle” on a pedestal on the square as well as a “countdown to the Olympics clock”. 

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One place I truly love is the National Gallery. I felt as though i was floating through heaven looking at those magnificent paintings! My favorite this time was a huge painting by Honthorst in the 1600’s of Jesus standing before the high priest with a candle on the table lighting up the high priest’s accusing finger as well as the Savior’s face. It’s too hard to explain on paper but the light was truly a heavenly light!  Ahhhh! Art!

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We hit the plays as well. This one was a block from our hotel and though it’s not one we would want to see, it brought back fond memories of seeing Annie here for the first time.  


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We did get to see Blood Brothers which was very English and very interesting!  It was about twin brothers who were separated at birth and grew up in totally different economic and social levels and how that played out very interestingly!

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We also saw the new production of The Wizard of Oz with added music by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Thoroughly entertaining!  Sorry no pictures!
Les Miserables was one block in the other direction. Shucks! Not enough time! I’d love to see that again!

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Walking home and window shopping by way of Regent Street at night was a delight!
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The display above is 37,000 corks at Anthropologie!

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An enormous clean-up job is underway at Piccadilly Circus in anticipation of the royal wedding in two weeks. People are pretty excited!
Probably the most important thing we did though whilst there was to meet with our hero “Dr. Phil” as he is know in Eyre-land.  He is the world’s foremost expert on the Lucy’s Bardet Biedl Syndrome.  He was unbelievably kind to meet with us over lunch and ended up spending over two hours with us going over the latest information he has on the syndrome.
He has spearheaded clinics just for kids with syndromes so that parents can show up at a doctor’s office and talk with someone who actually knows all about BBS!  We are SO grateful to him for the information we now have.  His office is at University College Hospital near Russell Square which we walked to from our hotel. It was a pure delight to be with him!
I got so engrossed in what he was saying that I entirely forgot to take a picture but here is a picture that I took with he and his wife helen at the BBS conference at Duke University this year. How we appreciate this great humanitarian who are doing so much good in the world!
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London holds treasure we could not have known when we were there as “kids”!  All of Eyrealm holds a special spot in their hearts for this great place on earth!

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