Monday, April 2, 2012

Here and There in London

On Monday we had arranged to meet Chris and Hedy.  They were leaving the next day to go to Oxford for the Scholl Conference, an organization started by Jeff Scholl who was the CEO of E Bay and started this organization for Social Entrepreneurs where, among other things people were honored for their Humanitarian Service.

At any rate, we dropped Emmeline off at pre-school and met them at two of our favorite museums in London….the Tate Modern and the Tate Britain. Walking out of the tube stop faced directly with the gorgeous St. Paul’s Cathedral was an event in itself but we managed to walk past and over the magnificent Millennial Bridge to the Tate Modern (Eli’s favorite museum in the world).

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Saydi had some games to play in the museum with the kids and a great time and we had a great time enjoying it together. Although some of the exhibits were a bit hard to understand we enjoyed the creativity of it all and the minds who thought of such amazing things!

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From the Tate Modern we took a fifteen minute boat ride to the Tate Britain.  Pretty good scenery on the way as we passed the houses of Parliament and the London Eyre. Hazel kept everyone entertained with her British accent.

 

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And once we were there, we were all entertained with the statues, the Pre-Raphaelites and the magnificent Turner collection!

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(Above: Hazel with her best “pre-Raphaelite” look.)

Hedy and I were taken with this painting of two obviously well-off children giving a coin to a beggar boy. Such interesting expressions!

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The night before Saydi had the kids looking at this painting and learning what had to be done to restore it to it’s original splendor. They were so excited to find it.

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The kids loved meeting Chris and Hedy.  Charlie took right up calling Chris “grandfather” which he was delighted to accept.

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We sent Saydi off with the kids to pick up Emmeline and get ready to meet us for dinner and a play later and we went off with Chris and Hedy to a place Rick/Dad has to visit every time we go to London….Harrods!  We had a very expensive lunch there and enjoyed the sights and wonders of that incredible place.

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Of course, a trip to Harrod’s isn’t complete without a visit to the Egyptian Escalator.

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That night Jeff, who was jet lagged from a week in Boston, not feeling well because of a sore throat and swollen gland and up to his gills in work to catch up on, joined us for dinner anyway and we had a nice chat among the six of us, catching up on the latest. He went back to work and the rest of us hopped on over to Singin’ in the Rain at the Palace Theatre. The same theatre where Annie was playing when we got to London all those years ago. Les Miserables also spent some time there. Great dancing and lots of “rain” on stage.

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After that it was a farewell to Chris and Hedy and a mad dash to get home in time to do the crazy BYU Sirius Radio show that we do every Monday. We Skyped and it worked pretty well. It was 11:00 our time and 4:00 their time. Those time zones can get you! 

On to the next day which was our trip to Leeds Castle in the next post.