My Journal
June 12th, 2009
I'm sooo excited! I'm on a plane going to London! This isn't my first plane this morning though. I got up at 4:00am this morning to get to the airport at 5:00am to catch a 6:16am flight. That plane was pretty small. We arrived in Newark, New Jersey and walked around the airport for about an hour. (We is my mom, my sister Catherine and me.) The plane I'm on now is really big and there are TV screens on the back of every seat, so you can watch lots of different movies. (There are about 40 choices) I watched Pink Panther 2, College Road Trip and Confessions of a Shopaholic. We're going to eat lunch and dinner on the plane.
Right now I'm at home in London. Let me tell you about our apartment. You use one key to get into our building. Then you walk up a few flights of stair and you get to our door. When you walk in to our hall, the first door on the right is my room and the second door is my mom and dad's room. At the end of the hall is our bathroom. There is one door on the left and that's our living room/ kitchen. There is a fold out couch in the living room where my sister sleeps. Check out the Flat Pics page to see pictures of my apartment.
June 13th, 2009
This morning I woke up at about 8:00am London time; I was really tired after traveling. We got dressed and my dad took us to a little coffee shop near our flat called Betty Blythe...it's on Blythe Road. My parents got coffee and my sister and I had apple juice. My dad then had to go into the office. My mom, Catherine and I went to Tesco ( Tesco is like a mix of Kroger and Wal-Mart). We got some food for our dinner and then went home to get ready for Wicked, a musical we saw today. The musical was amazing. It's the story of what happened between the Witches of Oz before The Wizard of Oz. Everything was brillant. Even getting to the theartre was an experience! We walked to the tube station from our flat and took a train to Earl's Court then to Victoria station. We traveled back the same way. There was a gift shop at the theartre with T-shirts. I got one that has "defy Gravity" on it. I love it!
I just finished eating dinner. We had pasta and veggies. We also had some chips (french fries). It was delicous! I'm uploading pics of stuff I did today on the Pictures-Week One page. Good night!
June 14th, 2009
This morning I slept in till 9:00. Then I read for awile and ate breakfast. My dad gave me a little work to do for him. I took pictures of Chilled-Meals boxes. Then I worked on the computer for a bit. My family then went to this really neat festival. It's called GREEN FEST and it's all about being more eco-friendly and saving the planet. There were many booths from Vegitarian food to plastic bottle sculptures. The fest was held in a park on the Thames River. On our way home we stopped at M&S (Marks & Spencer) to get some food and some stuff we needed for the flat. From there we walked home. When we got home my sister ran to get a book she had gotten at the library. My mom went to take a nap and my dad got a snack. I started typing. Well nothing more to write about now.
After dinner, guess what happened! My dad took us to Holland Park. It's a neat park with a opera house and playing fields. We got lost on our way there so it took us awhile to get there. We had alot of fun today!
June 15th, 2009
I slept well last night. I think I'm finally getting used to the five hour time change. I had a very exciting day today. We took the tube to Westminster. That's where Big Ben, The London Eye and Parliment are. We had already bought tickets to the Eye and we gotin line. The weather wasn't great and school was in so the wasn't long. The Eye is like a giant ferris wheel, but instead of having two seats there are these huge glass pods that hold about 15-20 people. The ride around the giant wheel took about half an hour. Check out the Pictures-Week One page for pictures I took while on the Eye.
We also walked by Parliment and Big Ben. Big Ben was huge and amazing. Parliment is HUGE! And there are like 3 buildings for the Parliment. Parliment is England's law making body. The House of Lords is similar to the Senate and the House of Commons is like the House of Representatives. Parliment is led by the Prime Minister. On our way home we saw alot of kids coming home from school on the tube.
We went home then went out to a laundry mat to do some laundry. We put the wash in the machine then went to Tesco to get food for dinner. When we walked out of Tesco it was sprinkling. We went back to the laundry mat and switched the clothes to the dryer then went to my dad's office to walk home with him. Then it started pouring. We walked home and then my mom went back out to go get the laundry. Right now we're making dinner.
June 16th, 2009
This morning my mom called her friend Michelle who lives in England and asked her to come to London. Michelle is going to ride the train in this afternoon then we're going to go to tea. We got ready to go to BBC which stands for the British Broadcasting Corporation. We had scheduled a tour and we were really excitied. There were about 12 other people in our group and two tour guides. We saw a TV show being filmed and learned about the building. Then we went to a interative studio that was built for tours. Catherine was on a mock game show. After the tour we went home to chill for a bit then went to the train station to meet Michelle.Michelle showed us a giant toy store that has five floors. We then went to an awesome place for tea. All the tables are low and then chairs are mismatched. All the lights are random and the bathrooms are awesome! I'll take pictures of them next time I go there. We then got Michelle a tube pass and took the tube home. Unfortunatly we got on the tube at rush hour so it was hot and cramped on the tube. Luckily we live near a tube stop that is at the end of the line so on our last tube home only people who live near us were on. We were at home for a bit then my dad came home. We decided to get take away (take out) fish and chips. We tried about 5 pubs until we finally came to this little Indian place that had fish and chips. I was still full from tea so I only had chips (french fries; American chips are called crisps. Now we're going to bed. Good night!
June 17th, 2009
Michelle stayed at our flat last night so we went to Betty Blythe this morning with her. My mom and Michelle had coffee or tea, my sister milk and I had a Coke. It was in this really cool glass bottle. We walked around our neighborhood then decided to go to Kew Gardens which is similar to Lewis Ginter only bigger and it has more exotic plants. We hopped on a tram tour and went to a restaurant in the garden called the Orangery. It was pretty good and the building it was in was really cool. We walked back to the enterance and looked at all the plants. They were absolutly amazing! I had never in my life seen such beautiful, exotic plants. They were breathtaking. Lots of little groves with leafy plants around them and benches inside. We didn't want to leave but Michelle had a train at 7:15 to bring her back home and she had to be at the train station at 6:30. We took the tube back home and then realized we had some time to rest. So we read a little and Michelle made sure she had all her things. We had to go to Tesco and so we walked as far as Tesco with Michelle and then she walked herself to the tube that would take her the station. We bought food and then walked home with my dad. My mom's now making dinner.
June 18th, 2009
Today was our lazy day. We hung out at our flat while my dad went to work. We decided to meet him at Brook Green, which is a little park really close to where we live. We made sandwiches for my sister and I then went to Tesco to get sandwiches for my mom and dad. While we were there a person was selling the newspaper and you got a free rucksack (backpack) was the purchase of the paper. The paper costs 50 pence. My mom wanted to get the paper any way so the backpack was a bonus. We ended up going back to Tesco later in the day and I bought my own paper and backpack. We met my dad in Brook Green and found a bench to sit at. We had gotten some crisps at Tesco so we munched on those. My dad said he had to get back to work so my mom, Catherine and I took the tube to central London and walked by Buckingham Palace. Sadly we had forgotten the camera at home so we'll have to go back. We then saw a park that was called Green Park and we walked thru it to Hyde Park where we went to Princess Diana Memorial Walkway. There were beautiful flowers and fountains. We then got back on the tube to get back home. We had dinner at home then my mom had to return something she got from Wicked. So she and I went to Victoria and returned her sweatshirt then we walked around. Then we went home. At home, my whole family is playing Yahtzee. No pictures for today.