Light Bulbs and Joan of Arc

 

 

The other day, Lillian and I walked to the hardware store to get some light bulbs.  We walked across the Bir-Hakeim Bridge and visited this statue of Joan of Arc, "La France Renaissante."

 

 

London: Science Museum

Our last day in London, we spent the morning at the Science Musuem.  Because the museums are  free, there are donation boxes everywhere and you are asked to pay for a map.  Most of the museums, including the Science Museum, sell kids guides, which include a map and are nice fact-filled books often including activities.  These books usual sell for what you would expect to pay for one kid's ticket.  Good deal.

Our first stop was the Web Lab. 

 Web Lab is a series of interactive Chrome Experiments made by Google that bring the workings of the  internet to life.  When you entered the lab, you are given a paper memory card on which you could store everything you did in the lab.

 

This computer took a photo and then was able to draw a portrait from the photo into the sand.  It was very cool to watch.

 Sylvia

 Lillian

 These Scientists are very intent on these clues.  What molecule is that?

 

 We just caught a glimpse of this museum.  We learned a bit about steam motors, space shuttles, the world wide web, different molecules...

We headed back to our rental apartment, grabbed our suitcases, and headed back home via the chunnel.  These girls were wonderful travellers.  We were able to do and see so much more than we could when they were younger.  Fabulous Pierre booked all the tickets and planned the trip.

The girls liked Not for Parents London by Lonely Planet.  It got them excited about the trip and provided them with lots of facts that they could use to trick their parents.  Pierre's mom gave us the Paris addition of this before we moved and it has been a huge hit.

 

 We also liked Family Guide to London (Eyewitness Books).  Our friend Laeka had given us the Paris one, so we decided we should buy the London one.  It maps out playgrounds and cheap, decent restaurants for lunch  We ate at Hummus Bros., Wagamamma, and Eat. among others. They provided healthy and cheap meals.

 We had a great time in London and I think we would all like to go back sometime soon.

London: The House of Commons, the London Eye, and Matilda

We met up with Fiona and family the next day across from Big Ben.  Fiona's dad is a political columnist for one of the big Canadian newspapers and he thought we should see if we could get inside the parliament building and take a look.  We were able to go into the House of Commons Chambers and to see the Members of Parliament in action.  We were not allowed to take any photos.

 

 We walked across the bridge to the London Eye.  The day before both I and Fiona's grandmother had voiced some reservations about actually going onto the Eye.  Family pressure carried us right into line and onto the Eye.

 The Eye moves incredibly slowly and does not usually stop even as people are getting on.  As a worse case scenario professional, I really wanted things to speed up so that I could be back on the ground.  Everyone else enjoyed the ride and I was glad that I had joined the crew.

Can you see Big Ben?

 At first, the girls were intent upon being as close to the doors and their big "DO NOT LEAN ON THE DOORS" sign as possible.  There was a very cool playground that just happened to be right in that direction.  After much reminding by parents, they moved to a better spot.

 See Fiona's cool t-shirt from the day before?

The lovely lady in the background is Fiona's grandma.  I am so mad that I didn't manage to get a good family photo of them all.  Anne was wonderful company and I was glad she was along on our London adventure.  Fiona's grandma is English and lives in Scotland.



Imagine how cool these photos would
have been if they worked!
Jubilee Playground

 

 

After playing on the Jubilee Playground for awhile, we ate some lunch, and then checked out the buskers along the riverbank.  There was some truly weird people and some very talented ones, too.  The kids enjoyed chasing these enormous bubbles.

 We walked back across the river, and along The Mall to Buckingham Palace.  Along Green Park, I took a photo of the girls by this gate.

 Only after I had taken the photo, did we realize it was the Canada gate and that all of the provincial shields were on the gate.

We walked through, Green Park and up Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus.  This was a lot of walking and we did have to stop for a warm drink across from The Ritz to rest and warm up.  We walked on to Covent Garden.  We watched a couple of entertaining buskers and ate some pizza. 

 Roald Dahl's Matilda is one of Lillian's and Sylvia's favorites, so when we saw it had been turned into a musical we got some tickets.  The plan was for Fiona to join us, but in the end the whole family came along. 

The play has won seven Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical, Best Actress in a Musical, and Best Actor in a Musical....  I thought I would enjoy the show and think it was cute, but I was really thought it was amazing and would recommend it to anyone. 

 

 When I Grow Up from Matilda

 

We had a great time spending time with Fiona and her family.  John was a fabulous navigator and even helped me get back home safely on the tube.  James was a good sport to hang out with his little sister, her friends, and her friends' mother.  Most eleven-year-old boys could imagine no worse fate...unless you were to throw in a musical with a girl's name as the title.  I was very happy that I had the chance to meet Anne; she was great company and kept our crew happy and moving smoothly.  We hope to see the whole family again soon in Paris.  There may not be a great chance of this, but we are hopeful.  Thank you!

 

 



London: National Gallery and Trafalgar Square

  When we finished at Harry Potter Studio, it seemed like it must be almost dinnertime.  However, Pierre had brilliantly booked us for one of the first tours and it was only about two o'clock. We convinced the girls to hop of the Underground and to check out  Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. 

The girls have a picture book called Katie and the Picture Show by James Mayhew.  Pierre's mom gave the girls their first books in this series.  There are 12 (almost thirteen according to Mayhew's blog) about a little girl climbing into paintings and having adventures.  Mayhew is British and Katie and the Picture Show features only paintings in the National Gallery.  Many of the other books have paintings from many galleries around the world.  We have recognized paintings from the books at the Louvre and Musée D'Orsay.  The books have beautiful illustrations and are usually good stories, too.  My favourite, Katie and the Bathers, (I think this book has a different title in North America) features a Seurat painting, The Bathers of Asnières, which is in the National Gallery.  We had a good time locating some of the paintings in the Katie books and enjoying some of the rest of the collection.

Here's a list of paintings featured in Katie books, that you can find in the National Gallery collection, in London:  Seurat's Bathers at Asnières – room 44 Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers - room 45 Monet's Waterlily Pond – room 43 Turner's Fighting Temeraire– room 34 Constable’s The Cornfield – room 34 Henri Rousseau's Surprised – room 45 Renoir's The Umbrellas – not currently on display as at 20/2/12 (because it was a Musée D'Orsay!) Renoir's at the Theatre – room 44 Velazquez's Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver – room 30 Murillo's Peasant Boy Sitting on a Sill – room  30 Ingres' Madame Moitessier Seated – room 41 

Lord Nelson who gave his life to win the battle of Traflgar

 

Pierre boosted the girls up for a photo shoot with one of the lions surrounding Lord Nelson

Canada House is on one side of Trafalgar Square

View of Trafalgar Square from the National Gallery (Sorry about your head, Lord Nelson).

London (Watford Junction): Harry Potter Studio Tour

We took a short train ride out to The Harry Potter Studio Tour.  Look!  Lillian's best friend from Ottawa was there!  The girls were thrilled to see each other.  I don't think Lillian was willing to believe that Fiona was actually going to appear until she saw her with her own eyes.  The idea that she would get to meet up with Fiona and visit Harry Potter Studio was almost too much.  Sylvia is also very fond of Fiona.  I missed Fiona's Mom, who did not come along on the trip, and Sylvia missed Socks, Fiona's dog.

 The Harry Potter books made the first few months of moving to France manageable for Lillian.  She disappeared into the series and soon took her sister with her.  A year later, they are both experts and big fans.  However, to be honest, most of the later books are a bit too scary for us.  We will wait to watch the later movies for a few years.

Sitting in the Great Hall

 Fiona arrived with her brother James, her grandmother, and her father.  James was a great sport while hanging out with us.  I neglected to get any good photos of any of the adults and I can't seem to rid the kids' of their red eyes.

 The studio is very slick and very well done.  They only let a certain number of people through at a time, so it does not seem too crowded.  This is the smallest area of the tour and things spread out from here.  A lot of the filming was done here and there are many of the original sets.

 The kids were so excited to see each other and so excited by all there was to see, that I spent more time trying to keep my eye on kids than on taking pictures.  I am not sure the kids even saw all there was to see.  I am sure that they liked what they did see.

 

Buckbeak the Hippogriff



 They do a great job of showing you all that goes into making a movie.  I have a new appreciation of all of the jobs necessary and all of the different steps needed to make a movie.

 Diagon Alley

 Magic Wands

Each wand has a name written on the box.

 

Spoiler ahead...

At the end of the tour, you walk into a room with a scale model of Hogwarts.  This model was used for filming special effects and close ups and the detail is amazing.  I signed up for the tour because the kids were so excited about it.  I left impressed and pleased that we had gone.

The Fiona and Lillian reunion was a grand success...and don't worry it is not over.  We got to see them the next day, too.



London: The British Museum

 The Great Court, which is inside The British Museum, was once an outside courtyard.  It is the largest covered public space in Europe.

We found these two right outside the museum and decided to take them inside with us.

 

In summer 1799, when the Rosetta Stone was found by Napoleon Bonaparte's army, nobody had known how to read hieroglyphs or Demotic for over a thousand years.  Jean-François Champollion realized that the hieroglyphic signs were not simple picture-writing, but also stood for sounds, just as English letters do, and that they wrote the ancient Egyptian language.  

The Rosetta Stone was found when Napoleon invaded Egypt.  By 1801, the British defeated the French, who were forced to give up the antiquities their scholars had collected to the British.

 

This statue is from Easter Island.  It was one of hundreds of similar statues which were carved some time between AD 1000 and AD 1600.

 

These are the "Elgin Marbles" from the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.    Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire brought back the Marbles between 1801 and 1805.  They have been on display at the British Museum since 1817 free of charge.



This panel is thought to have inspired these lines of Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn:

 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 

Since the 1980s Greek governments have argued for the permanent removal to Athens of all the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum.  There is a new Acropolis Museum in Athens where much of the remaining panels and sculptures are displayed.  

Plaster copy from the Palace of Darius at Persepolis, Iran

The Lewis chessmen are the most famous chessmen in the world.  They were bought by the Museum from and Edinburgh dealer in 1831 for 80 guineas.  They were found in a sand dune on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, but were probably made in Norway.

 

Some of the pieces show a special type of Scandinavian warrior.  These are "berserkers" who worked themselves up into a terrible fighting frenzy before battle.  The berserkers are biting their shields.

We just visited a few galleries and could visit many more times without seeing most of the museum.