Day 1-We're in London!

Well, we are finally here! Mom, Aunt Beth, Aunt Molly, my sister Grace and I and our cousins Maddie and Charlotte are in Europe together! We arrived in London about 9:30am London time after flying all night. We tried to sleep on the plane-that didn't work too well! The plane ride was really cool though, we went into the cockpit and talked with the captain. We rode on an A330 Airbus. The flight is about 3775 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. We were 39,0000 feet in the air! We flew all night and it was kind of foggy when we arrived. London gets a lot of rain the water evaporates into the air so they get a lot of fog too. We are staying at the Edward Lear Inn, a bed and breakfast that used to be the home of Edward Lear, a famous children's poetry author. There are framed pieces of his work all around the hotel, here is one from his poem The Owl and the Pussy Cat.
Later we rode on the Tube, London's subway, it was really fast! People use the Tube to get anywhere in the city fast. They still have a lot of traffic, but I noticed barely any SUV's, mostly smaller campact type cars.

Their cars have the steering wheel on the left side and they drive on the opposite side of the road from us. We got London food for lunch, yogurt and fancy sandwichs. They seem to eat many different things here than we do in Michigan!

We went to St. Paul's Cathedral and crypt. We learned a lot about the history and got some good chocolate! We went up a winding staircase into the dome of the cathedral. The dome is all handpainted on the ceiling and it was really cool from way up high. The stone stairs were all eroded away in the centers from people walking on them for 300 years.

The Crypt grave stones that were sunk into the floor were well worn from people walking on them too.

After that we went on a night walk of London and learned all about how it was started by the Romans in 55B.C! There is a river running through London called the Thames, which means dark river. There is a tidal inflow into the river 4 times a day and it stirs up the mud in the water so much that it never really settles to the bottom, just stays disolved in the water and makes it look dirty. The tour guide said this is one of the only major cities in the world with a river running through it that doesn't use it for transportation or commerce. He said they basically don't use it for anything except to look pretty. It does divide the city into two geographical areas though, the North and South Banks. We learned a bunch of funny new English phrases already. The Loo is the bathroom, Wave On means flush, the Lift is an elevator and instead of saying Exit, they say Way Out. We had dinner at a famous fish and chips place after that, the third oldest in London. It was delicious and now we are tired and ready to throw in the towel for today. See you tomorrow for more fun and excitement.

Cheerio,
Christian Huber
P.S. My cousin Maddie is doing a blog too. To see her blog go to: http://www.coolkellers.blogspot.com/