London!

By Xander and Jacob

On the first day of travel me (Xander), Jacob and mom woke up early to take an EasyJet flight to Gatwick Airport outside of London. We were meeting dad, who had been in London all week for work. The flight was easy as EasyJet usually is. I slept on the long drive from Gatwick to London, as I tend to do in most boring situations.

The hotel was a very comfy spot in the Kensington neighborhood, right next to Hyde park. The neighborhood had a lot of white houses and fancy cars. The weekend we were there, many famous artists performed in Hyde park (Adele, Phoebe Bridgers, the Rolling Stones) and we could hear their music from our balcony.

We caught up with dad over lunch and headed to the West End of London for a show. We took the London tube from the hotel and landed smack in the middle of the Pride Parade. There were thousands of people marching, dancing, singing and drinking on the streets. It was very cool to see how many people came out to support Pride. We walked through the parade for awhile making our way towards the play.

The first play of the trip was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The play was amazing, and we were right up front. It’s hard to describe how good the play was. The acting was spectacular. Everyone in our family had read the book but the play interpreted the characters differently which made it more exciting and gave us a lot to talk about.

After To Kill a Mockingbird, we went out for dinner at a very good Spanish tapas restaurant. Dad has been to London many times for work, so he knows all the good spots to eat and he hooked us up.

Then we foolishly decided to walk home, even though mom’s feet are always hurting. Dad pretty predictably takes us on some death march through every city we visit. We walked through Hyde park while Adele was singing, which was cool. We listened to Adele sing “Hello” for awhile and, even though we didn’t get to hear my favorite song “Fire to the Rain,” we continued on. About half way through the walk we decided to get mom on an e-bike. We couldn’t figure out how to get it going, mom had the hiccups and is no natural on a bike, so this experience was pretty comical. We eventually got the thing to work and sent mom hiccupping on her way.

Sunday morning we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was sculpture, textiles and other art from so many different countries and times. My favorite section focused on Japan with lots of Samurai armor and weapons.

After the Museum we went to see our second play of the trip, Six! Mom really loved this feminist rock musical about the six wives of Henry the VIII, but Jacob and I were more interested in whether we would ever be able to hear again because it was so loud. Dad couldn’t come because he forgot he had two kids and only booked three tickets, so instead of watching women dance and sing about having sex he went and watched tennis at a bar. Did he really forget? Although it sounds bad, the play was actually pretty entertaining and it was cool to hear this take on the perspective of Henry’s wives.

After the show and dinner we went and got chili chocolate gelato, which almost killed mom. This seems to be a theme of the trip. We tried to find e-scooters to get home but couldn’t find them and ended up walking around for an hour before getting a taxi home. On this walk we encountered rats that were living in Clarence House with Prince Charles.

Hello, it is Jacob and I will be writing the rest of this thing. So now I have to talk about this big church that my mom wanted to go to on Monday. We took the London tube from the the hotel. When we got out, we saw Big Ben but walked past it and to this church! The line was really long so me and dad stepped out of to go to the little St. Margaret’s church beside it. When we got back, the other two went in and we stayed in line. We did Wordle, Spelling Bee and waited. Finally, we went in and got audio guides.

The thing above is this grave of a solider but no one knows who it is. It’s a symbol of the people who died in World War I, honoring them. (This is warning, there are a lot of dead people in this place.)

So we walked around the church and saw the graves of monarchs, important government people, poets and writers, and other rich dead people. And then hurray went to the sports store!

I have become a BIG FOOTBALL FAN. And my parents rewarded me for my tolerance of their need for churches and museums and feminist rock musicals with a well-deserved football jersey. This is me in the Spurs jersey of my dreams.

After the sports store and lunch, we went back to the hotel to rest before our Jack the Ripper walking tour.

This turned out to be about a dude killing prostitutes and taking their guts out and putting them on the bodies. It was very gross and pretty soon mom decided I should not be there. We stayed for about three murders and then left to have dinner, as if we could eat after this.

It turns out we could eat after this! We can eat anytime! We had really good Indian food at Brigadiers and I had tea.

After a good night’s sleep, we packed up and headed to the airport and back to Basel. And that concludes this brief blog!