Jorvik Museum, the Dig, and new friends

Friday, April 28, 2017.  The Jorvik Museum has a fun cart that you sit in to tour a Viking village.  It was narrated by a child.  Very well done!  It also has a 1000 year old wooden wall (well preserved), viking combs (it takes 100 hours to make one of these!), and Viking poo.  Interesting and Yucky at the same time.  :)

Next we went to The Dig.  There we toured with two moms and their kids, all of whom are homeschooling this year.  One is from Australia and the other has been traveling the world with her daughter for the past 9 months.  Stephanie and her daughter Kaya joined us for pasta at our apartment.  Very fun!

Stomach bug. Ugh.

April 27, 2017.  Starting the night before, Haughton and I had a stomach bug.  I actually spent the night on the bathroom floor.  Yes, it was that bad.  The good news is that we recovered within 36 hours. 

Here is a picture of Ridgely.  She took care of herself and played perfectly while we threw up!

York Minster, The Shambles and a Roman Tower!

Wednesday, April 26, 2017.  We started off at York Minster, the largest Gothic Church north of the Alps.  While Henry VIII destroyed England's great abbeys, this was not part of a monastery and was therefore left standing.  Stunning.

Then we went to the Shambles, a 16th century street that sold meet.  Apparently, "Shambles" was derived from "shammell," which means a butcher's bench upon which he'd cut and display meet.  Today, it is lined with tourist shops.

Finally, we met some very nice locals who shared their peanuts so we could feed the squirrels and pigeons.  A highlight!  :)

To York

Tuesday, April 25.  We said good-bye to our London digs and caught the train to York.  Once there, we settled into our beautiful 15th century apartment (with all of the modern amenities).  Very spoiled :)

Then we ventured to the Yorkshire Museum and saw the remains of St. Mary's Abbey next door.

Rosetta Stone and a "golden opportunity"

Monday, April 24, 2017.  Today Ridgely wanted to go to St. Paul's Cathedral and Haughton wanted to go to the British Museum and St. Paul's Cathedral.  Haughton said to Ridgely, "This is a golden opportunity!  We are in London."  Haughton does not want to miss a thing! 

As it turns out, we went to the British Museum.  We were there for 5 hours and we finished only one of the 12 sections -- Ancient Egypt.  Next time, Haughton wants to see the Enlightenment section and Ridgely wants to see the Money section.  The kids were especially excited to see the Rosetta Stone. :)

Matilda!

Sunday, April 23, 2017.  After a relaxing morning in the apartment (where Ridgely practiced braiding her hair), we went out to lunch and then to Matilda.  What fun!

Museum of Natural History

Saturday, April 13.  Today we walked 10 minutes to the Museum of Natural History.  Like the one in DC, it is spectacular! 

According my guidebook, there are 22 sections.  We were at the museum for 6 hours and covered less than two.  First, we saw the dinosaur exhibit.  Super cool!  We bought Ridgely a kids' guidebook as we entered the museum, and she diligently answered every question and some.  Haughton played an electronic game asking him to identify whether a species is a dinosaur or not.  Did you know that dinosaurs were only land animals (no swimmers) and had legs positioned directly under their bodies (not to the sides like a crocodile)?  The learning opportunities were endless.

Next we went to the human biology section.  We spent much of our time learning about how a baby develops in the womb and about memory.  We actually played a few memory games for a long time.  Ridgely particularly loved a game where she learned that when given random words, it's hard to remember very many.  But, if we categorize the words, we can remember many.  On another game that Haughton really liked, we were given 25 random words one at a time.  Questions were asked about each word, which was distracting.  We were then asked to recall the words.  The first time I played, I only remembered 5.  The second time I played I placed every word into a scene.  I was able to recall 19.  Other games explained perception and how and why our brains are sometimes tricked.  We also played a crime scene witness game, where we watched a crime and then had to answer questions about it.  Evidence that people are generally terrible witnesses!  We only left because the museum was closing....

At the gift shop we bought a BBC video series on dinosaurs.  We ate dinner at home and learned more about dinosaurs until bedtime.  Very cool!

Tower of London

Friday, April 21, 2017.  William I - aka "William the Conqueror" - built this castle tower in 1077.  The original construction incorporated old Roman walls and included the large White Tower.  Over the centuries, his successors built additional walls and towers.  This heavily fortified, 18-acre Tower served as a royal residence, the Royal Mint, the Royal Jewel House, and a prison and execution site.

We arrived at about 10am and got excellent audio tours.  We saw and learned about the castle, the prisons, the jewels, and the armory.  We saw a reenactment where three different groups tried to overtake the Tower.  We were told countless, fascinating stories about the Tower, the people who lived there, the people who were imprisoned there, and the people who died there.  So, I shouldn't be surprised that we were there for 7.5 hours.  We closed the place down!  And we all want to go back.

Here are a few pictures from our day.

This final picture is on our street.

Winston Churchill War Rooms and the Big Ben

The kids had fun taking pictures of everything this morning -- streets, pigeons, telephone booths, buildings, dogs....  :)  We then got a quick sandwich and the kids worked in their Travel Guides.

About noon, we reached the Winston Churchill War Rooms.  During World War II, Nazi bombs rained down on London and invasion seemed imminent.  The British government, lead by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, converted basements filled with archives and storage to its secret underground headquarters for directing the war effort.  It is here that Churchill lived, worked and made his famous radio speeches that inspired the Brits to carry on.

I've long wanted to go to these Churchill War Rooms, and since Haughton is a history buff, I figured he would love it too.  We watched a few You Tube videos about Churchill beforehand, which got Ridgely excited too.  I figured it would take about 90 minutes.  I never dreamed the kids would want to stay for over 4 hours!  We were given great audio tours.  The museum has a kids version, which asks them additional questions about each of the 25 or so rooms.  The kids listened to each audio tour, spent time trying to answer the questions and then wanted to photograph everything too.  Fantastic time was had by all. 

After the War Rooms we strolled over to Big Ben, walked around, went out to dinner at a fabulous place near our apartment and came home.  We cuddled on the couch this evening to watch a DVD Ridgely picked out at the War Rooms gift shop called Battle of Britain.  Overall, it was a fabulous day!

Hello, London!

Wednesday, April 19, 2017.  Traveling from Reykjavik to London was not as easy as I expected, but the kids didn't seem to mind.  We woke up at 3:30am (yikes!), took a cab to the bus station and a bus to the airport.  The airport was crowded and the lines were long.  The plane was delayed.  But we got on....  and the kids found the movie Dumb and Dumber.  At this point, I let them watch anything, and boy, were they excited!  See photos of Haughton below :) 

As soon as we landed, Haughton threw up on the airplane (sorry, Icelandair and everyone near us!).  The customs line in London then took about an hour.  We ended up reading the American Girl doll book Kit, so despite being tired, hungry and a little sick, the kids were great!  We then took a train to London and a cab to our apartment.  And, oh, what an apartment it is! 

When I asked our English relatives (the Haughtons :) ) where we should stay in London, they recommended South Kensington.  So, we rented a place close by, near the Gloucester station.  The street is adorable!  And the apartment is perfect.  Thanks for the recommendation, Tessa & Michael!  See photos of our digs below.

We then relaxed for a few hours in our apartment.  Both kids were tired and played together happily.  I took advantage of the time to set up my new cell phone (Did I mention I dropped my phone at the Laugardalslaug pool, and it broke?).  We then walked around the neighborhood, bought groceries and went to a relatively nice restaurant for dinner.

Blue Lagoon 2

Tuesday, April 18, 2017.  Another shot - The kids as we were walking into the Blue Lagoon.

Blue Lagoon!

Tuesday, April 18, 2017.  Today we went to the Blue Lagoon.  It was like nothing I have ever experienced!  Amazing.

In short, Iceland sits over an area where the North American and Eurasian plates are pulling apart.  Deep underground, salt water flows into this space mixing with fresh groundwater.  Lava mixes with the water, heating it to up to 750 degrees F in places. 

In 1975, the geothermal power plant Svartsengi was built.  It used the super hot water to run turbines to generate electricty.  After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal water heating system.  The now 100 degree water is then left over.  A pool formed with this run-off, and by 1981, people stared bathing in this warm pool.  In addition to it being very comfortable, it is naturally filled with silica, sulfur and minerals, which add a dreamy color to the water and are believed to have various healing powers.  So, the Blue Lagoon was born....  

P.S.  All children under 9 (no exceptions) must wear floaties.

Laugardalslaug pools

Iceland is well known for their many thermal pools.  Everyone swims here.  In fact, kids can't graduate from school without being able to swim (or so I've heard). 

They have very strict pool rules too.  Not about running or splashing.  But rather, about bathing naked with soap and then drying yourself off, getting your suit on, and then walking to the pool.  They have "locker room police" to make sure these rules are followed.  And once wet, you may not walk back in the locker room without fully drying off.  As a result, the locker room floors are dry and clean.  And the pool water is clean (or at least cleaner).  They do not, however, have lifeguards. 

Today, although it was COLD, we decided to go to the outdoor Laugardalslaug pools.  It was wild.  To give you a sense of the day (because it was nothing like the pool picture below; that's from the internet), at one point Ridgely said:  "Hey Mommy.  It's not hailing anymore.  Just really heavy wind!"  Argh!  Very cold.  But the pool water was warm.  And the hot tubs next to the pools were even hotter.  :)  Kids were welcome to go anywhere, so the three of us hopped back and forth between the hottest hot tub and the kids pool.  I finally said it was time to go when huge gusts began lifting large kick board-type rafts and throwing them around.  Yikes!

Coming home, I had trouble finding the right bus stop (Way to go, Mom!) and we couldn't possibly stand waiting very long at a bus stop anyway, so....  we walked the 22 minutes home.  At least that's how long Google maps said it would take.  The wind was so strong, sometimes it was pushing us along.  Haughton started running for a minute on a sidewalk, and I called for him to walk with me.  He said he wasn't trying to run - he was pushed!  The trip home also took us longer because we all needed breaks.  First, we stopped in a Subway (yes, the sandwich shop is even in Iceland) to warm our fingers.  Then we stopped in a toy store to warm ourselves.  And then a small grocery store.  We could never have made the journey without taking shelter!  I can even feel one ear now (8 hours later) where sleet shot into my ear each time I turned to look at a kid.  When we got home, I decided that I know how Iceland got it's name!  After eating, talking with Daddy, cuddling up in our pjs and watching part of Episode I of Star Wars, we felt cozy and exhausted....

Below are pictures of the kids playing around at the bus station in the morning and at the pool before we entered the locker room.  There is also an internet photo of some of the pools on a sunny day.  :)

Thingvellir National Park

Sunday, April 16.  Our final stop today was Thingvellir National Park.  It's about 15 miles east of Reykjavik.  In addition to being beautiful, it's also an important historical site.  The Vikings established the first democratic parliament here in AD 930.  The meetings were held outside, and as with many saga (Viking) sites, there are only stone foundations of ancient encampments.

This park is also where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.  It has rivers, water falls, and lakes.  It was Icelands first national park and was made a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2004.

The kids (and I) were also fascinated with the "Drowning Pool," shown in the picture below.  Once upon a time, it was used to punish - i.e., drown - woman who misbehaved, e.g., breaking vows of celibacy or romance with the wrong man.

Gullfoss!

Sunday, April 16.  Gullfoss means "Golden Falls," and WOW!  Although it was cold, the falls were perfect.  They have a double cascade and drop over 100 feet before falling down a narrow ravine. 

A little history.... The falls have been visited since 1875, but were almost destroyed in the 1920s when foreign investors wanted to dam the Hvita river for a hydroelectric project.  When the landowner refused to sell, the developers went directly to the government for approval.  Apparently, the owners' daughter walked all of the way to Reykjavik barefoot to protest.  She threatened to jump down the waterfall if the development went forward.  Luckily, the investors failed to pay the lease, the agreement was nullified and the falls escaped destruction.  Gullfoss was donated to the nation in 1975 and has been a nature reserve ever since.

The Great Geysir and Strokkur Geyser

Sunday, April 16.  After the greenhouse, we went to the Great Geysir, which is the original hot-water spout after which all other geysers are named.  It's been active for about 800 years, but has not been very reliable in the last century.  Luckily, Strokkur Geyser is right there too -- and it erupts every 5-10 minutes.  We watched it go four times!  Very fun.

Idyllic Frioheimar Greenhouse Cultivation Center ... growing tomatoes

Sunday, April 16.  Very cool place about an hour outside of Reykjavik.  They use hot spring water to help keep it warm when needed, glacier water to water the tomatoes, pump in extra CO2 and periodically release bumble bees from the Netherlands.

They also have a cafe which sells all things tomato.  The kids discovered that the LOVE tomato ice-cream!  :)

The Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and beginning the Golden Circle Tour

Sunday, April 16.

Getting better

Saturday, April 15. Although not perfect, Ridgely is feeling much better!  Haughton is still coughing a lot, but he feels okay.  Below is a picture of Ridgely smiling and Haughton with a new (and fun!) game he invented.