Saturday, April 4: Plan B

Last night we decided that the dozen of us would leave the house at 9:00 am to go to the 11:00 changing of the horse guard (something like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace but on horseback).  If you’ve ever tried to get 12 people out of the house by a certain time, then you know how that worked out. At 9:46 sharp, we left the house. Brian the Navigator led the way with a list of travel directions on his phone, taking us to the nearest rail station and calmly transferring us all to the appropriate Tube line. We rode the Tube about 14 stops out, disembarked, and promptly found ourselves in a very different neighborhood than expected.

Apparently, Brian had also searched the Portobello Road Market last night, and he accidently hit the back arrow this morning and navigated us directly there. And so, we did not see the changing of the horse guard today. Luckily the Vingborgs are particularly flexible people, or at least they hid their irritation quite well.

But we did see Portobello Road Market, a long row of antique markets and souvenirs and clothing and people everywhere. It was fascinating. We ended up somehow trying to go upstream, which wasn’t the simplest way.

To get to Portobello, we had to walk between the Tube station and the market. We walked through a glorious Kensington neighborhood with lovely streets lined with Porsches and Mercedes, and blushing with blooming cherry trees. There were even some palm trees of some sort mixed in there. This picture perfect, manicured neighborhood is the complete opposite of the multicultural, slightly run down neighborhood we are staying in this weekend, and each have their own charms. But one has the bigger charm of course—where we are staying is much, much, much cheaper!

 When we’d had all we could stand of the crowd, we walked toward Kensington Palace, where Carsten and Louise had taken their 2 youngest to the playground after a brief trip through the shopping center. Along the way, we stopped for some gelato, which was creamy goodness in spite of the fact that some of us were already freezing.

Magnus gives Andrew a tour of the ship

Then back on track to Kensington Palace, where we found the youngest and oldest Vingborgs highly entertained at the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground. They were having such fun that it made me nostalgic for the old days when any sort of travel involved a minimum of 1 hour a day at a random playground. And the Diana playground was the perfect place! A ship with a mast you could climb, a Native-American style tipi, sand to dig in, and a multitude of playground equipment.  Pure joy.

The Kensington Palace Garden is truly lovely; I can only imagine what it looks like in the full bloom of summer. A nice view for the old royals as they ate their breakfast.






 
We parted ways with the Vingborgs as they headed to science center (where the little boys played for 2 ½ hours in a downstairs water play area) and we toured Kensington Palace and then moved on to the Churchill War Rooms. At the Palace, we learned a bit about King George and his grief over losing his wife, Queen Caroline, as well as the grief of Queen Victoria over losing Prince Albert.  

These do not seem like happy people, in spite of their enormous wealth. I’m fascinated by the fact that King George loved gambling; what is the purpose of gambling if you already have more than you could ever use?? Brian says it is so that he didn’t have to dance with his wife, who we had learned loved having dancing parties in another room. This is something he knows about, trying to avoid dancing with his wife. Since my youngest child has recently moved into the category of “Embarrassed Dance Partners of Kristy Quist” I think my dancing days may be about over. I’m starting to get a complex. But hey, at least I don't wear getups like this dress.

Allison’s chief interest in the palace was filling out a scavenger hunt puzzle, which would earn her a piece of chocolate if she did it correctly. She got a chocolate egg and a purple paper crown. The paper crown was adjusted for the biggest head possible, so Andrew wore it for the next half hour, which gained him some curious glances and some outright laughing.

With a brief stop for lunch at a café with unremarkable food for only slightly remarkable prices, we soldiered on to the Churchill War Rooms. Brian and I have been to this spot before—we went to London for 5 days in November 2000, and Brian, confident in gathered knowledge about jet lag insisted that we go straight from the airport (arrival at 6:30 am) to some tourist sites, because you have to stay awake until 11:00 to get adjusted. Of course, he slept the entire flight, and I was awake for all but one hour of it. So when we were at the War Rooms, I was listening to the audio guide, leaning against a wooden beam, falling asleep every few seconds. Today’s visit was like a whole new experience.]

This really is an interesting site—a lot of the rooms were just closed up when the war ended, and they were opened again in the 70s. Churchill and his wife and his advisors and staff lived in this underground bunker, running the country and the war effort throughout the Blitz and then again dur

ing the last year of the war. It’s a fascinating look at both the history and the technology of that time. Churchill is an interesting figure, and the audioguides are well done. They even have an audioguide specially produced for older children, which Allison enjoyed quite a bit.

To get back, we thought we’d get on one of the double decker buses, so we started looking for a bus stop for the line we needed. Then we noticed a growing police presence—first mounted police officers with riot helmets (even the horses had riot masks), then truck after truck of police dogs, and then just police everywhere in front of Parliament. There was a German anti-immigration group that is trying to make inroads in the U.K. They were having a public speaking event with less than 100 attendees, and they were met by a large crowd of vocal protestors holding “Never Again” and “Against Racism and Fascism” signs.

The police did not seem particularly concerned, just present. Having recently seen “Selma” with the dogs being ordered to attack protestors, my older two were a little concerned about having dogs there. It was an interesting lesson regarding the fact that these older, stately European countries are dealing with a lot of the same tensions that we are in the United States, and that protests and police officers can have a positive or a negative effect, depending on how they use their power.

Eventually we got on the Tube back to our rental. It was a long day of walking, and I am still in the early stages of recovering my activity level after a couple of hip surgeries. I was feeling pretty frustrated with my pain level by the time we got home and am hoping a night’s sleep will ease the irritation.

Carsten wasn’t far behind us and he met us at the grocery store while his kids continued home. After a semi-successful hunt for familiar items, we came home for a pasta dinner and ice cream and enjoyed time together.

Now it’s getting late and I can hardly keep my eyes open!