Double Decker Bus - Panic on the streets of London

Is this the cutest picture?  I  love it!

How can I not use that reference?  If I invoke the Clash, I have to do the same with the Smiths.  The song is stuck in my head and it won't go away.

Paris is the place you’d want to live if you didn’t have to work.  The place sighs with the sensuality of languorous living.  Wine and kisses hello, chocolate and warm loaves of bread, beautiful words murmured and shouted, it’s full of passion and potential love.  London on the other hand is where you’d want to live if you actually did have to hold down a job of any importance.  It’s crazy busy and full of people making things happen.  It’s fast and fun and full of things to do where you can see and be seen, day and night.  It wants to pull you in and get you involved.

Ken was off on his own adventure at a normal business hour like 8 am, and so an hour (or maybe, two) later, the kids and I embarked on ours as well.  I didn’t really have a plan with London, like I did with Paris.  In fact, I had wrongly assumed that I would be ambivalent about the place.  (I love it!)  I had also underestimated its size.  That is a little misleading.  London is gigantic, but it is very enjoyable to walk in, and supremely easy to get around by taxi, tube and, yes, by double-decker red bus.  After all the walking we had done in Paris, the kids thought this was a smashing idea and so we decided that we’d go total tourist in London and buy a 24 hours full-London hop-on, hop-off, bus tour pass.

I took about 99 pictures of the flowers of London, mostly.

We went with the Big Bus only because their buses looked newer and their upper decks looked nicer.  It suited our needs perfectly, but it’s not something I’d choose if I were coming to London without kids.  It included a free river cruise with a hilarious guide, and kinda lame but useful commentaries from live guides on the buses.  There were also free walking tours available, but we didn’t take advantage of them.  We also liked it because while London had been having a mixed summer weather-wise, we once again brought warm and sunny weather with us.  Sitting up on top gave us a fabulous view of the historical things that we didn’t want to go visit in person.    

Kids liked this better than royalty

One historical sight that seemed to give everyone a thrill was that we saw Princess Anne go by in a motorcade.  Cheerio, spit spot and all that.  All traffic has to stop and pull over so that the royal procession is unimpeded.  We saw her plain as day, looking completely uninterested in her boring life of being shuttled around from one event to the next.  I bet she’s never seen London by double-decker bus.

We had a wonderful lunch at the original Hard Rock café, out on the front patio, warm sun and cool breeze.  The kids were so happy to eat American food.  Aidan ate a 1/3lb hamburger!  It’s the most food I have ever seen him eat in his life.  

Later we visited Hamley’s toy store, which is in the middle of a big 250^th birthday celebration.  This I love.  A toy store that is older than the United States.  It was 7 floors of kid heaven, and so we bought a few things, the perfect kind of souvenir.  The kids were game, so we hopped off the bus for the day at St Paul’s cathedral and took the Millennium Bridge back to our side of the river and wandered the rest of the way home.

She didn't want to face the camera, but I liked all the lines in the composition