Day 28 – Old Friend, London Zoo & Regents Park & Phantom

So today, we really made up for the boring day on Tuesday. We got up very early and got out the door by 8:45 (not bad since I was shooting for 8:30). We were down in London by 10. We then had a very brisk walk to the zoo (we didn’t realize that the underground was 20 minutes to the entrance of the zoo). But we made it in time to see an old friend who has lived here for years, Siobhan – a classmate of my sisters. We got to meet Siobhan’s kids – Finn (4 – who looks like a McCartan) and Riley (2.5 – who looks like a Murphy) and spend some time seeing the animals. My girls were very excited because the zoo has giraffes (the last time we were down at the Smithsonian Zoo, the giraffes were not there because their habitat was being redone). We spent about 2 hours together – got to go on a merry-go-round and have a milkshake (similar to a Blizzard). It was a lot of fun. But Siobhan had to leave so Riley could nap so then the girls and I looked at some more animals and went on a slide – similar to pump-it-up. After we left the zoo, we head back through Regents park and discovered a playground that had a “real see-saw.” We played there for about 30 minutes then continued our walk back through Regents Park. We got to see some of the flowers /gardens that we had briskly passed and not even noticed in the morning. Then we got back on the tube to go back to Richmond.

The reason we had to go back to Richmond was because we had to get my phone. We took a different bus out to the terminal. We were one stop away when a man boarded the bus and refused to pay or get off. After trying to trick him off the bus, the driver had to call the police so Emily, Ainsley & I decided to walk to the next stop along with most of the bus. Apparently this man had indulged a bit to much at the pub, started a quarrel with a man at the bus stop and got on the bus with the man. We made it to the station, got the cell phone – I didn’t have to provide any ID since my license was with my phone – and then we were off to go home.

At home, we had a 15 minute turn around and we were back off to the city. Scott had purchased tickets to see the Phantom of the Opera. We have been listening to the music for months now and when we found out we were coming here, it was a request from both girls to go see it. Ainlsey loved it. Emily was not as thrilled with it and said she actually liked Wicked more. It had been a long day and both girls were wiped out. So Tuesday was far from their memories.

So the end of 4 weeks and it was quite an ending today.