That first night there we went to a concert, Handel's Messiah, at the church St.
Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square. There was a church noted on this site first in 1222 but the current structure is from 1721. Back then it was outside of London and "in the fields"...hard to imagine. The concert was really beautiful to start with but I leaned over to Ran at some point and said "goodnight Josh". That's a little family inside joke from when Josh was younger he would always fall asleep at something like that. I used to say goodnight to him as soon as we would settle in. We ended up leaving a little early but not after having dinner in the crypt. Sounds creepy but it wasn't. The fish I ate had a few bones in it but it wasn't creepy.The following day we took a 40 minute train to Windsor Castle.
We had no idea how huge it was and we were concerned it would become our "Royal Nightmare 2"...like our Versailles experience. Room after room of opulence. My favorite part of the castle was the 'Drawing Room'. It contained some of DaVinci's sketches, old books, old portraits and book of Elizabeth I, showing a poem she wrote. That night we had dinner at the Criterion restaurant. This restaurant claims Sherlock Holmes used to hang there with his chum, Dr. Watson. 
As well as more recently been a spot where they have filmed scenes in the movies 'Batman: The Dark Knight' and 'A Good Year' (a movie this blog is partly named after...and the reason why we went there for dinner). We met a young couple from the Netherlands there, who sat at the table next to ours. We stayed and talked for a couple hours. It was fun to exchange stories of our travels and just cool to be speaking English!
The following day was Christmas Day. Our only plans since not much was even open was to sleep in and try to make a church service at Westminster Abbey by 3pm. 
We walked there from our hotel, through Green Park, past Buckingham Palace and then Big Ben.
It was a bright, crisp day and we tried to stay warm by walking. We arrived at Westminster about an hour before the service and there were only a handful of people in line. The guy at the front said someone told him the church would open in 15 minutes, so we decided to wait. But he had some bad information, as the church didn't open for 45 minutes. It's a bit nippy out to stand in one spot for 45 minutes ay? But we did it. And by the time they opened up, the line was creeping around the outside of the church. 
To our shock and slight dismay, we ended up in the very front row. They had folding chairs lining the main aisle, to accommodate everyone and we were literally about 5 strides away from stepping onto the altar. I imagine that there were TV cameras somewhere and someone whispering into a microphone..."who is that guy slouching in the front row?...get him out of there!". If there was ever a time to sit up straight and try to appear reverent, this was it. I'm happy to say I only had one moment of possibly bursting out in laughter. This was when the assistant priest was swinging a lamp of incense like he was trying to rid the entire place of insects. 
The other priest with him was barely visible, as he swung that incense lamp, no exaggeration, for possibly 15 minutes. I know I sound irreverent with that comment but besides that distraction, we were both moved by the ceremony and the beautiful singing of the choir, who were very close to us as well. That night we ate at our hotel and talked about the kids, family, friends and how different the entire year has been.We thought the 26th was our last full day there, as we were flying out on the 27th. We had arranged a bus tour to see some sights south of London. We started with a stop at Leeds Castle.
It's suppose to be one of the loveliest and most romantic castles in the world...it's ok :) What makes it appear more beautiful than some of the others is that not only is it built on all island of a river (that looks like a lake) but the fortification walls were removed from it like 300 years ago. It went into private ownership back then and they told the story on the tour about Lady Baillie purchasing it in the 1920s and the changes she made. She created the Leeds Castle Foundation in the 1970s and it's been a public museum since. 
It was Christmas time and I couldn't stop thinking about George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, walkin throught the hallways, muttering to himself "This drafty old barn! Might as well be living in a refrigerator". It sounded like Lady Ballie had a wonderful life. I don't know that I would go back, unless to maybe golf on the public 9 hole course there...maybe ping one off the castle. 
From there we got back in the bus and drove to the English channel to have lunch in Dover, at a restaurant called The Lighthouse, right across the road from the white cliffs of Dover. Our bus tour guide was pretty interesting and he told us about the secret tunnels dug into the Dover cliffs during WWII. We drove on to Canterbury, to see the famous cathedral there. It has a long history but most famous for the assassination of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket in 1170. It is a massive cathedral on the order of Westminster.
We finished our day long excursion with a river boat ride on the Thames back into London. We walked by the Cutty Sark before getting on the boat. We couldn't see the Cutty because they are still refitting/gutting it, after a fire destroyed most of it. Everything about our tour boat was plain and ordinary but as soon as we were out on the Thames, I couldn't help but think of Horatio Hornblower commanding the HMS Hotspur and his description of Admiral Nelson's funeral procession down the Thames. Kind of a sick thing to think about really but I had sailing ships on my mind. I loved reading C. S. Forester's Hornblower series of books and hope to do it again someday...but that's not important right now. We stopped by the Tower of London and had an awesome view of London and the Tower Bridge at night. 
It was really cool to have been on that stretch of the Thames, with all it's history. We got off at Westminster and took the tube over to Covent Garden to look for the historic Nell Gywnn pub, that proved very difficult to find. When we finally found it, it was closed. But that was ok because we were in London, the 'Land of 10,000 Pubs'.The following day we got up and
made our way to the British Museum, before our 6pm flight back to Toulouse. The British Museum has a fabulous collection of 'stuff' from around the world and it's a free entry. We saw the Rosetta stone, Egyptian sculptures, Roman sculptures, Greek artifacts, Greek reliefs, ancient coins, ancient jewelry and Egyptian mummies. We even saw a cat mummy, which my first thought was of our old dog Belle seeing this and thinking..."talk about creepy". You could spend a couple days there but we only had a couple hours. We needed to grab a coffee and a bite to eat before heading to the airport. I like this picture of the menu there, with the title "Great British food". That's funny. That statement would bring an instant reaction of disgust from any Frenchman, as well it should. 
The British cuisine seems as bad, as the French cuisine is good. While the French work on the subtle combinations of ingrediants and the overall experience, the British are doing some kind of primal carnage of meat and unwashed vegtables. To me, the British food is somewhere between bad and horrible...far from great. I really think they were trying to be funny with that title. Anyway, we got to the airport early and started to get in the ticket line, with the flight showing on the monitors as leaving on time. But the attendant for the entrance to the line looked at our ticket and said "nope, sorry it's canceled, go to the service desk". Just like that. We were stunned, mumbling "but the monitors say...". Then the lady at the service desk, who has one of the worst jobs in the world, tells us that not only can they not get us on another flight that day but not the next day either! So we had to stay in London until the 29th now. Easyjet sort of agreed to pay both nights hotel and dinner. Actually they said we would have to turn in receipts for the second night and for dinners but the Gatwick Crown Plaza, which really was a very nice hotel, did not charge us for anything but a couple drinks when we checked out. Right then...cheerio...tata.With our extra day in London or near London, we decided to take a train to the coast and visit the town of Brighton and the Royal Pavilion. What a crazy place that is. Built and furnished by what looked like the Elvis Presley of the British Monarchy, King George IV. The audio guide described him as vain, extravagant, egotistical...they wanted to say idiot but probably couldn't. It's kind of hard to describe the place. It has an Indian exterior and a Chinese/regal interior. The Banquet Room and Dance Hall were really incredible. Brighton itself seemed like it would be a fun beach town to visit in the summer. We walked through their old but trendy shopping district called The Lanes on the way to the waterfront. Our good friend of the program, Ross, told me about how the Mods and the Rockers trends started there in Brighton. I really didn't know much about it. I looked it up and it's kinda interesting.
It was people in leather on motorcycles against people in suits and parkas on scooters. In Brighton in the early 60s you had to be one or the other. You couldn’t own a leather jacket AND a parka. You couldn't listen to Johnny Cash AND The Who. And you couldn't smoke cigarettes AND chew gum. It was either one or the other. Sounds crazy. Randi kinda looks like a mod and a rocker...I like to think of myself as just a badass rocker. We got to see more of England than we thought. It was different being there instead of home for Christmas. We missed home. But I think we picked a good alternate location. London has that look of what we think Christmas should look like.
