Westminster: Last Day in London

Another fun day, and again warm and muggy.  Erica and Madeleine got a good run in this morning while the boys were getting moving.  Another trip on the tube, this time to Westminster.  Despite the occasional threat of his parents to call "the police constable" when his behavior deteriorates, Sullivan really did enjoy meeting the real thing.  This friendly gentleman told us he has a two year old with a similar bike made out of "al yew mihn ee um".  Must be an exotic English wood.  The Skuut bike is generating lots of looks and comments.  We even saw a man take a picture of it while it was locked up to a rack.  Maybe they are not as common here.  

Surely everyone knows the House of Parliament is enormous, old, important and stunningly beautiful.  The only reason it's important in our house, however, is that it's been seen in Harry Potter movies.  Is there any greater importance on earth?

The very big Big Ben.  Note that the time is just a few minutes after noon.  Yes, we missed the noon chime by a couple of minutes.  I hope nobody is shocked.

No doubt that Westminster Abbey was the highlight of the day to me.  I still have trouble wrapping my head around a building so incredibly ornate, and to think that it was built nearly a thousand years ago.  Many of the kings and queens entombed within were married, crowned and buried in this same building.  Not only are monarchy buried in the Abbey, but it also houses the remains of a large number of other literary and scientific figures such as Chaucer, Dickens, Kipling, Laurence Olivier, Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.  While standing over Darwin's tomb, the thought occurred to me that if he had not developed the theory of evolution (which provided the foundation of modern genetics), I may have never met my wife.  Sullivan took a nice rest and all the kids (I can't quite say) completed their "kids trail" and earned a large chocolate coin.  My only complaint was that you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the Abbey and my clandestine iPhone shots weren't that great.  

We ended our day out at Marsala Zone, an Indian chain restaurant, which definitely satisfied our curry desires.  Madeleine and Henry spent some time marking all the Tube stations we've been in.  All are bathed again and now in bed.  Tomorrow we pack up and Chunnel to Paris.