The Butties: July 2008

Katrina in London for the first time. We decided to just take the train into Waterloo and catch one of the big red tour buses so that they could get an overview of the city.

Of course, we hopped off the bus at Harrods, where we spent about 4 hours.

Grandma Michiko in Bibury. Right before she came, she saw a show about the Cotswolds on Japanese TV, and she really wanted to go. So we took her and Katrina through Bibury, Bourton-on-the-Water, and Burford.

We all took a weekend trip out to Bath. At the Roman Baths (or the giant's bathtub, as Hana calls it).

View of the Pulteney Bridge on the River Avon in Bath. This isn't the same River Avon as Stratford-upon-Avon. When the Romans began to settle Britain, they would ask the name of the local rivers, and the inhabitants would reply "avon". Since the Romans had individual names for all of their rivers, they assumed the Britons did, too. But "avon" was just the word for river, which is why now there are so many rivers on Great Britain named "River Avon", which really just means "River River".

Katrina at the Pulteney Bridge.

I think Lane is sleeping in her stroller. Or having a tantrum.

We took a detour to Stonehenge on the way back from Bath.

This time, Andrew and I managed a picture together.

Look quickly - is that Katrina or is that me in high school? Spooky.

Since we didn't see much of London on foot the first time we went, we all went back into the city the day before Katrina and Grandma left. We took the train to Waterloo, then caught the Underground to the DLR and headed across the river to Greenwich (i.e. Greenwich Mean Time). Here we are on the Prime Meridian. It was a bit of a climb to the Royal Observatory, but everybody made it up in the end.