Quick note in case you've seen anything on the news about the riots and looting - it happened fairly close to where we are (15-30 minutes walking) but nothing went down in our immediate area and we are totally and absolutely safe. (This note is specifically for certain of my family members who share my total and constant conviction that if anyone is five minutes late getting anywhere, or if I try calling them even once and they don't pick up, they must surely be dead in a ditch. Ha!)

This is the park Em and I went to today - Alexandra Palace. It's named after the building in the next picture, which was built in 1873 as a sort of recreation/civic centre, as far as I can tell. It has apparently burned down twice, the first time only a week after it was initially completed (geez).

One of the things I'd heard about the park is that it gives you a great view of London, which turned out to be true (at least once I had wandered through the width and breadth of the park, not knowing where I was going, and at last struggled up the hill to the top, carrying Emrys all the way and basically dying). The park (and where we live now) is pretty much at the north edge of London so when you look south you are looking over most of the city. To give you an idea of how far away we are from the centre - those tiny buildings right at the horizon are skyscrapers along the river - by Westminster and the houses of Parliament and downtown London. Crazy eh!?
This is Alexandra Palace itself.
Em having a snack (he threw most of the food I gave him on the ground, har har baby).
Time for a (very short) tour of our new place! This is the second, smaller bedroom - eventually we will move bud into it, but since there is really no room for his crib in here he has to stay in our room until he's big enough to graduate to the bed. Possibly not too long, if we get a guard rail? I'm not really sure what age this switch usually happens. (If you know or have experience, feel free to enlighten me...)
Living room! Please note our ridiculously large couch. The furniture is arranged a little awkwardly right now, but we are hoping to mount the tv on the wall in the next few days and then we can rearrange things a bit.
Looking the other way, into the kitchen! Mom, do you love the very '70s mirror...decoration (?) on the wall? It came with the place so I really can take no credit for it, hah.
Cute picture of Trav and Em at the Doctor Who exhibit we went to - the robot-esque thing in the picture is, for those of you who are not fans of this particular tv show, a Dalek.
Last weekend we went to recreated 'gladiator games' that were held at the same site where London's amphitheatre used to be located under the Romans (the remains of the Roman amphitheatre are still there, underground). The gladiators were played by members of Roman re-enactment groups and they also had people playing Roman instruments (well, modern recreations of Roman musical instruments), were cooking Roman food, etc. It was awesome!

One of the fighting-with-a-net gladiators.

This is the same day as the gladiator games (July 30) - standing on London Bridge. Behind us to the east you can see Tower Bridge. Emrys, as you can see, is being resolutely disinterested in the camera, haha.
Same day again. I'm standing on the north bank of the river and on the other side of it - the building with a sort of curved glass roof used to be the docks from which one of Ernest Shackleton's expeditions set out for the South Pole!!! He is one of my favorite historical people so I am super super excited about this. :)
This plaque is on the platform of our local (Bounds Green) tube station - in case you can't read it because of the fuzzy picture, it says "In memory of the sixteen Belgian refugees and the three British citizens who died on this platform during the air raid of 13 October 1940."
The view looking out of our living room window, facing south.

what we did today

Today Travis is gone all day playing paintball, so it has just been me and Em (he is napping right now so I am going to try to get this posted before he wakes up!).

Me when I woke up this morning - Travis had to leave the house by about 6.15 so it was a bit of an early start for a weekend!

When Em woke up we just hung around the house for awhile. ...
...watched some Diego...
...had a bottle...
He is getting pretty good at holding his own bottle, FINALLY. I suspect he has partly avoided it till now out of pure laziness.

In the late morning we walked down to Berkeley Square, of the famous Vera Lynn song.!! I'd walked by it last week on the way home from the wedding and wanted to go back and see it properly. This picture does not do it justice at all, it's a really beautiful little park. It was 3.7 miles there and back so we got our exercise for the day (well, I did. Emrys rode in his backpack like a little princeling...).

I look very evil in this picture. Oh well...
Em chilling on the grass, chewing on a piece of bread from my sandwich.
Why, hello there!
One thing I really have to give to London parks is the number of benches they have. Look at this! As opposed to SK where we get, like, two benches per park, max, and then jealously eye whoever gets to them first while woefully eating our lunches standing up...

I have no idea what he's doing with his tongue here, but it's hilarious.
Standing by his backpack, clearly giving me the hint-hint that he is ready to leave now...

View from the north entrance of the park. Isn't it pretty?

Interesting Historical Fact # 1: the trees here are more than two hundred years old

Interesting Historical Fact # 2: during the War, a unit of the United States Army was stationed here and there were also air raid shelters on the grounds.

OK, I am now going to run and try to do the dishes before Emrys wakes up! xo Becky

royal wedding!

As most of you probably know, I went down to Hyde Park to watch the Royal Wedding on the big screens there. Obviously I was not going to just sit at home while something like this was going on. I have basically loved the royals madly since I was a pre-teen and I have the hand-sewed Union Jack to prove it (not joking, though I'm actually not sure where it is at the moment ["and never shall ye see it again" says Uncle Johnny, cackling madly to himself...ANYWAY]). When other 12-year-olds were swooning over, I don't know, the Justin Biebers of the day (it is a mark of my intense ignorance of pop culture growing up that I don't even know who these boys would have been), I was writing fan mail to the Queen Mum. So, yes: basically my entire life has been building to this point.

I thought about going down to The Mall and camping out to get a spot along the procession route, but decided against it for several reasons:

a) people started camping out there on the MONDAY before the wedding (four nights beforehand, just so we're all clear) and, let's face it, I love the royals but I do not love them QUITE THAT MUCH (and besides, I had a ton of work to get done for school that week, and much as it pains me to admit that I am the sort of person who stays at home to get work done rather than take part in Grand Adventures of Once-In-A-Lifetime-Quality...I am)

b) even if I had staked out a place early on, chances are someone tall would have stood in front of me. This becomes increasingly probable when you realize that, to me, "someone tall" means "anyone over 5 foot three inches". And then I wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway

c) I am not the biggest fan of large crowds, or at least of being stuck in the middle of them, unable to see anything and stuck at the level of people's armpits.

SO. All in all I thought Hyde Park was a good compromise. Plus, it meant I would actually get to see the wedding ceremony itself. So - since the park opened at 7 am - I set off from home at 6:30. It's about a 45 minute walk from where we live so I thought that would get me there in good time.

A sign I saw on the way there, in the window of Selfridges on Oxford Street. Have I written about Selfridges before? It's a huge department store - there are something like 6 floors and its all ludicrously expensive brand names (i.e. I do not shop there) although we did once go in just to wander around and gawk at the prices on the baby clothes.

Oxford Street, all decked out with flags! And super empty, what with it being 6:45 am and all.

Flags, across the street from the British Museum.

Hyde Park when I arrived. There were a few people already there (apparently even keener than me) but it was pretty empty. These are two of the three big screens they had set up (you can just barely see the edge of the third one, on the left).

Almost-empty Hyde Park, circa 7:30 am.

After awhile it started to fill up (circa 8:30)...

It was a very festive atmosphere. People brought blankets, lots of people brought drinks and food, a few people had even brought tables or beach chairs.

There were a surprising number of people wearing flags as capes, haha.

Me posing with one of the flags that came with the edition of The Sun (as you can see from the oh-so-tasteful advertising, ha!). Hooray Wills and Kate!
I was Very Excited.
More crowd!!

The crowd, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

The moment when Kate first stepped out of the car at the Abbey! The crowd went nuts.

My view! Pretty darn good.

Best moment of the ceremony! Cute Mr. Middleton, Wills and Kate and HARRY!! Yes I was quite beside myself.

As they were exiting the church (for those of you who watched it - the moment when they kind of paused in the doorway, on the way out), all the speakers in the crowd exploded with confetti! (I mean, I am assuming it didn't actually come out the speakers. But, you know.) It was all very festive. There was much flag-waving and hooting.

Walking home - you cannot see too well here but there are basically solid people as far as the eye can see.
So, that was that! I had to watch the balcony and the kiss on Youtube later, but I had a great, great day and will remember it pretty much forever.