A Surprise Trip To London!!!

Today was a bank holiday and Andrea didn't have to go to work...... so she took us out!

First off, we went up to the bus stop.....

....and went to the train station!

Right ho, we're ready - where are we going?!?

We gave them a CD too!

And we're off!!!

We're in London!!!  That's the Shard building!!

We're coming into London Bridge Station here - but we didn't get off!!

Here we are arriving at Blackfriars station, but we're not getting off!!

We got off here instead!!!

We're going to see an expedition at the British Library!!

First we left a bookcrossing book in the courtyard.....

And then we joined a REALLY LONG queue!!!  It went from the entrance door across past the main gates and out onto Euston Road!!!!!

But it was moving really quickly, and we knew they weren't all going to see the writing expedition because the website said there were loads of tickets available!!!

AND we got in half price on our art pass card!!

It was a really, REALLY good expedition too!  Writing started in six different places in the world, including Rapa Nui (Easter Islands), Maya/Aztec Americas, Egypt, Babylon (cuneiform) and China. Some of those were pictoral like the Egyptian hieroglyphs and some were linear like cuneiform and Chinese calligraphy..... some were stone carved and some were ink on bamboo or some form of paper.  We saw Arabic writing, very early African writings and carvings, Greco Latin writing including illuminated manuscripts and music writing!  We saw quill pens and chinese pens made with hair in bamboo handles, and printing presses, and Greek wax tablets that were carved into!  There was the first Apple Mac retro typewriter!!!   And a Chinese typewriter!!!  (that one was confusing!!)  It was really REALLY interesting!!!!  We went round twice!  And then we went and had a good look in the gift shop afterwards!  (we'll show you later!)

We then used the facilities and left a CD on the door!

Then because we were starving hungry, we decided to go for lunch!

We left another CD on a railing on the way!

Here we are!  Burger and Shake!!!

We got a fizzy drink.....

And a huge burger with fries!!!

Then we went back up to the main road.....

.....to a bus stop because we didn't want to go home just yet.  We thought we might go to Covent Garden.....

....so we waited for a number 91 bus

Aha!  Here we go!  They got a floppy disc!

But then when we got to Holborn, the driver kicked us all off the bus!!!  Apparently something was happening at Trafalgar Square and all the roads were closed!!

Andrea had a bit of a think and we decided to walk to Gray's Inn Road (about 10 minutes walk) to try and get a number 17 bus but when we got there we saw a sign saying all the buses were diverted!!!

So we walked back to the previous bus stop as we saw buses use that one...... but they only went to Holborn Circus!!!!!  Then we decided to go back to Kings Cross so crossed the road to this bus stop!!!

And then got a number 17 bus going back the way we came!!!  They got a floppy disc!!!

And we're off!!!

Until the bus driver turfed us all off here because he was 15 minutes early and that's not allowed!!!!

We heard him have a chat with his boss over the radio!!  So we waited for another bus back to Kings Cross!!!

Which was this one, a number 45!!!  They got a Floppy disc as well!!

And we got off here!!

HURRRAAAAAYYYY!!!

First of all we went in here to buy a birthday cayke for Andrea!  (Don't tell her though!)

We had about a 20 minute wait for the train home, but we got a window seat and gave them a CD!

And we're off!!!  There's the Shard again!

We're nearly home now!

That's the South Downs in the distance!

And we're home!!!

We got another bus home and left our last floppy disc on it!

And then it was just a short walk home!!!

That's the cayke we got Andrea!!!  We squeaked her happy birthday too!!

We got a pack of 16 postcards from the writing expeditions!!!

We also got some little alphabet rubber stamps too!!!

And this one as well!

Let's try it out......

OH WOW!!!