London is London

Early Tuesday morning, approximately 5:45AM our time, we began our long adventure to London to make Katya and Oliver officially Americans. We caught the train from Dorridge Station, near Martin's work, at 6:30 and were on our way. We made it to Marylebone station in central London around 8:15.

We walked through Westminster, the poshest most expensive area we have ever seen in a big city, to arrive at the American embassy around 9:00. Our appointments were for 10:30 and 11:00, but there was a line of people in the pouring rain, so we decided to get in it and go inside. I have to say I lost a little of my love for the old US of A. The embassy was like a fort with extra chain link fences and soldiers with machine guns all around. None of the other embassy's in the area had anything of the like. I guess not everyone doesn't love the US as much as we think they should as US citizens. After going through very strict and exhaustive security they let us into the very outdated 70's style embassy. Much to my surprise everything went VERY smoothly and every person we talked with was helpful and nice. So we finished everything we had to do and 300 US dollars later our kids have US passports, birth certificates, and social security cards.

Now the walking fun begins. We walked from the embassy to Buckingham palace in the absolute pouring rain. Oh to mention the kids were fabulous. And now were fast asleep in the double buggy of love safe under their rain cover. We were meeting our friend Dan, from our time in Russia, for lunch. He asked us to come to Kensington High Street Station for 12:15. We had to get day passes on the Underground, let me tell you it was NEVER intended for wheelchairs or strollers. We carried those monkey's up and down stairs ALL DAY. We got so tired.

We had a lovely lunch with Dan and it was nice to catch up. We can't believe it has been nearly 8 years since we say him last. Lots of fun memories of crazy times in the foreign student dorm with smelly trash chutes and disgusting shower rooms and crazy lipstick ladies giving unwanted advice at the front desk.

After left Dan I think we walked close to 10 miles before we left to go home at 8:30 that night. We saw the Tower of London, London bridge, the millennium bridge, St. Paul's cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and much much more. We walked on the Thames river walk most of the way. Katya truly has her fill of 'Rella castles! The kids were great and we made it home tired buy happy around 11:30 that night! Quite the adventure.