National Maritime Museum

Today we visited the world's largest maritime museum.  It's all about the great admiral, Horatio Nelson, and the Royal Navy. 

 We started our day with a nice 25 minute bus ride to Uxbridge.

View from our bus--get out of our way, truck.

From Uxbridge, we rode the Metropolitan Line (Underground) to the Baker Street Station. Then we transferred to the Jubilee Line (Underground) and took it all the way to Canary Wharf. At Canary Wharf, we found the DLR train to Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich. I sure wish Kansas City had effective public transportation systems.

We LOVE the Metropolitan Line; it's newer, cleaner, and not crowded (at this time of day).

Three photos of the Cutty Sark.

Photo 2

Photo 3

A nice stroll from the Cutty Sark to the National Maritime Museum. So beautiful and of course, nothing but PERFECT weather. We ALWAYS have perfect weather on our travels.

We broke for lunch and let Isaiah feed the pigeons. Two toddlers were interrupting Isaiah's feeding session with this pigeon. They actually startled the poor bird and made it fly INTO the eating area. The pigeon then kept flying into the glass trying to get back out to where Isaiah had the bread. It was quite entertaining to watch the people inside the restaurant scatter during their meal. Some nice man decided to take matters into his own hands--literally! He picked up that pigeon and walked it back outside. He received a standing ovation for his resolve and rescue! 

The museum had many interactive videos. Neat place.

Some of the quotes were interesting.

Horatio Nelson

The combined knife and fork--so he could eat with only his left hand.

What a wonderful world map. Nothing like hands-on/feet-on geography lessons.

Our lunch was lousy, so thank goodness we found a "Paul's" on our way out of the museum.

We decided that we need to all meet here again when Dax is 96 years young. What funny, interesting conversations these two boys have together.  Love them.

Leaving the National Maritime Museum.

Yes, it was much more crowded on the way back. Making funny faces and blowing bubbles between Underground passengers. 

Dubai Back to London and the Science Museum

The other day we made it back to London (from Dubai) without major incident. Yes, we are adjusting to our minimal living quarters compared to the Dubai mansion. Ha! Here are a couple of photos from the airport in Dubai. 

Waiting for our plane back to London.

Still waiting.

Just looking up. DXB Airport is amazing. It is well-marked and so easy to navigate. People are helpful and it is sooooo clean. My kind of airport!

After sleeping in when we returned to London, we thought it would be great to take a family swim. This picture says it all. Can you say, "Emergency Pool Evacuation?" Any guesses why?

You can barely see it in this photo and I imagine you could just zip right along without a view. We looked up and saw a boy pointing at the edge of the pool and in the pool (with his pants down). UGH...so much for a family swim. 

Today we made it to the Science Museum. It is pretty amazing: George Stephenson's early locomotive (the Rocket), Charles Babbage's enormous prototype computer, ranks of aircraft in the huge Flight Gallery, great steam engines from the Industrial Revolution in the Energy Hall, all kinds of cool things.

Testing out the wind.

The job was to build a bridge using a specific number of blocks that was wide and tall enough for the sail boat to pass through--success!

More hands-on activities for Isaiah.

And another.

Any guesses? This was so fun to watch.

Light Experiments/Prisms/Mirrors/And Such.

Lathes have come a long way since 1816. Here are a couple of pictures of the Roberts Lathe, c. 1816, followed by Dax's lathe. 

Dax's Lathe

This brick was grown by bacteria at room temperature. The bacteria produce a natural concrete that glues sand together. There is no need to fire the brick to harden it, which eliminates carbon emissions from burning fuel. 

Isaiah read an article last year about a 3-D printer. Here is the link to that article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/dad-prints-prosthetic-hand-leon-mccarthy_n_4214217.html

That background knowledge made this display at the science museum pretty interesting.

They had a display downstairs called the Rubbish Collection. It was not difficult to find because we could just follow the smell.  The museum is actually going through and sorting every bit of trash/garbage/rubbish that is discarded in the museum. Visitors could put on a protective coverall, mask if needed, and gloves then sort a full garbage bag on a table. The staff took pictures of all the sorted garbage and are displayed it. It is part of their Climate Changing Program over a 30 day period. Check out this link. Amazing photos. 

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/rubbishcollection

We ran out of time at the Science Museum and didn't make it to the Natural History Museum right next door. Still had a fantastic day together.