Half Term Break

A future post will reflect on the educational system some more (is it wise for 17 year olds to declare a permanent major and pick their career path?), but for now this post is to share the beauty of the year round school: half term breaks!

The week leading up to Halloween was the first of these half term breaks for the kids so we decided to use the time to see a bit more of England. We decided to spend half the break in London and half in Bath for an eight day excursion (6 days for me and Noah as Noah was the last to recover from the flu). It was an amazing week as the pictures below show. Some of the things not included in the pictures are that the weather was amazing (in England!), London is crazy crowded but we never lost the kids, the Underground is simple to use and figure out, intercity train travel is so awesome that it reinforces how ridiculous it is that we have such a terrible system in the U.S., we saw Billy Elliot on stage in London (in London!), and that it is hard to express how cool it is to be walking in places that others have walked and lived in for hundreds and thousands of years. Having a pint in a pub that started as a pub in 1361 is just really cool to me.

To start, that picture up top is really us really at Stonehenge. To be honest, I wasn't completely looking forward to visiting Stonehenge, but felt that we had to go since we are here. I thought it would be zoo like and not live up to the hype. As impressive as it might be, would it really be worth the time to visit large stones in the middle of a field? To my surprise, it was completely overwhelming, powerful, humbling, and just amazing. We were late in the day so perhaps the crowds were less or maybe just the path around Stonehenge was done well so that you both had close access and never felt that like a crowd was gathering around. The sun was going down, which cast an amazing light on the stones.

This picture is of the town of Lacock, once voted Britain's loveliest. It's hard to argue with that assessment. Just look at this picture - it's an incredible setting.


These pictures are in no particular order by the way, and the one below is of the Royal Crescent area in Bath. These buildings were completed in 1775, so are one year older than the United States.


Also in Bath, are these Roman Baths, the most preserved Roman Baths in northern Europe. This was also incredible to visit, supplemented by a very well done audio tour. These baths are 2,000 years old and the technology of the building and the water system is unbelievable. What was particularly interesting to me is that these baths and the building that housed them (there used to be a very high roof above the baths) were built on the western outskirts of the Roman empire and would have been radically different than anything else in the vicinity. Yet when the empire was crumbling and the Romans pulled out of Britain, all the know how of how to build these types of buildings left as well.


In London we went to the Tower of London (of course) and also had a great time. What's not to like about kings and queens and torture?


The Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge) on a perfectly blue day - how cool to be hanging out on the Thames and looking at this!


And finally (for now), here is Tala inside the British Museum, where we had another incredible day. It was quite strange to see the world's artifacts all gathered in London (does England "own" them? Can anyone own the world's history? Are they the keepers of historical knowledge? Did they "steal" these objects through coloialism or other means?), but we took full advantage of seeing some amazing things. I think we all agreed how fascinating it was to see the Rosetta Stone, as cliche as that may be. This one stone is fully responsible for understanding ancient Egyption hieroglyphs. Without it, the ancient language would have been uninterpretable.


Our kids were great. They truly do find interest in the learning aspects of our travels (although Noah and I didn't fancy the fashion museum as much as the others). We also include plenty of chocolate to keep spirits up. One youth hostel even had a Wii, so that was a nice break from having to pay attention to the world.

We have some upcoming trips planned as well, including: Mindy and Tala to Paris this weekend, an overnight trip in the Peak District at a youth hostel that used to be an estate mansion, Mindy and me seeing Cat Stevens (!) unless the place I bought tickets from was a fraud, a week in Edinburgh and another 4 days in London. That brings us to mid-January. Still to plan are two weeks in April and one in June, plus some weekend adventures as well.

I think that is enough writing. Cheers.