We are slowly figuring out the tube system as well as our British accents.

Kids travel free for most public transportation in London. This is great! But when you scan your card (or insert a ticket) into the machines that open the automatic doors, you only have a brief second to walk through.

Yesterday, I made Miah follow behind me and the thing closed on her! She seemed frighten but didn’t cry or complain. I yanked her out.

Today, I let Miah go first, and the gate closed on me! And it hurt! I thought about cussing, but Daniel beat me to it.  He went through the one next to me with Sam, and it closed on him. He was holding a full cup of hot coffee. The coffee went everywhere.

Somehow he managed not to get it on himself. And luckily it didn’t land on Samuel or anyone else. We found an employee to let them know, mourned the loss of our coffee and moved on.

I paid better attention next time coming through and learned two important things:

• Hold your child when passing through (it’s posted everywhere – but when you are moving quickly and trying to not hold up the queue it’s easy to miss.)
• There are special gates for people with buggies or luggage – or in our case, holding a child’s hand. (We look for these special wider gates, where we can pass through together without any harm).

So, we have our Oyster cards, and we figured out how to go through the gates with children. We can make it to and from the Victoria station and our flat without the use of any navigational tools.

Victoria station is huge though. Every time we exit, we leave from a completely different point. Thankfully the theatre nearby our street is advertising a huge green Wicked display. Between that and the ballerina, we’ve got two good landmarks to navigate home.

Lastly, I’ve learned to memorize the map before I leave the house, noting exactly which direction (n\s\e\w) and which lines we will be traveling through.

So far we haven’t ventured out of zone 1.  This weekend we visit Aunt Melanie in Salisbury and Windsor….. so that will be the true test.

The Natural History Museum was “amazing” – Miah’s word. We spent a lot of time in the dinosaur exhibit. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen real dinosaur fossils before – or at least not all together. This was one exhibit that the entire family thoroughly enjoyed.

The building itself is stunning. I would go back just to marvel at the architecture – inside and out. Maybe that makes me simple. But it’s rare to see that type of detail in today’s buildings.

We had lunch at the cafe and enjoyed our first authentic English scone. This reminded me of my boss. I think she would have enjoyed it.

The museum has free admission. But we gave a healthy donation. And the cost of food is your typical attraction-high-prices.  But the quality of the food was excellent. And minus the pastries, it was healthy.

We visited several other exhibits while at the museum – including the minerals. Sam was not excited about this until Daniel pointed out that this was simply someone else’s rock collection. Then he perked up. And we found some volcanic rocks, which he found interesting.

Check out the images!