Now That's More Like It!!

So, after being in England for nearly four weeks, we finally ventured down to London. This was a big deal. After our little outing to Wymondham, we had not been to do much more sight seeing. We did take a day to explore Bury St. Edmunds. This is the nearest "city" to where we live. We are in a pretty rural part of England, surrounded by lots of farm land and lots of little villages, and Bury St. Edmunds is actually referred to as a town. There used to be an abbey there, but it is nothing but a ruin now, ripped down during Henry VIII's dissolution of the abbeys after breaking ties with the Catholic Church. It's a shame really. Here I was standing in this huge cathedral thinking this must have been the largest building of the abbey when the priest, vicar, I'm not quite sure, but he shows me this painting of what the abbey used to look like and I realize how massive this place must have been. It looked like a small city, and all those ruined rock walls outside suddenly seem so tragic. The priest, vicar, again I'm not sure tells me that stones from this abbey are in buildings all over England.
So, there will be more visits to Bury St. Edmunds. I've spent enough time on the base these last few weeks and with Bury (as they say) so close, I'm sure I'll be making several trips. I'm anxious to get out and explore. The boys will start school soon and I'll have a few hours of freedom each day to see things nearby.
Which brings me back to the real guts of this post. London. I won't have enough hours during the school day to venture to London, unless I swap kids with someone, so I was very excited for our outing yesterday. We drove to the nearest tube station to board the underground. Funny, because out this far, it's not underground yet. It took about forty five minutes from here with all the stops, but I was so excited that I didn't mind. I was a little nervous about taking the boys into this huge town and navigating the swarms of humanity, and with good reason. Jake broke away a couple of times and I was certain he would get swept off by the crowds or fall into the street and get hit by a double decker bus. Maybe a little melodramatic, but if you know me, and you know Jake (which you probably do if you're reading this) than you'll know it's the norm for us. But aside from these few moments of terror, the boys were incredibly well behaved. Once again, they seemed genuinely interested in what they were seeing and seemed to grasp some sort of understanding that this was a unique opportunity, and one not everyone will have. I think telling them that their first trip to London was also Brandon's and my first trip to London really drove the point home.
We figured for our first trip it was alright for us to behave as tourists, so we boarded one of those double decker tour buses with a guide armed with a microphone, and I mean armed. He shouted the entire time, to the point that Brandon and I decided that we must get off the bus to give our ears a break. When we rejoined the tour, we decided to get on the bus with headphones and no guide. Much better. The beauty of the bus was making it around to all the major points of interest. Now, when we return, we'll have a feel for the city and know which sites we'd like to devote a little more time to. Now, that doesn't mean that we narrowed down our list at all. As we went past each attraction, I thought to myself I'd really like to get a better look at that. So much to see, so little time.
Anywho, I just noticed that I've put a bunch of tiny pictures in this post again. Sorry, I'm not going back to make them bigger. Between my mediocre typing skills and the slow connection, my posts take a while to write. But, for my final photo, I'll give you this one, my favorite shot for the day. I'm not sure why. I didn't get the top and it's a little crooked. Maybe that's what I like about it. It almost looks like I intended it to look like that.

Until next time. . .