Day 12 London

Sam is still sick. Sigh. We dose him with ibuprofen and sudafed and haul the children through the morning routine. We get them down to the tube and head for the Tower of London. Michael and Davis and Samuel have never been to England before and I wanted to make sure that we recreated some of my favorite London memories. This day was a testament to that fact. Also, Michael dreams of an England castle and pub tour. He deeply loves castles. I could not make his pub and castle dreams come true, but I could take him to the tower.
And so it came to pass.

That we took the tube to the Tower of London and emerged upon a cold, but not raining morning. We were one of the first to enter the tower gates and after hooking up to the audio guide, we set forth. We all loved it. The kids were entranced and we wandered all over the castle. The boys enjoyed the armoury best. I loved the medieval section best. My mine craft obsessed children were very impressed with the rare stones all over the crown jewels. Michael loved the dungeons. We had a grand time and even Samuel managed to push through, only needed a break halfway through for hot tea and jello.
We left the castle around noon and took the tube (mind the gap) to our apartment to change into the fancy clothes we had hauled around Europe for this occasion. Looking very dapper, we headed for High Tea at the Ritz. When I was eight years old, I went with my family to Europe and had tea at the Ritz. I have a very vivid memory of having tea there and I loved it so much. I wanted my kids to have the same experience. We entered the hotel just as the rain began and checked our coats. We were escorted into a gorgeous tea room with lots of pink and gold and roses. My children were on their very best behavior and sat up straight and used their napkins and were absolute gentlemen. We had ordered a lactose free menu for Samuel and it was executed beautifully. I had the Ritz Royal tea, Davis an asian green tea, Samuel a fruity hibiscus and Michael a darjeeling. We started with champagne for the adults and juice for the children. Then sandwiches (cucumber, salmon, chicken, ham, cheese, avocado) and then little pastries. Then we were offered cake from the little cake trollies and then finally scones with jam and clotted cream. We ate and ate and ate and sipped tea and had a glorious time. The piano nearby played show tunes and I was proud to say my boys knew almost all of them.

After tea, we hoisted our umbrellas and walked a bit through the fancy shops.
Samuel was feeling pretty poorly by then and so we called it a day and headed back to the apartment. His temp was sky rocketing again so we put him right to bed and then we journaled and blogged and sipped wine. Michael slipped downstairs and picked up Korean food for us from next door and Davis and M and I had a feast at our own table. Then we all went to bed and read Harry Potter to prepare for our big day tomorrow.

From Davis's journal:
Today I went to the Tower of London where there were a lot of priceless crowns, suits of armor and executions.
But the coolest part was the afternoon tea the "drumroll please" RITZ! First I got tiny sandwiches of every flavor of meat, veggie and cheese that exists. Next we got our tea. Mine was green tea We finally finished the sandwiches. We started on Dessert. It was very good. After all the Dessert we had scones except they weren't triangles an ddidn't dry your mouth out. We had them with clotted cream and jam.

From Samuel's journal:
Today we got up and had bagels and cereal and went to the Tower of London. It was so cool. My favorite part was the Armory. My least favorite part was the dungeon. We spent five hours. After that we went for tea at the Ritz. It was the awesomest meal ever. There was all sorts of sandwiches and desserts. They even made a non dairy set for me. Then we came back and I was very sick.