The Trans Take London: Day 4

By Day 4, Mina was a pro with the bus system. She’s used to subways because Yen takes the kids to Boston frequently. Buses were new, though, but she got them down right away. I think she was a little sad she didn’t have her own pass to swipe each time she climbed on board.

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Our destination was Tower Bridge and a final hour with our friends before they hopped back onto the train. Thank goodness for WhatsApp and its “share your location” feature or we never would have found each other.

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I don’t think the British carry their offspring on their shoulders. Or at least I felt like the only person doing this. And I as constantly doing this. Makes me stronger!

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Here are all the kids walking with Cindy. They’re all completely smitten with her. Mina is still asking when we can see her again.

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We’ve tried to limit Linus’s exposure to guns. I know I can’t prevent him from learning about them, but I wanted to delay as possible how long we had before he started pew-pewing everything in sight. He asked me what this is. I told him, and he asked what it’s for.  I asked what he  thought it might be for.

“You put a ball in it and it shoots the ball out really fast.”

Well, yeah.

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Linus was really fascinated by this bridge, particularly the fact that it’s a draw bridge. Unfortunately he didn’t get to see it draw.

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After Peter, Cindy, and Jamie left, there was a lot of grumpiness. I think they both told me to GO AWAY and “I don’t care about you!” It’s like a knife in the heart. But just a small one.

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We finally got them onto a bus and headed back toward Covent Garden to look for lunch.

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What would cheer up the Tran kids? Pho! I did enjoy it when the waiter explained to me that the basil and sprouts were for putting in the soup.

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And after pho? Of course you eat ice cream! This chain (Amorino) is Linus’s favorite – he discovered it back in Sevilla last December. Please, please don’t tell him there’s one in Harvard Square now.

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They will actually give you different flavors for each of the little petals of ice cream. But the Trans are purists: chocolate chip for Linus and strawberry for Mina.

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We finally made it to our destination: the transportation museum. It’s one of the few museums that charges admission, but we were pretty sure it would be a winner.

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I wish Mina hadn’t been standing exactly right there, else you’d be able to see the fake poop they put on the floor under the horses. Not to be cute but so you can imagine just how disgusting the streets of London would have been when horse-powered transportation was the norm.

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Should I go up or down? Who can say?

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Since we’ve come home, Linus has become obsessed with the song, “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” from Hello, Dolly (don’t ask). Every time they say, “All aboard! All abooooooard!” I think of this photo.

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The kids loved the play area. They’ve got a continuous structure that takes from from a double-decker to a train to a plane to a boat. They probably spent 30 minutes playing here.

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We left to museum full of buses and hoppped on a real bus. I suspect Linus thinks the whole of London is just one big museum for his pleasure.

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