Portobello Market and River Thames

Another quick run-down of our activities in the last 24 hours, with one overarching theme: there is just way too much to do in London in one week! We have to pack up out of our hotel today (in the Notting Hill area) and move over to North London, so we're dreading the navigation of the Tube with copious suitcases and bags, but we're still going to try to squeeze in a few museum visits on the way.

Yesterday, we started at Portobello Market, a long street market with vendors selling just about everything: antiques, food, clothes, jewelry, tourist junk, new stuff, old stuff, etc. It was fabulous. Fabulous. Did I say fabulous? Yes, fabulous. If you are ever coming to London, you absolutely must put it on your list. Yesterday was Mother's Day in the UK, so the kids and David bought me the world's most perfect Mother's Day gift/souvenir of our trip to the UK: an antique leather rugby ball! The kids also bought me a scarf and a silver dish to keep my bracelets in, and Emma bought a headband and some bath "bombs" that smelled very strongly like lemon verbena (and I kept smelling them all day as we carried them around with us, making me possibly the only person in the world who will forever associate the scent of lemon verbena with London...). David bought some Beatles paraphernalia, and John added to his

growing collection of hoodied teddy bears. After the market, we took the Tube to Westminster, then a cruise on the River Thames to Greenwich, passing all kinds of must-see landmarks: the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe, etc. At Greenwich, we hopped off the boat and walked through Greenwich Park to the Royal Observatory, where we searched for about an hour for the Prime Meridian, the line that divides the east and west hemispheres. We had a quick look at some of the displays in the observatory about astronomy, then walked to Greenwich Market for some treats for the kids. We got on the Docklands Light Rail and let the kids sit in front, which kind of feels like the world's slowest roller coaster, then switched to the Tube for a ride back to Notting Hill and dinner at a great Italian cafe.