[A photo-heavy, pseudo-travel-guide in several parts, written mostly for family and fellow Anglophiles…in case you were wondering.]

We’re back!! (This struck fear in the hearts of the other guests of the Park Lane Hotel for the entire week, by the way.)

My boys lovelovelove science museums. Big…small…doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter if we’ve seen the same exact exhibit 420 times (talking to you, Fernbank and your super-cool Nature Quest). They will jump at the chance to get a science fix any day of the week.

Monday found us at the Science Museum of London. Holy Toledo; it was a million floors of awesomeness. All other science museums will pale in comparison from now on.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves…

We kept seeing Tucker’s name everywhere, so of course, he had to have his picture taken next to them because that’s what you do when you travel 4,218 miles to another country:  you search for your occurrences of your own name. (And there’s a whole lotta orange in this shot. Goodness.)

After the Science Museum (which we didn’t really want to leave), it was time for some more pasta.

Jack is a huge Grumpy Cat fan. Grumpy Cat is, well, grumpy, and this is one of his favorite sayings. Now you know.

Another Tucker name sighting. Malcolm Tucker could be a porn star or a serial killer. We have no idea, but we do have a photo of our sweet 8 year old standing next to him.

Afterwards, we milled around South Kensington a bit before opting to head back to the hotel for a much needed rest; day 3 of jet-lag was the worst. We regrouped and then, armed with iTouches galore, hit the British Museum later that afternoon.

The British Museum is beyond overwhelming, so we cheated. Russ grabbed the “Must See” list, and we zipped through, knocking items off the list one by one at the speed of exhausted sight-seers.

Obligatory Rosetta Stone picture coming right up.

This is truly disturbing. I have no idea why we did not buy this mask. It was well worth $5. We needed it, big time.

After a speed tour of the British Museum, we knew firsthand why the Brits take afternoon tea. We one-upped them, though. Afternoon wine.

exhausted boy

Exhausted boy enjoying a bottle of ginger ale; parental libations are also shown.

Voila! Magically unexhausted boys ready for more action!

We roamed back over towards Piccadilly and were sucked in to a Michael Jackson street performer show. Yeah…not sure how that happened.

insanely awesome architecture here–made even more glorious at night

After another ordinary dinner, we headed back to the hotel for more of this.

In fact, this was the night someone came out of his room, glared at the boys with a most impressive stink eye, and then slammed his door–a nice passive-aggressive British touch, I think. (Please let the record state that I had just gotten off the elevator, and I was w-a-a-a-a-y down the hallway with a serious zoom lens, not just standing there as an active spectator cheering on WrestleMania4 Live From London. I promise.)

Three days down, three to go. Halfway through our best vacation ever.

You tired yet? (Us, too.)