Of course not with green tea!!!

We are learning a lot about British ways including the importance of their tea.  Our new friend Poonam (Neel's girlfriend) was in complete disbelief that Chris loves to drink his tea black and never uses milk or sugar.  That's just not the right way to do it.  The past few days this topic has come up several times and when I mentioned none of my friends use milk or sugar with green tea Poonam exclaimed (in her proper British accent), "Of course not with green tea!!!"  So today we took high tea at a place by Kensington Palace and had our tea with milk and sugar along with cucumber sandwiches, a delicious scone, and an orange cake.  It was delicious and a fun experience.

Our days continue to be packed in London with tons of walking and sightseeing.  Yesterday Alex did some sightseeing alone while Chris joined Neel to play "football."  She got a great view of Parliament Buildings and Big Ben from across the river, then walked up Whitehall to see #10 Downing (where the Prime Minister lives) and finished at the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms.  This museum was amazing!  It is in the underground war rooms they used during WWII and the rooms have been recreated so you get a great sense of what it felt like.  The museum about Churchill's life was full of information (much of which I was shocked to learn) and very high tech.  The coolest feature was an interactive timeline on a table about 30 feet long by 5 feet wide.  You could select the year, month, and day of any date you wanted to check.  Soccer for Chris didn't go to badly considering it was with a bunch of hardcore British footballers.

We reunited around 6:30 at the Tate Modern.  It's the most visited modern museum in the world and was cool to see.  Some of it was way too "modern" for our taste.  We had a great dinner near the Tower Bridge (the bridge many mistake for the London Bridge).

Today focused mostly on the British Museum, full of artifacts from 4,000 BC including the Rosetta Stone, tons of mummies (incl. Cleopatra's corpse), and the statues from the Parthenon.  Then we went to Kensington to hang in Hyde Park and have high tea.

Chris enjoys high tea the British way

 

Some good pub food and ale (and wine for Alex)

 

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

 

Dinner with Neel and Poona, our gracious hosts