The Museum of London

Tuesday we went to the Museum of London, which is all about the long history of London (which started as Londinium over 2000 years ago when the Romans settled here). The Romans built a wall around the city, and there is still part of it here today! Mike and Sean and sitting on the wall in the photo above. This wall is pretty amazing - there are parts of the wall within a foot of new office buildings - I can't figure out how the builders didn't ruin the wall when they were putting up these other buildings! Sean is also wearing one part of knight's armor - a heavy chain "hat" that would go under a heavier headdress. The biggest draw to this museum for Sean was the information they have about the Great Fire of London. In 1666 almost the whole city burned down because a baker forgot to put out the fire in his oven before he went to bed. This devastated the city, but fortunately not many people died, and wider streets and brick buildings replaced the wooden structures. Sean and Mike are showing old and new fire equipement - Mike's leather fire helmet wouldn't have helped too much, and the bucket Sean has is heavy without any water - and wouldn't help very much I'm afraid!

Yesterday we went to Harrod's to find a toy for Sean for Valentine's Day - we found a cool remote controlled helicopter and some Lego's. But Sean started complaining about his ear, and by the time we got to the Tube station, he was almost crying in pain. So we were able to learn a bit about the National Health Care System! I'm not impressed. We did (finally) discover that he had a double ear infection and got him some medication. The doctor's visit was 60 pounds, but his medications were free! He is feeling much better today, and even went to school. We hope we don't have to learn anymore about the National Health System!

Next week is half-term break, so Sean won't have school. We will be doing lots of things, including going to Bath and Stonehenge with our students. We are looking forward to that - especially Stonehenge - Sean has been really interested in that since we got here. Cheers!