London for the day

In front of first steam engine at the Science Museum

Main entrance hall inside the Natural History

We went into London today with plans to go to the Natural History Museum. It was all going relatively well... woke up, did some chores around home, then drove to East Grinstead and caught the 10:37am train to London Victoria. London was so crowded! We took the Underground to South Kensington station and that station was even more crowded! Then we finally got outside to the fresh air, found the Natural History Museum and were so discouraged to see the line to get in was around the block and at a standstill. We couldn't bear the thought of waiting in line to get in, so we went next door to the Science Museum, which was less crowded.

Pretty soon people were starting to get hungry, and all of the cafes and restaurants near the museums were heaving with people standing in doorways waiting to sit down. We decided to take the Underground to Notting Hill and find a cafe there. That was a good decision, although we didn't see any of Notting Hill except for the one delicious cafe we ate in. So after we were all fed and a bit less grumpy, we decided to give the Natural History museum another chance. We were encouraged that by this time (~3pm), hoards of people were walking away from the museum and so we were able to walk straight in.

Dinosaur re-enactment in front of Dippy the Diplosaurus

We saw some pretty amazing stuff... we wanted to see more of the dinosaurs exhibit, but that had a queue all of its own which we did not want to attempt. We'll save that for next time! But we did see some really cool stuff. Its an amazing building too - so grand and honorably devoted to preserving natural history for the generations to come. We are all looking forward to going back!

In the end, we left when the museum closed and had a long journey back home on a very crowded, peak rush hour commuters train! But it was a good day all in all.