London Adventures: The London Eye

When I studied abroad in London back in 2006, I didn’t visit the London Eye.

And I’ve regretted it ever since.

Almost the moment we decided to go to London instead of Barcelona, I told Bart that the London Eye was on my must-do list.

I also helped things along by showing it to Ella, who was immediately taken with the idea and has been asking for about two months when we were going.

We tried two weeks ago on a Monday morning, but right after we picked up our tickets, they shut it down for some reason (possibly due to the torrential rain).

On Monday, we headed out again, and this time the day was sunny and clear, and I kept telling Bart, “I’m so happy it worked out to go today instead.” The views were spectacular.

I worried the girls would be bored, but they absolutely loved it.

Ani especially enjoyed looking out over the bridges and saying “bus! bus!” every time one of those iconic red double-deckers drove across.

I also loved that there were tablets mounted around the capsules so you could see what buildings and landmarks you were looking at.

There’s also a 4-D movie included with the ticket price – it’s about four minutes long and Ella was totally enraptured by the 3-D glasses and the fact that the dragon in the show “sneezed” on her (there was fog, mist, and wind, hence the 4-D title).

When we were high above London, the girls spotted the playground right below the eye, so as soon as we got off and collected our stroller, we headed over there.

It was the Jubilee Gardens, in commemoration of the Queen’s Jubilee a couple of years ago, and they are gorgeous.

The playground is fantastic (the playgrounds here are way better than U.S. ones which I think are designed to be so safe that they are dull as dirt) and we spent nearly an hour there.