311 STEPS OF THE MONUMENT

On this day, Taber took the kids to the center of London to climb the 311 steps of the Monument, which commemorates the Great Fire of London. It’s too tall to fit in a picture. When we got to the middle of the Monument, we looked up and down. All we could see was spiraling staircase. We took some pictures from the top of the Tower to show the city of London. Can you see a funny-looking building? They call this the ‘Gherkin’. In England this means cucumber. It really looks like a cucumber. We were looking for Big Ben, which is a big clock tower by Westminster Abbey. We looked and looked, but couldn’t see it. Finally, little Ella said in her little voice “I see Big Ben.” Sure enough, she found it. From the top of the Tower, Big Ben doesn’t look so big. There is a picture of all five of us on the stairs of the Monument. There is also a picture of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London (that’s what they call the castle). There is a story that if the rooks leave the Tower of London, the Kingdom of Britain will collapse. Even though rooks aren’t very pretty birds and definitely don’t have a pretty song voice, everybody makes sure that the rooks have a nice place to live in the Tower of London so the Kingdom doesn’t fall.

Besides the Monument, we got to see Borough Market, which is one of the biggest open-air markets in the world. It has lots of good food. We bought lunch here and especially enjoyed the brownies. We also got to see where dad works. His office looks straight out to Tower Bridge. On our way home, we found a pirate ship close to Dad’s office. When we got home, we performed a drama about pirates.