It was spring when we went there the first time [in 1983], and it was beautiful. We were only there for a couple of weeks, but we found the people very helpful.

The second time we went it was 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II, and everybody was talking about what they were doing when the war ended. We asked the younger people what they thought about the war, and they said they remembered wearing Mickey Mouse gas masks. We got to see the white cliffs of Dover and we got to see the room where the Prime Minister held war meetings.

We went to York and saw a re-enactment of the War of Roses. We spent four days in London and did everything we could. We went to the Tower of London, where all the jewels are. We also got to see the Palace and the changing of the guard. We would have liked to stay longer because the people were very nice and the restaurants were okay, too.

We got to see a Viking museum where we descended a long way into the ground and they had reconstructed the houses of the Vikings.

We got to see a church where Curt's grandparents [my great great grandparents] were married. The first time we saw it it looked kind of cold and bleak, but we went to an evening service and the lights were on and they had a boys choir dressed in red tunics. One of the reasons we went there is that Curt [my grandfather] wanted to check the Archives. He had to make a reservation a few months ahead, and he had eight hours to find whatever he wanted. At first we couldn't find it, because the church had lots of little hallways and little doors. In the Archives, when we found it, were a bunch of genealogy books and Curt was able to trace his family back three more generations than he had before. He could only use a pencil there and if he wanted to take a picture he couldn't use a flash, because the documents were so old that even that could damage them.

Some of the things that were different were it's a monarchy, kind of, and people's accents were different. The people in the city had a beautiful way of speaking, but people in the country had accents so thick they were hard to understand.

They didn't have a lot of heating, and of course it's kind of cold and damp in London. That's what's it's known for. In some rooms, they only have baseboard heating which they turn on when they're going to enter the room.

Trains were what we mainly took. An interesting thing is that they were color coded so that you knew that a green train would go to a certain spot, a red train to another one, and so on. One time we went to the deepest tunnel because in the subways the tunnels are sort of stacked on top of each other. You can get anywhere in London in 15 minutes on these trains. We bought passes for the few weeks that we were there, and that also allowed us to go on the buses.

One of the cheapest ways of getting around were the black taxis in London. The only problem with using them was the amount of traffic they encountered.

We wanted to go for a while, but we thought that we couldn't. Then your dad went by himself to find some genealogy information for us because that was Curt's hobby, and he found for us John Wedding, who, according to the records, was a planter and a school teacher. And also we thought it would be fun going there.

Yes, it was. We flew over the pole and we left at 5 p.m. and when we landed it was light outside because it was spring in England and a helpful thing was that the trains came right up to the airport.

One of the guards that stand near the palace.

An average street, with Big Ben in the background.

Buckingham Palace

Below you can see two other famous areas. On the left is Stonehenge, the other is Shakespeare's birth place. These are very well known, and many people go to England just to see them. My grandmother didn't see them, but they are two places that I would like to see if I got the chance.

Links
• Tourist Photos
• CIA World Factbook
• Visit Britain 2001
• Queen Elizabeth's official site