Little Susie's London

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WEEK 18

Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,

Once upon a time, a baby girl was born in a big city called London, the capital city of a country called England. She was the first child for her Mom and Dad and they were very happy to have her. They called her Susie.

She was born in a hospital called Queen Charlotte’s, a very famous baby hospital in West London where Harry Potter was also born (actually the actor, Danielle Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter, but still...!) A few years ago, the hospital was pulled down so they could build all these houses instead, because there are too many people living in London and not enough houses.

But this is where the hospital used to stand... right by Stamford Brook station.

The first house Susie lived in when she was a baby was a black and white Tudor house that was divided into small apartments.

It was in a London borough called Ealing, which was – and still is – a great place for families to live.

There are many churches in Ealing, and in the whole of England in fact, because lots of Christian people live there. That was the religion of Susie’s Mom and Dad at the time she was born, so they had Susie baptized in this beautiful church.

When Susie got older she decided not to be a Christian any more because she thought it wasn’t fair on other religions, but she still thinks this church is a very special place!

Soon, Susie’s Mom and Dad decided their apartment in the Tudor house was a bit small so they moved into a bigger house a few streets away.

They shared this house with Susie's Grandma and Grandpa (her Dad's mom and dad).

The reason they needed a bigger house was because another baby was on the way. Soon, Susie got a new little brother.

Her brother was a very cute baby. He looked a lot like Susie’s Mom when she had been a baby, which is quite a long time ago.

Just like Susie, her Mom was the first baby for her Mom and Dad (that's Susie’s other grandparents) who lived a very, very long time ago when they could only take black and white pictures with giant cameras.

So this is Susie's Granddad...

...and this is her Grandma (in this picture, she was younger than Susie is now!)

When she was young, Susie’s Mom was very pretty (she still is!)

Lots of boys wanted to marry her, including this boy who lived in Italy.

Luckily she chose to marry Susie’s Dad or Susie and her brother (and then their little sister) wouldn’t have been born!

This was Susie's very first school, where her favorite class was Singing.

After this, she went to another school. Her favorite class was still singing!

It was at this school that she met her first best friend, a girl called Lisa, who lived in this beautiful big house.

Lisa’s Dad was a very, very clever doctor who mended people’s hearts when they went wrong.

Ealing is a great place for kids to grow up in because it has lots of great playgrounds and big open spaces. When Susie was a little girl her favorite place to play was in the witch’s hut in the park.

She never saw a real witch but she always pretended there was one there. These days the witch’s hut is a little bit broken. Maybe one day soon Susie can pay to get it fixed up again!

Susie was very excited when her little brother was born. She loved him so much.

He was her great friend (and still is!) and they loved doing everything together.

Do you recognize the boy in the middle of this next picture?

It's Susie's cousin, Mark, the one who lives in Sydney, Australia. Do you remember seeing a picture of him a little while ago?

Susie was very proud of her brother because he was so good at sports, especially cricket and golf.

The most exciting day for Susie and her brother was the day that their sister was born. They loved her so much and took turns looking after her.

Just after she was born they all moved, with their Mom and Dad, to a place far, far away, to an Arabic country in the Middle East where there are many mosques because the religion there is Islam.

They lived in this big building with a stationery shop at the bottom of it that sold all kinds of cool paper and pens.

It was a very, very hot country and every afternoon, after school, their Mom took them swimming to this beach club that had a big pool with a diving board and slide.

There was also a big floating raft in the sea that they could swim out to and jump off.

Every weekend, when he wasn’t working, their Dad took them all out on a speedboat and taught them how to waterski and windsurf.

They had so many friends and there were always lots of kids to play with and plenty of parties to go to.

Parties for people of all ages!

Susie was very good at swimming and won lots of medals.

One day a very important person came to visit Susie's school. It was the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II. The school was full of children from different countries in the world and they were all asked to dress in their own national costumes. Because Susie’s Dad is from a country called Hungary, she was asked to wear the national costume of Hungary to meet the Queen.

The Queen didn’t have time to speak to Susie, although she smiled at her, but Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband, stopped to talk to her and said,

“What country are you from?” and Susie answered,

“Hungary.” And he said,

“And are you?” He meant are you hungry for your lunch, which was a joke, but Susie didn’t get the joke and so she didn't know what to say. She felt a bit silly afterwards when her Mom explained it to her!

At school, Susie loved writing. She was always writing stories (especially about witches) and acting in plays she wrote (which is funny because when she grew up she became an actress and writer!)

One day her class was asked to write a story about people who work at night. All the children wrote stories about ambulance drivers and nurses and pilots. Susie wrote about the tooth fairy!

Susie and her brother and sister were very lucky children because their Mom and Dad took them traveling to lots of interesting places in different countries...

They went to New York...

...and Niagara Falls in Canada...

...and Hong Kong...

...and Amsterdam...

...and Spain...

...and even Paris!

No wonder Susie grew up with the travel bug!

But eventually they had to come back and live in England and Susie went to boarding school (like Harry Potter... but, sadly there were no magic lessons!) where she met her next best friend, called Sophie.

When she got back to England, she was also allowed to get her first dog. She loved him very much.

The next boarding school Susie went to was the biggest school she'd ever seen. It was full of very old and beautiful buildings.

Her boarding house had an orange door because that was the official house color. This meant all the girls in that house had to wear orange ties as well!

This school had lots of giant fields for playing sports on.

It had its own church...

...and a big theater on the edge of a lake where Susie and her friends acted in lots of plays.

Susie got another best friend at this school. She was called Fiona and at weekends they used to go and stay in Fiona’s house in London. At first, Fiona’s family lived in quite a small house, just the downstairs floor of an old house split into apartments.

But after a few years, Fiona's family moved into the biggest house Susie had ever seen. It had five floors!

The best thing about this house was that it was just around the corner from the best ice cream store in the whole of London!

It was also close to a tube station. Susie and Fiona loved traveling all over London by tube. That's what the underground trains are called in London.

Fiona's house was in a beautiful area of London called Primrose Hill.

There is a park with a hill in it and people always go to the top because you can see across the whole of London.

Some people love to take their bikes up to the top and they wheel down the hill super fast.

Primrose Hill is very close to a place called Camden Town and when Susie was growing up this was one of her favorite places in London (it still is!)

Camden Town is full of markets selling cool things.

People also stick funny things onto the walls of their houses.

I saw an old plane...

...a dragon...

...and even giant shoes!

A canal (which is like a small river) runs through Camden Town and there is a lock right in the middle of everything.

I don't mean the type of lock you have on a door, a lock is also the name for a place where boats go to move between different levels of water. Like a boat elevator!

They go into a little section of the canal, close the gates around them, let it fill up with water, and then they open the other gates and off they go.

Susie used to love watching boats go through the locks (she still does!)

Camden Town is full of interesting sights.

After working really hard at her boarding school and passing all her exams, Susie went to university, to King’s College, which is part of the University of London.

She got a new best friend there, called Julie. Julie is one of the best people Susie ever met in her whole life.

When they first arrived at university, Julie and Susie lived in a big hall with 50 other students on Clapham Common, opposite a famous pub called The Windmill. Sadly they pulled down the hall a few years ago and built new flats there.

I don't think they'll ever pull down The Windmill pub though, because people love it so much!

In their second year at University, Julie and Susie went to live in a house in Tooting Broadway.

The house was next to a café and it was very, very cold in the winter because the windows were broken, and there were mice in the house, and slimy slugs! It wasn’t very nice, but sometimes students have to live in bad places because they don't have too much money!

The next house Susie lived in was much, much nicer.

It was near Blackheath, a very old part of London where some of the buildings are 1000 years old!

There is a very famous and beautiful church in the middle of Blackheath...

...and so much space for kids to run around in...

Susie was a little older by now and met her first boyfriend. They decided to live together, first of all in a flat in this big house in Wandsworth.

Every Sunday they ate a big English Breakfast at a place called “Ken’s Café” with sausages and bacon and eggs and lots of butter (not things Susie ever eats now!)

Then they moved to a place called Putney...

...where they lived in this big house, that had a garden.

After a couple of years, Susie got a new boyfriend and a new house.

Until this time, every house Susie had lived in belonged to someone else and she had paid rent to that person to live in their house, which is what students and young people do at first. But now Susie had a job in an office in central London and she had enough money to buy her own house. It was only a tiny little flat above a shop, but she really loved it.

To make a little extra money, Susie got a weekend job at this restaurant. She loved working there, and getting free food, which saved even more money!

But she only lived there for a year because then she got a job in America.

That's how Susie came to America and met all of you.

And that's the story of how I grew up. I hope you enjoyed it!

A few weeks ago I came back to visit London. It was very exciting sitting on the plane, looking out of the window as we flew over London. I had an amazing view across the whole city.

When I got to London I spent lots of time with my friends and family. That little brother of mine just got married to a beautiful girl, and that cute baby sister of mine is also married and now the mommy of three children!

I also decided to visit some of my old favorite places so I could show you them.

The first place I went to see was my Dad's old house, where he lived after I grew up. It was a very special house because it first belonged to his mom, my Hungarian Grandma. It's also in Ealing.

While I was in America, he sold it and moved to a new house in the countryside. I was very sad about that, but his new house is very nice, with beautiful horses living next door!

I also visited the River Thames, the part that is in the center of London. The Thames is a big river that runs all the way through London. It was always one of my favorite places in the city. Since I left, they built a huge big wheel that you can ride on and see views across the whole of London. It's called The London Eye.

I loved seeing all the old ships around Tower Bridge...

This one is a model of a ship that was sailed around the world over 500 years ago by a very famous captain called Sir Frances Drake.

Look at its huge anchor!

They have lifeboats on the Thames, to rescue people if they fall into the river!

There are many cool buildings all along the banks of the river. This is Southwark Cathedral. A cathedral is a really big church and this one is the oldest church in the whole of London.

Then there is a model of an old famous theater, called The Globe, where William Shakespeare put on lots of plays 400 years ago.

Some places in London are so old that only a small piece of them remains, like this wall of Winchester Palace, which is almost 1000 years old!

This is one of my favorite places in the whole of London. It's called The Tate Modern and I remember it being opened. It is a huge art gallery that is inside an old power station so it’s got this incredibly big chimney.

Just opposite The Tate Modern is a walking bridge over the Thames. It was built in the year 2000, so they called it The Millennium Bridge.

But when people first started to walk across it, it was very, very wobbly, so everyone started calling it The Wobbly Bridge.

It doesn’t wobble anymore, they fixed the problem, but the name stuck!

There is always plenty of art to look at, all over London. Sometimes it's too big to fit inside a gallery!

Another part of London I visited was Covent Garden.

I have some very special memories of Covent Garden. I spent a lot of time there while I was growing up.

I saw my very first ballet performance in the beautiful Covent Garden Opera House.

Since I was last there, they built this amazing bridge between the opera house and the ballet school.

And this is where I saw my first movie when I was 4 years old. I think the movie was a very old Disney movie called Bambi.

I celebrated my 18th birthday in this famous building called The Hippodrome.

And my 21st birthday party was in a very cool restaurant called The Rock Garden. Sadly this has now been converted into an Apple computer store! I don't think I'd want my birthday party in an Apple store!

I forgot how many things are red in London.

Most buses are red.

Phone booths are red...

And mail boxes are red...

Toilet buildings are not red, but some are very fancy!

While I was busy taking photos, I saw this police helicopter in the sky so I thought I'd take a picture of it for you. It was flying really low.

There are some very cool theaters near Covent Garden. This one has been showing "We Will Rock You" for years. It is a musical featuring all the songs by the band called Queen.

And this one, a very famous theater called the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (look at how the English spell it "theatre" instead of "theater") is showing the newest musical in London. It's based on the movie, "Shrek".

I am very lucky to have a new best friend in London, called Elizabeth. And guess where she lives... in Ealing! One night we went out to a jazz club in a pub called The Spice of Life. Before I moved to America, I used to sing there every week.

Unfortunately I hadn’t practiced for a while so I didn’t sing too well! But we still had a really good time and I saw some other old friends who I really like and I hadn't seen for years. It was a very special night and the perfect way to end my trip.

I’m a little bit sad to be leaving London and saying goodbye to my friends and family, but I have to go and visit a boy called Dario, who has the coolest hair in the world, and who lives in a very exciting city. It’s the capital city of France and it's called PARIS!

I will write again soon from Paris.

Lots of love to you all, and all your Moms and Dads!

Susie xxxx

P.S. Kids, you probably noticed that, throughout my life, I've had loads of best friends. Whenever I moved house, or school, or country, I got a new best friend. Most of these people are still my friends, but there is one person who I met in London many years ago and she is probably the very best best friend I've ever had. She lives in America and her name is Dianne. I love her very much and miss her more than I miss anybody else right now. I sometimes forget to tell her how much I appreciate her and our wonderful, long friendship. She's my SUPER best friend!