London Adventures

In typical style, we arrived to London early, but minus our luggage! At this point, this was the least of our travel woes, but nevertheless an annoyance. Having slept less than four hours, we were both exhausted. I fell asleep on the tube into London, but luckily we didn’t miss our stop. As soon as we were out of the tube London hit me hard. It felt like the stone buildings, corner pubs and double decker buses had worked their way out of my imagination and onto the streets! I hate to say it, but all of the stereotypes are real. One of the perks of staying in London is that we get to crash at Blake’s old friend Tyler’s flat. We found his work easily and got the key to his place. Once we had stowed our stuff we were on a mission to find some extra clothes so we didn’t have to wear the same clothes four days in a row. Upon our clothing hunt we stumbled upon St. Paul’s Cathedral, and then meandered beside the Thames, eventually catching a tube to Picadilly Circus, where we met some success at a bargain clothes store. After we blew 75 Pounds on British Airways’ tab we saw the National Geographic’s Headquarters. Inside there was some sort of art exhibition, and free wine was flowing. We perused African animal pictures and downed some free vino, until we realized that somehow we had been mistaken as actual guests to a closed event! Oops, we snuck out the door!
The following day we hit the streets a little later than intended due to some much needed sleep. We checked out Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace (the Queen was in, but didn’t invite us over for tea???), St. James’ Park, Green Park and a few other stops along the way. We returned to Tyler and his girlfriend Liv’s place in time for some truly English fish & chips. That night Tyler and Liv wanted to take us out for a night on the town so we walked to the trendy Hoxton district and I sampled some English Lemonade and vodka. At 10pm, when things we starting to wind down and I thought we would head back to the flat, we took a cab to the Hoxton Hotel. It was a modern boutique hotel filled with sophisticated types. We ended up staying on until 1am!
The next morning was a later one, for obvious reasons. Since the weather was gray and rainy (much like the previous two days) we decided to start the morning at the Museum of London. Some neat displays included fashion through the ages and a history of London from the dawn of time. After two hours I was more than saturated with English knowledge and in need of some retail therapy, so we hopped on a tube to Harrod’s. There are no words to describe that place. I don’t find it remotely odd that it was the beginning of Christian the Lion, and that other strange and fabulous things have happened there. A room devoted entirely to chocolate and tea had me enthralled for a half hour. Blake took to the ice cream parlour and deli. I was also humbled by the fashion on the upper floors. Labels I had only dreamt of and seen in movies were right in front of my eyes. A whole year’s salary could be spent on a pair of pants! After the opulence got to us, we returned to the street and strolled through Hyde Park to Kensington Palace, and then back again. An ambitious walk which left me with some seriously sore feet! On our last night we went out for a delicious curry at a local Indian house, a great way to end three nights in London.