Day Out
Back when Mark and I were still trying our darnedest to just be friends, we met up every six weeks or so, usually in London, for a day out. I always loved those little adventures, going to Sea Life or riding the Eye. In nearly four months of being together as a couple on the other hand, we haven't gone out once. (No, buying food from Iceland on a Saturday morning doesn't count.) We've been joking that since he's "got" me now, he doesn't feel like putting any more work into the relationship, but there is a little grain of truth in that. Mark is the kind of person who is pretty much always stressed by his work, and the only reason he found the energy to take me out as often as he did was that those meetings were our only chance to see each other. When he comes home exhausted after a week of work now, he can relax during the weekend and I'll still be there. I'm not blaming him for that, but I have been missing the outings a little.
So he said that he'd take me out for Valentine's Day. When that turned out to fall on a Friday, we postponed it to the following Saturday. Then the weather turned bad, with heavy storms across the region, and we figured that we'd just run into issues with train disruptions, and that it'd be best to postpone things even further. Yesterday we finally went.
It was really nice to go to London again, and to not have to stress about leaving early. We had lunch at Honest Burgers again, and it was good as ever, though arriving late had some clear disadvantages. The place was absolutely packed, and while we found a table outside relatively quickly, the staff were obviously overwhelmed. We had to wait about half an hour for our simple burgers to arrive, they lost our order at one point, and at the end they brought us the wrong bill. Still worth it though!
We then spent some time browsing the shelves at Forbidden Planet (which is close by) and visited the British Museum again. I'm increasingly starting to think that we'll never see everything in there, as even a single room can take an hour to get through if you take your time to study all the objects on display and read all the plaques. We looked at some Egyptian and Mesopotamian stuff this time around, as well as the Lewis chess set.
For dinner I had asked to go to an Austrian restaurant called Kipferl. It's funny, because I remember researching Austrian restaurants way back when I first moved to the UK, just to see what my chances were of getting Austrian food anywhere. I did find a couple in London but was eventually dismissive of the whole idea because when was I ever going to go to London? And yet by the time I did start going to London almost regularly, I had forgotten all about the whole thing again - until recently that is. Anyway, Kipferl turned out to be a nice and cosy place, if somewhat on the expensive side. They also had a nice selection of food, and even served Almdudler among their drinks! While the portions weren't very big or particularly amazing, I was still grateful for the opportunity to eat like back home.
When we headed home it was strange (but nice) to not have to part ways for once, and just like after our previous outings, I collapsed into a tired heap not long after we came home and fell asleep almost instantly. A good day.
So he said that he'd take me out for Valentine's Day. When that turned out to fall on a Friday, we postponed it to the following Saturday. Then the weather turned bad, with heavy storms across the region, and we figured that we'd just run into issues with train disruptions, and that it'd be best to postpone things even further. Yesterday we finally went.
It was really nice to go to London again, and to not have to stress about leaving early. We had lunch at Honest Burgers again, and it was good as ever, though arriving late had some clear disadvantages. The place was absolutely packed, and while we found a table outside relatively quickly, the staff were obviously overwhelmed. We had to wait about half an hour for our simple burgers to arrive, they lost our order at one point, and at the end they brought us the wrong bill. Still worth it though!
We then spent some time browsing the shelves at Forbidden Planet (which is close by) and visited the British Museum again. I'm increasingly starting to think that we'll never see everything in there, as even a single room can take an hour to get through if you take your time to study all the objects on display and read all the plaques. We looked at some Egyptian and Mesopotamian stuff this time around, as well as the Lewis chess set.
For dinner I had asked to go to an Austrian restaurant called Kipferl. It's funny, because I remember researching Austrian restaurants way back when I first moved to the UK, just to see what my chances were of getting Austrian food anywhere. I did find a couple in London but was eventually dismissive of the whole idea because when was I ever going to go to London? And yet by the time I did start going to London almost regularly, I had forgotten all about the whole thing again - until recently that is. Anyway, Kipferl turned out to be a nice and cosy place, if somewhat on the expensive side. They also had a nice selection of food, and even served Almdudler among their drinks! While the portions weren't very big or particularly amazing, I was still grateful for the opportunity to eat like back home.
When we headed home it was strange (but nice) to not have to part ways for once, and just like after our previous outings, I collapsed into a tired heap not long after we came home and fell asleep almost instantly. A good day.