Adventures in London
London Day 1
I really loved our hostel. The beds were very comfortable, everything was very clean and tidy and they had great security. We got up around 9am on Sunday and took our time getting ready and had breakfast at the hostel. They have a £4 continental breakfast, which was just mediocre. We ate there the first day, but bought groceries for the rest of our stay.
Our first item on the agenda, for the day, was to walk about a mile to Leicester Square to acquire same day, half-price tickets (TKTS) for a show that evening. Being the good husband that he is, Casper agreed to go see Dirty Dancing. After acquiring tickets, we scooted off to The British Museum.
Just about everyone I know who has been to London told me to go to this (free!) museum, and it did not disappoint. The building's architecture is gorgeous and we were a bit wowed just walking into the main entrance area. Of course, the first thing we saw, which is the main thing that the museum is famous for, was the Rosetta Stone. It's a pretty awesome relic to see in person. We then browsed all of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman art and artifacts. I really loved the Egyptian hieroglyphs. We also bought tickets to one of the special exhibits, Japanese Shunga, which is basically intricately drawn porn from hundreds of years ago. The art was extremely impressive. I was only sad that they didn't have prints of my favorite pieces. I took some decent photos, though, so perhaps we can make our own.
After a bit of souvenir shopping at the museum store (Rosetta Stone socks!), we headed back to the hostel. Casper napped while I wrote out some postcards. We took this time to relax and then get ready for our evening activities.
We met Mandy at 4:30 at Bea's of Bloomsbury for afternoon tea. This place was recommended by a coworker and we had a great time. We each got a little pot of tea and the first course served was three types of miniature sandwiches. Next, we got a large tray of miniature desserts as well as one cupcake each. There was so much food, we couldn't even finish it all! It was great to be able to meet up with a friend and chat with her about living in Europe and just general catching up with each other.
Next, we were all off to the Theatre district for Dirty Dancing. The show was nearly verbatim of the movie, but it was fun seeing it on the stage. Also, unlike most theatres in NYC, you can bring your drinks into the theatre. After two glasses of wine during the second half of the show, I was feeling pretty tipsy. We headed to a pub nearby for another drink and ended the night at our local Indian restaurant, Tavistock Tandoori. I have definitely gained a taste for Indian food during this trip. Eventually, Mandy had to head home and we were asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows.
London Day 2
We slept in a bit on Monday and basically skipped breakfast in order to catch up on some sleep. Once we dragged ourselves out of bed, we were off to the Hyde Park area for a fish 'n chips lunch. This restaurant, The Golden Hind, was highly recommended by a coworker. I got the haddock and Casper got the cod. We both thought that the food was good, but nothing exceptional. We did end up chatting with an English lawyer, who spent some time in the States defending American banks that got screwed over by some kind of scam at a British bank. He says that he won the case and probably saved this bank millions of dollars. We talked a little bit about American finance and politics and it was, overall, a delightful conversation. It made me feel very grown up.
After lunch, we zipped across town to the Tower of London. This is the tower that was built hundreds of years ago by William the Conquerer of Normandy. It's a very impressive structure, filled with old pieces of armour, artiliary, weapons, etc.There's a short tour where one of the guards, known as Beefeaters, gives you a brief history of the Tower. We also saw an exhibit about some of the kinds of torture that took place there and we ended the day at the Crown Jewels exhibit.
At this point, we had some time to kill, so we had a leisurely dinner and then found a bar to have a couple drinks and relax. Our evening activity was a "Jack the Ripper" tour with the London Walks company. Our tour guide was really great and we learned quite a bit about "Ripperology" and various theories about who Jack might have been. We learned about the poor and seedy community that made up the East End of London in the late 1880's and we saw some of the murder sites and learned a little about the investigations into them, at the time. It was a damp and foggy London evening, so it was fitting weather for this tour.
We headed towards home after the tour and discovered a local chain called Pizza Express. They make something called Romana style pizza, which has a really crispy and thin crust. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. At this point, it was nearly midnight, so back to the hostel for sleepytimes.
London Day 3
The first thing on our agenda for Tuesday was an East End tour at 11am. However, as we were getting dressed, we decided to scoot down to Leicester Square and see what half-price shows were available for that evening. We ended up getting tickets for a musical version of From Here to Eternity. Neither of us had read the book or seen the movie, so we were excited that it was a new to us story. With tickets in hand, we jumped in the Tube and headed over to Liverpool Street station for our tour.
Luke, our tour guide was a delightful British man about our age. We had a great tour group of just eight people, which included Canadians, a Brazilian, a Dane and a guy from Greenland. All were lovely people, most of whom had been traveling around Europe for a few months.
We learned a little bit about this History of the City of London vs. the boroughs around London. The Queen actually has no jurisdiction in the City of London and The Lord Mayor, who represents the rich, rich bankers of the City, basically has control over what Parliament can and cannot discuss. I totally had no idea about this, but Luke told us that most Londoners aren't aware of it, either. We got to see a part of the original wall of London and got a short review of Jack the Ripper stuff. He talked a bit about the Cockney language and how the East End has always been the home for most immigrants. This led into a tour of Bangletown and the famous Brick Lane. This is where we got to see some amazing street art, including pieces by Banksy, Space Invader and Shep Fairy. At the end, he invited us to join him for lunch at his favorite Curry place and we obliged.
Just about everyone in the group went to lunch, so we had some great discussions with the other travelers. I tried some vegetable samosas and chicken massa. They were both delicious. I'm really going to have to seek out some Indian food when we get back to D.C.
After this tour, we scooted over to Waterloo for some cheesy touristy fun on the London Eye. It was a much bigger tourist taro than I thought it would be, but we enjoyed our ride and the views of the city. At this point, we're were both falling asleep, so it was back to the hostel for nappytimes.
We got a bit dressed up for our show that evening and walked the mile to the Shaftesbury Theatre. Our tickets were in the sixth row, just off center. TKTS never disappoints! The show was really, really good and we both loved it. It got quite emotional at the end and all of the actors were fabulous! We both agreed that the production value was quite above Dirty Dancing, so I'm glad we decided to go back for a second show.
We ended our evening with dinner and drinks at a pub in Leicester Square. We thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to explore this great city and both agree that we could totally live there. Everyone we encountered was extremely friendly, they have one of the best, if not THE best public transportation systems in the world and it's a city filled with amazing culture and diversity. While NYC is the closest city in the U.S, to compare it to, I found that it doesn't have quite the same franticness of that city, which is part of what makes me like it better. We will definitely be back here some day, although it is unclear whether it will be as tourists or residents. :)