London Update - Days 4-6, and some observations
Okay, so here's hoping I can remember the rest of the trip at this point, since I've been home for 2 weeks :P. First of all, photos.
Tuesday was our 3rd anniversary, and we decided to spend the day exploring Regent and Oxford Streets doing some shopping. Well, more window shopping than anything, because let's be realistic here - why buy a shirt at H&M for L20 when I can get it at home for $20? Especially when you get 2.4 CDN to every 1 GBP. Although, I wanted to find a purse. Anywho, we popped into interesting stores like Wedgwood, and ended up exploring at Mark's and Spencer on Oxford. I was actually kind of disappointed with it, I expected a lot more. And on top of that, no good purses. Then we went into Selfridge's, which was much more impressive, especially the accessories section :). To sum up, there were a bunch of little "stores" within the big department store, and each of those little stores were stores like Chanel, D&G, Gucci, and so forth. I told Johnathan that if Fergie sings about it, I won't be able to afford it. Turns out, I was right. Purses for L350? Eesh. One place even told me not to touch the purses. Nice. I pretended I could afford them though, and wandered around in each place just for fun. Finally I spotted a Karen Millen purse that I absolutely loved, and because it had leather on it, J bought it for me (the third anniversary is the "leather" anniversary). Nice! And it wasn't even super crazy expensive. More than I have ever paid for a purse, but Fergie doesn't sing about Karen Millen, so I was safe :).
Ummm...after shopping we had dinner at a Soho Pizzeria. Charming :). After that, we pretty much just meandered home.
On Wednesday we took the Tube to the British Museum, and checked out some of the Greek and Roman stuff on the second floor, and the Egyptian death and burial section - some pretty awesome stuff there. We left about midday and decided to go back to the hotel and visit the other side of the hotel. This time we headed west on Piccadilly past Hyde Park, and then down...something or other, to get ourselves to Harrod's. That was an adventure too :). They sell all kinds of cool, non-standard things on top of clothing and such, including antique maps and fossils. How crazy is that? We ate at their "food court", which involved all kinds of different counters, including a hot food counter, a deli type counter, and a cheese counter - the cheese counter is, of course, where we decided to eat our supper :). We got a sampler plate, which came with grapes, crackers, bread, and so forth. Mmmm :). Oh yeah, and then on our way home we decided to go to the first ever Hard Rock Cafe for a bit of a snack and a drink. Nice.
Thursday was another trip out to the British Museum to do the Egyptian sculpture type stuff, which included the Rosetta Stone (wow), some really gigantic columns, the head from a statue of Rameses II, all kinds of amazing things. Seriously, wow. After the museum, we grabbed a bite to eat at a pub in Paternoster Square, and then took the "St. Paul's to the Tower of London" London Walks tour. That was pretty awesome too, St. Paul's is gorgeous, and the Tower of London isn't a tower :). The tour was a little on the long side, so we didn't get a chance to go into the Tower of London (which was L16 per person anyway :P), but we did a bit of exploring on the outside instead. We even got to touch a Roman wall from 200 AD, which, in its time, would have marked the border of Londinium. What blew my mind was that everyone was just walking past it to the nearby Tube station without paying it any attention. I guess you get used to seeing that kind of stuff after a while.
Dinner on Thursday was at a fantastic restaurant called "Spaghetti House", which we expected to be your average restaurant, but it was really quite nice. We wandered a little more, back to Trafalger, Buckingham Palace, Green Park, and then back to the hotel to pack.
The flight home on Friday was pretty easy, but damned long. We even did okay trying to readjust to our timezone once we got home. Surprisingly, even with all that walking, I only lost about .5 lbs...I guess it's better than gaining :). To sum up, we had an amazing time, and we might even consider living out there for a year, if we didn't have connections at home (I'm way too attached to move that far).
And now, for some observations:
- I don't know if it's the same at all British Starbucks locations, but the ones in London don't put out cream for coffee, only milk. I don't drink coffee anyway, but it's something I noticed.
- Pedestrians don't have right of way. That's scary :).
- Londoners are very verbal when they're unimpressed, but they're polite about it. I saw a guy get shoved by another guy as he was walking by, and the first guy shouted "Hey! What'd you do that for?!"
- Everything about their public transit is civilised (see that? No "z" :) ). There are several Tube lines, and at each Tube station, there are signs that tell you when the next train is coming, and which line it's on. The same goes for bus stops.
- There's a "Pret a Manger" ("Ready to Eat") sandwich shop on almost every street, it seems, and pre-packaged sandwiches everywhere come with whole wheat bread - I don't think I saw white bread anywhere. I'm not complaining, I loved grabbing a breakfast sandwich from Pret every morning.
I think that's all, for now :).
Tuesday was our 3rd anniversary, and we decided to spend the day exploring Regent and Oxford Streets doing some shopping. Well, more window shopping than anything, because let's be realistic here - why buy a shirt at H&M for L20 when I can get it at home for $20? Especially when you get 2.4 CDN to every 1 GBP. Although, I wanted to find a purse. Anywho, we popped into interesting stores like Wedgwood, and ended up exploring at Mark's and Spencer on Oxford. I was actually kind of disappointed with it, I expected a lot more. And on top of that, no good purses. Then we went into Selfridge's, which was much more impressive, especially the accessories section :). To sum up, there were a bunch of little "stores" within the big department store, and each of those little stores were stores like Chanel, D&G, Gucci, and so forth. I told Johnathan that if Fergie sings about it, I won't be able to afford it. Turns out, I was right. Purses for L350? Eesh. One place even told me not to touch the purses. Nice. I pretended I could afford them though, and wandered around in each place just for fun. Finally I spotted a Karen Millen purse that I absolutely loved, and because it had leather on it, J bought it for me (the third anniversary is the "leather" anniversary). Nice! And it wasn't even super crazy expensive. More than I have ever paid for a purse, but Fergie doesn't sing about Karen Millen, so I was safe :).
Ummm...after shopping we had dinner at a Soho Pizzeria. Charming :). After that, we pretty much just meandered home.
On Wednesday we took the Tube to the British Museum, and checked out some of the Greek and Roman stuff on the second floor, and the Egyptian death and burial section - some pretty awesome stuff there. We left about midday and decided to go back to the hotel and visit the other side of the hotel. This time we headed west on Piccadilly past Hyde Park, and then down...something or other, to get ourselves to Harrod's. That was an adventure too :). They sell all kinds of cool, non-standard things on top of clothing and such, including antique maps and fossils. How crazy is that? We ate at their "food court", which involved all kinds of different counters, including a hot food counter, a deli type counter, and a cheese counter - the cheese counter is, of course, where we decided to eat our supper :). We got a sampler plate, which came with grapes, crackers, bread, and so forth. Mmmm :). Oh yeah, and then on our way home we decided to go to the first ever Hard Rock Cafe for a bit of a snack and a drink. Nice.
Thursday was another trip out to the British Museum to do the Egyptian sculpture type stuff, which included the Rosetta Stone (wow), some really gigantic columns, the head from a statue of Rameses II, all kinds of amazing things. Seriously, wow. After the museum, we grabbed a bite to eat at a pub in Paternoster Square, and then took the "St. Paul's to the Tower of London" London Walks tour. That was pretty awesome too, St. Paul's is gorgeous, and the Tower of London isn't a tower :). The tour was a little on the long side, so we didn't get a chance to go into the Tower of London (which was L16 per person anyway :P), but we did a bit of exploring on the outside instead. We even got to touch a Roman wall from 200 AD, which, in its time, would have marked the border of Londinium. What blew my mind was that everyone was just walking past it to the nearby Tube station without paying it any attention. I guess you get used to seeing that kind of stuff after a while.
Dinner on Thursday was at a fantastic restaurant called "Spaghetti House", which we expected to be your average restaurant, but it was really quite nice. We wandered a little more, back to Trafalger, Buckingham Palace, Green Park, and then back to the hotel to pack.
The flight home on Friday was pretty easy, but damned long. We even did okay trying to readjust to our timezone once we got home. Surprisingly, even with all that walking, I only lost about .5 lbs...I guess it's better than gaining :). To sum up, we had an amazing time, and we might even consider living out there for a year, if we didn't have connections at home (I'm way too attached to move that far).
And now, for some observations:
- I don't know if it's the same at all British Starbucks locations, but the ones in London don't put out cream for coffee, only milk. I don't drink coffee anyway, but it's something I noticed.
- Pedestrians don't have right of way. That's scary :).
- Londoners are very verbal when they're unimpressed, but they're polite about it. I saw a guy get shoved by another guy as he was walking by, and the first guy shouted "Hey! What'd you do that for?!"
- Everything about their public transit is civilised (see that? No "z" :) ). There are several Tube lines, and at each Tube station, there are signs that tell you when the next train is coming, and which line it's on. The same goes for bus stops.
- There's a "Pret a Manger" ("Ready to Eat") sandwich shop on almost every street, it seems, and pre-packaged sandwiches everywhere come with whole wheat bread - I don't think I saw white bread anywhere. I'm not complaining, I loved grabbing a breakfast sandwich from Pret every morning.
I think that's all, for now :).