London

May 18-14

London is a cool city. This is our second visit to London and I think both of us will agree that we love it more this time than last. Last time was great! But there was a lot of tourist attractions and things to see in a very short amount of time. This visit, we didn’t do a single touristy thing which was great… well… mostly we didn’t do a single touristy thing. We did get our picture taken here:

And geek out about our train out of King’s Cross Station:

But moving on. Our first night in we grabbed a delicious Thai meal at a restaurant in Soho called Kiln.

This food was incredible and we highly recommend it, even with the super long, nearly two hour wait to get in. While waiting, we made good use of our time by having a pint at a pub that George Orwell visited.

The next morning, we woke up slow and went to Regent’s Park for Michael to get a run and for me to meet up with MP – a Chicago friend who recently moved to London with her husband and her 14 month old, Maggie. I met MP and Maggie at the playground and we got to the serious business of moving at a toddler pace for the next couple of days. Maggie had just learned how to walk so we mainly just let her walk super slow and follow around. It was a great opportunity to relax and catch up with an old friend.

Regent’s Park is an incredible space with the Queen’s garden, a zoo, ponds, lots of running paths and some fields for school children to play in. Later that afternoon, Michael met up with us and then Dave, after work. Apparently some people have to go to work on Fridays. We, however, go to the park with Maggie.

On Saturday we did some more of the same, runs, coffee and park time! If it ain’t broke, am I right?

Then Michael and I headed down to Brixton to meet up with Gabi, one of Michael’s friends from college. Brixton is a really cool part of town, south of the city, that historically was occupied by Caribbean and African immigrants which gives the neighborhood a lot of character, along with great shops and delicious food.

After some Jamaican for lunch, we had the opportunity to grab a few beers in Pop Brixton, an area that reminded us a bit of the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town, with some eclectic shops and plenty of places to sit around eating and drinking.

We left Gabi to head back to Marylebone for dinner with Dave and MP.

On Sunday, MP and I spent some time at the park and buying glitter stickers with Maggie while the guys went to see Tottenham play Leicester City at Wembley (which is where the national team plays as well). It was a great game to see, with Tottenham, the home team, winning 5 to 4. That is a ton of goals to be scored in just one game and made for a lot of excitement.

Later that evening, Michael and I headed down towards the river to meet up with Jackie, one of my closest friends from home and her husband, David, who are in town for a wedding. David is from the UK and as such subject to all of my annoying questions regarding what I consider to be inconsistencies in London. Ex: why do you drive on the left side of the road, but all signage in the underground asks that you walk on the right side? Or why is Thames pronounced “Tems”?

We grabbed dinner at DH Mexico which was ok – good Mexican for London standards?

The next day we set a record in number of steps squeezed into one day by four people.

We started by visiting the V&A museum where we saw a bunch of Greco Roman sculptures, some Raphael works and an exhibit called “Fashioned from Nature” which covered two floors. The first floor spoke to how humans over the past few hundred years have fashioned clothing and accessories out of animals and plants without much concern for the effects of the corresponding pollution, slavery or decimation of entire species.

Fun fact:

And this:

Who knew?!?!

The second floor spoke to fashion designers that are now using renewable sources and alternatives.

This is bead work. Isn’t that incredible? It legitimately looks like fur until you get right up to it.

And these shoes. I can give you no information about them, but aren’t they insane?

Afterwards, we headed to Herrod’s, the most incredible department store I’ve ever been to. It had a gourmet food court with all types of intricate desserts and snacks. It also has a world class wine shop, which was fun because after our trip to Alsace and Hermitage, we actually were familiar with some of the bottles. And then normal department store stuff like leather loafers that have cats sewn on them and cost thousands of pounds. Put those down! You break them…

We didn’t buy much, but all of us had a great time window shopping and spending time together.

Some of you may know that this next weekend is the royal wedding, which meant that London was getting fancy for it with lots of flags and royal guards practicing parades through the streets.

Another thing that I want to point out is public transportation. Michael and I, having spent our adult lives in Chicago, New York and the DC area, have a special place in our hearts for public transportation. This is one of the reasons why I love London so much.

I saw this plaque the first morning after we had arrived and immediately was just so excited to be there. London has a combination of underground and overground train lines that all come together to create a very complex and thorough yet easy to navigate city of public transportation. There are few cities in the world that we’ve visited that are this well connect. The public transportation in Mexico City and New York City both can compete. It is definitely a level of infrastructure and city planning that you just don’t see in most places. Thank you, London, for being so easy to visit! There is no doubt we’ll be back. And thank you to all of our great friends who spent time with us. It felt a bit like being home doing “normal” things like meeting for lunch, hanging out at the park, grabbing dinner, shopping and watching a few minutes of Gilmore Girls. We will see you all again soon!