Day 4 in London--10/4/11

Tuesday we started off by going to a cafe called Pastisserie Valerie.  It's a chain so there are several of them throughout London.  We went to the one by the Victoria tube stop.  I had a delicious croissant with ham and cheese and a small pot of tea.  Mark had a croissant with tomatoes and mozzarella.  Yum!

Ham and Cheese Croissant

From there, we walked to Harrod's.  "Wow" is a good word to sum up that place. 

Harrod's Door Man

I'd never been to Harrod's before and didn't really know anything about it except that it was a department store and my grandma had told me that they sell a lot of food there.  I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I was in awe of the place.  It is essentially a really neat high end department store.  They have a huge toy section they call "Toy Kingdom," a "Christmas World," and even a "Pet Spa."  There were some dogs being groomed in the pet spa and they were so cute!  They even had a treadmill with a flatscreen TV in front of it for the dogs!  Talk about pampered pups! 

Buzz Lightyear--made of Legos

Also Made of Legos

Giant Harrod's Bears--They were about $3000 a Bear!

Christmas World

Christmas World

 
The food halls at Harrod's are a sight to see.  There were about 4 huge rooms with all kinds of foods--fresh fruits from all over the world, cakes, pastries, sandwiches, tea, chocolates, sushi--pretty much you name it, they had it.  Seeing how much I love food, I was in heaven.

One Room of the Food Halls

Tropical Fruits from All Over the World--Including my most favorite fruit, mangusteen

To give you an idea of the size of the rooms, this was probably about half of one room!

Dates from all over the world

Dates Up Close

Lots of Chocolate!

Desserts

More Chocolate

Sandwiches

All Kinds of Meat Pies

Cakes

After seeing the pictures, aren't you impressed now too?!  Seriously, you name it, they had it!  And it ALL looked delicious!

We didn't actually have lunch in the food halls, we went to a French restaurant/tea room in Harrod's called Laduree.  We each had really expensive sandwiches (because nothing there was cheap).  They wouldn't allow you to take pictures inside, so I snuck one real quick of my sandwich.  We were pretty full after the sandwiches, but we had to buy some of their iconic macaroons, so we bought some to go and had them later that day and the next day. 

Sandwich with Lox, Hard Boiled Egg, Lettuce, Cucumber, and Mayonnaise

Macaroons

The Bag and Box were so Chic!!

There's also a memorial for Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed in Harrod's--actually there's a shrine and a statue/sculpture thing. 

Shrine

Statue/Sculpture--It Says "Innocent Victims" at the Base

We had concert tickets for a classical music concert at Royal Albert Hall for this evening, but we had a few hours to kill before then.  It wasn't really worth going all the way back to our hotel and then coming back into the city again, so we walked to the Hall and found a cafe around there called CocoMomo.  Mark had some Guinness and I had some tea and we had a nice table at the window to do some people watching.  One note about the Guinness in England--it's delicious!  It's so smooth and has this coffee-like taste. 

Royal Albert Hall was amazing.  It was so beautiful on the inside and pretty cool to think that it's been open since 1871.  The concert was also enjoyable--it was essentially a "best of" classical music, so I actually recognized a lot of the pieces they played.

Royal Albert Hall--Gorgeous!

Inside Royal Albert Hall

After the concert, we were feeling confident enough to take our first public bus ride!  Up until this point, we have been sticking to the underground or walking because the buses were kind of intimidating to me.  I didn't have a map of where the buses went and I wasn't sure I would know where to get off if I got on a bus.  But we got on a bus that was going to Notting Hill, where we could then transfer to the Tube.  The bus ride was fun--we sat at the front of the top deck and it was cool to see the city on the way to our destination.  From this day on, we used the buses much more often and loved it.

Our First Bus Ride--On the Top Deck

We had dinner at this place called Nando's in Notting Hill.  I had a chicken sandwich with mashed potatoes, which was really good.  I forgot to take a picture because I was so hungry.

Another fantastic day in London--so many things to see and so many awesome experiences.

Day 3 in London--10/3/11

Today was a super busy day!  We started off by going to the Tower Bridge.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

Next to the Tower Bridge is The Tower of London, a castle that's about a thousand years old.  It used to be a royal residence and also used as a prison.  Many people were executed there, usually by chopping off their heads, including Anne Boleyn, a wife of Henry VIII.  The Tower of London is also where they house the Crown Jewels.  One special piece included a 530 carat flawless diamond!

Outside the Tower of London

Outside the Tower of London

Our Tour Guide

An Old-Fashioned Toilet

Place where people were beheaded

Famous  Tower of London Ravens--this bird was scary!

From the Tower of London, we went to the British Museum.  We didn't have a lot of time there, but we saw the essentials, which included the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone.  The Elgin Marbles are from the Parthenon in Greece, and apparently Greece wants them back.  The Rosetta Stone is what helped scientists "crack the code" to be able to decipher hieroglyphics.  The museum in and of itself was a beautiful structure!  Unfortunately, the famous Reading Room in the museum is closed for the next three years because they are having some special exhibit in there.  Bummer!  I really wanted to see it and imagine the people who had previously used it being there, such as Karl Marx and Mark Twain.

Front of the British Museum

Inside the British Museum

Rosetta Stone

Room with the Elgin Marbles

Part of the Elgin Marbles

We made a pit stop at a local pub after the museum and then it was on to Kings Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter. 

Pub across the street from the British Museum

We were so tired at the end of the day we ended up having dinner at the restaurant at our hotel.  It was an Asian restaurant and I had the best fried rice with bok choy I have ever had! 

Day Two in London--10/2/11

I had bought tickets several months earlier to tour Buckingham Palace on Sunday.  In addition to touring the palace, they had a special royal wedding exhibit.  On display, they had Kate's wedding dress, shoes, tiara, veil, earrings and a replica of her bouquet,  in addition to their wedding cake.  They wouldn't let you take pictures in the Palace so unfortunately, I'll just have to remember it myself.  Her wedding dress was gorgeous!

Palace Guard

Buckingham Palace Gates

Front of Buckingham Palace

Back of Buckingham Palace

After the Palace tour, we walked through Green Park toward Westminster Abbey and had a light lunch at the Red Lion Pub.

Bruschetta

Fried Brie with a sweet jelly sauce and side salad

 After lunch we walked to see Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey.  Unfortunately, the Abbey does not offer tours on Sundays because of church services, so we had to come back and do the tour another day. 

Big Ben with the London Eye in the Background

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Tube Stop

Day One in London--10/1/11

This is going to be several days of recapping--so here it goes! 

Last Friday, we took a red-eye to London, left Newark at about 9:30 PM and arrived at about 9:30 AM (local time) in London.  It was good in that we didn't waste a whole day traveling, but it was also challenging because since we arrived so early, I wanted to try to stay awake the whole day to adjust to the time faster.  I did sleep a little bit on the plane, so that was helpful.

We got to our hotel, the Ramada Encore, at about 11 AM.  Normally check-in time isn't until about 3 PM, but luckily they had a room available and let us check in early.  Thank goodness!  We were so grateful to be able to put our stuff in our room and unpack and rest a little before going out.  I don't know what we would have done if we couldn't check in.  We also got a free upgrade to their "executive suite."  Score!

Our room

View from our hotel room

We loved our hotel...the staff were very friendly and helpful, the hotel was very modern and comfortable.  We have absolutely no complaints about it!  It was about a 20 minute tube ride to the city center of London, and the tube stop was about 2 blocks away.

Ramada Encore Hotel

We had bought tickets in advance to a play (The Globe Mysteries) at the Shakespeare Globe Theater.  When we bought the tickets, we knew there was a chance we might not be able to go if our flight got delayed or if we were just too tired.  Mark was actually exhausted when we got to the hotel and fell asleep for a little over an hour.  I had trouble waking him up, but he said he still wanted to go to the show.  We found our way to the theater, which was built to represent the way the theater looked in the time of Shakespeare.  It was really cool.  One drawback was that London was having an unusual heat wave for the first few days we were there...so it was actually quite warm and stagnant in the theater, which is outdoors.

On Millennium Bridge on our way to the Globe Theater

In the Shakespeare Globe Theater

Outside the Theater

The show finished at about 4 PM and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Zizzi, which was by the Globe Theater and also along the river Thames.

View of the river Thames from the restaurant

On our way back to the tube, we stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral.

St. Paul's Cathedral--a bride was about to walk down the aisle

St. Paul's Cathedral

I was pretty exhausted by the early evening.  We went back to our hotel and I had some fish and chips at the hotel restaurant later in the evening before calling it a night.  Overall, a good first day!

Wishing We Were Still in London

Before I start to recap our trip, I must say that it's actually been kind of a difficult transition to be back.  I know, I know, we only went to London and we only went for a week so I wasn't expecting to feel any differently upon returning.  I'm not exactly sure why yet, but I'm actually kind of sad to be back.  Perhaps it's because I haven't been abroad in awhile for any significant period of time and I miss the "high" that I get absorbing another culture.  Perhaps it's because we had such a wonderful time that I miss waking up everyday being so excited as to what we'll see and experience that day.  Or maybe it's because London was such a fabulous and inviting city that I didn't really miss the "luxuries" of home...we had it all there--comfortable bed, good food, temperate conditions, everything is in English, etc.  Or maybe it's because I don't want to go to work today.  I'm not sure...

Back In The U.S. of A

I have lots of blogging to catch up on!  I've been MIA because for the last week we were vacationing in London!  We had a wonderful fabulous lovely time, which is still an understatement.  London is a great city to visit--lots to see and so easy to get around.  I will be blogging all about our trip in the upcoming days....so excited to recap the events and relive the moments through photos!