Londontown

London...quite possibly my new favorite place I've been to in Europe, and definitely my favorite big city I've been to besides Paris.  It reminds me a lot of New York, and not just because they speak English! :)

My friend, Katie, has been visiting in Paris for the past week or so, and on Friday morning we took the Eurostar train to meet Nick in London for the weekend.  After a small inquisition from the security people about why we are going to the UK (this is not your typical, it's-okay-to-show-up-to-the-train-5-minutes-before-it-leaves type of train.  Since UK is not part of the EU it's almost like flying and going through customs).  But once we were on the train, it was a very fast 2 hour and 15 minute ride to London.  (And the Chunnel....yeah, it doesn't really seem that different than any other tunnel).

Since Nick had to work during the day Friday, Katie and I had the day to explore.  After checking into our super cute hotel in Notting Hill (thanks hotwire!), we headed over to check out the British museum. We saw lots of interesting things including the Rosetta Stone and part of the beard of the Great Sphinx (I guess this is as close as I'll get to Egypt for now since our cruise canceled that port!)  But, we quickly realized that free museums=TONS of people.

Obviously a necessary pit-stop

Cleopatra's mummy at the British Museum

After a pub lunch, we wandered around the Soho area to Picadilly Sqaure, but after realizing there was no way we could afford the stores around here, we decided to head back in the area of our hotel and check out Portobello Market.  So awesome...we only saw half of it, and it was just filled with clothes, antiques, food, crafts, etc.  We didn't buy anything, but I did see a teapot that I wish I had bought (you will quickly see that I still have a lengthy list of things left to do in London).

Notting Hill neighborhood

Portobello Market

Friday evening we finally reunited with Nick and headed over along the river to check out a free concert at the Scoop.  It was a pretty good band and the crowd was filled with locals just having a great night. My kind of vacation...spending it like the locals!
We got pretty hungry though and made the trek along the river to a highly recommended pub.  Surprisingly, there were very few people actually eating there, but tons of people drinking inside and outside.  During our 4 days here we came to realize that this is actually pretty common around 6-7 pm: crowds just overflow onto the road drinking their beers.

View from dinner

To end the night, we continued our river walk and quickly became tourists, snapping pictures of all the famous sights: Big Ben, Eye of London, St. Mark's Cathedral.

Saturday morning started with a "traditional English breakfast", which was filled with sausage, eggs, meat, tomatoes, bread, and beans, wheewww!  Fully stuffed we were ready to take on our touristy-filled day of Westminster, St. Mark's, and potentially the Tower of London.  The weather called for rain, but we got lucky and had mostly sunny skies with a few clouds (which were pretty nice to keep us from roasting!)



We arrived at Westminster to see HUGE lines, even though it was around lunch time, which Rick Steves suggested had fewer lines (apparently not in high tourist season).  We waited anyway, and after about 45 minutes finally got inside.  Overall the church was pretty interesting--there were lots of tombs inside of famous kings and people like Isaac Newton.  The ticket included an audio guide; however, the ticket did not include the ability to take pictures inside the church, which I found out the hard way.  As you probably know by now, I like to try and sneak a few illegal pictures.  Yeah, yeah, there's a sign with a camera with a line through it, but that's more of a guideline, right?  Not here...the security people hawked you here and stalked me down after only 1 picture.  Umm...if I'm paying almost $30 to go in your church (and very few other churches in Europe charge at all), I think I should be allowed to take pictures, just saying...
Off to St. Mark's next expecting much of the same: lines, tons of people, and security hawking me, but were pleasantly surprised to find none of these things!  The inside of the church is beautiful and audio guide did a great job keeping things interesting.  (And I managed about 3 illegal pictures here with no problems.)  Our most exciting part of this visit was right when were deciding if we should go in the crypts or climb the dome, the fire alarm went off and the church had to be evacuated.  Apparently it was a real alarm so no one knew what was going on for a good 20-30 minutes before we were finally allowed back in the church.  We decide to finish with the crypts and call it a day!
The clouds had started rolling in, and we were pretty exhausted so we decided to save Tower of London for later.  Instead we went back to our hotel neighborhood, ate a delicious fish and chips meal and went to some local pubs for some drinks.  Again, this was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.  We were pretty much the only tourists in the pubs, and it was great just experiencing the culture!
Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to stake out some places for the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham.  If you're thinking of doing this, I'll save you some time in deciding--Don't!  It was very anti-climactic.  It's basically just a parade of horses, bands, and the guards that's put on for tourists.  Last time I checked, Neil Diamond wasn't traditional British music.  If you really want to see it, show up to a side road last minute or just go to Tower of London and see a mini Changing of the Guard up close (we just happened to see this Monday when we were at the Tower, and it was was better).

Buckingham Palace

Not to worry though, the day quickly improved as we walked and picnicked in Hyde Park and walked around Kensington Palace.  A very relaxing afternoon with perfect weather!  Nick had to catch the train back to Paris that night, so Katie and I decided to look for some cheap last minute tickets to a musical.  We found some for Jersey Boys, which was AMAZING!!  After the show we discovered maybe the best burger restaurant I've ever eaten at in my life!  Even though the theater district is very touristy, Honest Burgers was in a small alley, had an hour+ wait and was filled with locals when we did get in.  Everything is fresh and local, and honestly (haha, pun intended!), it was the best burger I've ever had!

Cute gardens at Kensington Palace

Excited for Jersey Boys!

A few beers while we wait for our table at Honest Burgers

Monday (our last day!) we woke up bright and early to get to the Tower of London at opening and catch the first Beefeaters tour.  And, man are we glad we did.  The lines and Beefeater tours got busier every minute we were there!  We learned lots of interesting facts about the Tower of London and executions from Jerry, our Beefeater, and then saw the Crown Jewels (pretty impressive and I was terrified to attempt pics here) and some more of the castle.
We ate a picnic lunch near Big Ben, while waiting for the Houses of Parliament to open.  We got to sit in on the House of Lords in action, which was moderately interesting.  I was more in awe of the grandiose of the room itself (you had to store your purses and cameras here!) and had fun spotting all the lords that were asleep in the back row! haha!
The last thing we squeezed in before catching our train back to Paris was some shopping.  We'd seen tons of people with Primark bags throughout the weekend and decided we needed to check it out.  OH MY GOSH....I was in heaven...it's a bit like H&M but bigger and with a little better prices (yes, I'm aware this probably means the quality isn't great, but I'm willing to live with that for the little price I paid).  I was so glad to have birthday money to spend at this place! :)

London, it was a great time.  I can't wait to come back!

London quickly moved near the top of my "must visit again" list, and these are just a few of the things I still want to do:

~Buy a traditional English teapot and teacup set

~Borough Market and area (it wasn't ever open when we were there, but I LOVED the area)

~Hang out in Hyde Park and some of the other parks more

~See another musical

~More shopping (especially at Primark)

~Shakespeare's Globe theater--5 pound tickets

Be sure to check out the rest of our London pictures here.