Mind the Gap, Instant Coffee and Harrods

Day 1
After what seemed like a long flight on British Airways from Seattle to London, we arrived in the bustling city slightly tired, but were soon woken up by needing to stay alert in terms of navigating to our hotel.

British Airways was a bit of a joke because nothing worked, here’s a funny synopsis:
-none of the reading lights worked in our entire section
-all of our audio had the worst static noise coming though the speakers making it challenging to hear the amazing selection of oscar-winning movies they had on file
-my little travel pack they give you for oversees flights came opened, with parts broken and missing.
Ultimately the flight attendants were nice, so what was I going to do about it.

Took the 15-min Heathrow express to Paddington which happened to be our hotel’s stop and after walking the wrong way for 3 mins, got our bearings again and arrived around 2pm. I was a little worried about our hotel because its price was good and I’d read some sketchy comments about it on Trip Advisor; however, at the time I decided to take them with a grain of salt and I’m glad I did. I think the bulk of the comments were written pre-renovation.

Everything is pretty new in our suite and it has a very tasteful colour scheme. There were even fresh flowers (albeit some carnations) greeting us as we walked in. It’s actually a two-level, loft-style suite with our bedroom upstairs overlooking the main sitting area complete with tv, wireless and mini kitchen.

After two hours of napping, we forced ourselves out of bed to try and acclimatize to London time. Since Nathan really wanted to see the Lion King, we decided to stroll into the city and see if we could get last-minute tickets for that evening. Our hotel is pretty central, about 3 blocks from Hyde Park and about a 20-min walk to Marble Arch. We walked through a spring flower-filled Hyde park and then made our way down to oxford in search of Leicester square to look into cheap theatre tickets.

Although we knew we couldn’t get Lion King tickets at the TKTS booth, we wanted to see what was available for Thursday. Since we had no map, my trusty directional intuition kicked-in and I was somehow able to navigate us with particular ease (who knew I’d remember so well) down oxford, right at regent, through Piccadilly and straight to the ticket booth! Since we weren't into the available shows, we continued to navigate our way, again sans map, to covent garden to inquire about tickets at the Lion King theatre.

We got tickets for the top row which was a little bit of a different experience than my 3rd row seats from last time, but that worked just fine for us. We even met a young London couple beside us who when we asked for directions to the tube station, offered to give us a ride. So far people are very polite and genuine here!

Day 2
Woke up early and walked in Hyde park for awhile. Wow, lots of people have dogs in London. The weather is great - about 12-degrees and sunnyish.

Random thought 1- the instant coffee in europe is my new love.
Random thought 2- I love the 'to go' section at Sainsbury's grocery store. It has such yummy, well priced and healthy items.
Random thought 3- sewers are gross. Their scent likes to rise from the streets in London.

After an instant coffee with milk (that doesn't seem to need refrigeration - weird) in our hotel room, we heard from Dave and Steph that Camden Town was worth seeing, so off we went. Camden is kind of old school mixed with early-90's lofts, lots of punk stores and markets galore. Got a beautiful knock-off Chloe bag in brown and some pashminas! Then we grabbed lunch from Sainsbury's and ate it on the bank of the Camden river watching the river boats raise and lower in the various 'river locks' scattering the brownish water. Slightly tired from that little adventure, went back to the hotel and sipped on yet another instant coffee. Decaf of course. Need to bring a bunch of packages of that stuff home.

The rest of our afternoon was relatively uneventful because we both fell asleep in separate rooms. When I woke up I wondered "what the hell am I doing sleeping in London?" Who sleeps in one of the coolest cities in the world? Me = looser I guess.

In light of our accidental slumber fest, we got up really quickly and headed into town because I was interested in seeing the London Museum - a museum all about London's history. Not so ironically, by the time we got there we looked at my watch it was too late to get in. So we forged on and took the tube to Harrods.

Harrods is crazy; I can't get over all the little sections which make up the store. The food section alone blows my mind. Harrods even has its own brand of ice cream. I really liked the home decor section --particularly the bathroom section where we saw some crazy sinks (a sink made out of wood) and double soaker tubs with enough jets to launch a space ship. Really, it's like a giant museum. It would take days to navigate each floor. I wonder what the staff discount is there?

Decided we wanted to eat dinner in Soho. I don't really see the big deal with Soho, but maybe I haven't seen enough of it, or seen it in all its glory. Found a cool little tapas place for dinner called "Aperetifo." The atmosphere was great, but it lacked in the taste department --except for the pana cotta I wasn't planning to eat but ate half of. Oops.

Now I'm drinking my 4th or 5th instant decaf coffee in our hotel room as I reminisce about the day. Cheerio.