Hi everyone!! i miss you all terribly! I have been in London for the past 4 days with my mom just touring around before my program starts. She has been typing a blog like e-mails to my dad so i thought i would just copy Hi everyone! I miss you all terribly! I have been in london the past 4 days traveling around with my mom before my program starts. My mom has been typing a blog like e-mail to my dad so I thought i would just copy and paste what she has been sending so you all can hear what we have been up too. Sorry about all the food description it is my dad's favorite part of traveling so she made sure each meal was detailed :) Also it is a bit lengthy so feel free to skim. I can not wait to here how you all are doing! and i promise some original writing once i get to italy :)
January 21, 2001: We arrive in London
The flight over was fine….although I must admit it was difficult to travel in steerage after our wonderful business class to Europe in September. But the flight was smooth, we both slept some and arrived right on time with our luggage!!! We took a cab to our hotel from the airport (only cost two arms and a leg) The Windermere hotel is a typical narrow London town home with lots of narrow winding stairs and no elevators… a bed and breakfast. We have a nice room with two single beds and our own bath (that was worth the extra money) After we arrived (too early to check into our room) we hit the streets and walked to the closest tube station, changed some $ into pounds and ate lunch in a typical city type lunch bistro. After chili soup and salad nicoise (guess who had which) we bravely entered the Victoria Station tube. We looked at the map, we looked around, we looked at the ticket machines and then....we stood in line at the assistance counter and got good directions on how it all worked. Actually very similar to DC but lots more lines. As we emerged from the London Bridge station, we easily found London Dungeon….our first stop on Arielle’s itinerary. A unique tourist attraction where you enter a dark ,long series of tunnels and wander around under the streets of London. Imagine a scary Halloween house but with a budget of Obama's inaugural balls. It was fun, a little hokey and scary in parts. Arielle loved the labyrinth of luck that was really effective in making you feel lost in the tunnels of London. The walls were all mirrors but you didn't realize it until you walked directly into your own nose. Sherri liked the Sweeney Todd Barbershop where you sat in big chairs and actually felt and heard Sweeney's scissors scrapping across your scalp. We watched a fellow group member burn at the stake, heard about Jack the Ripper murders, learned about the London fires and escaped through a rolling bridge surrounded by fire. We passed on being hung in the gallows at the end to pamper Mom's back. A fun activity to keep us awake on our first afternoon here. Resting now in the room with plans to go out for an early dinner and then to bed. We were lucky if we got 4 hours of sleep on the plane, so staying awake until a London bedtime has been our goal.
January 21, PM installment
What an adventure in being lost (above ground which was Sherri’s responsibility). After a sleepy 30 minute rest, we bundled up and headed out for dinner. On exiting the tube station we were already lost. It took us 4 asking of directions, 30 minutes of wandering, searching for street signs and address number we finally made it to CIRCUS behind an unmarked door that we had already passed twice and only 30 minutes late for our reservation. NO PROBLEMS however….it all worked as Sherri’s ploy to wake up Arielle. Dinner was delicious especially after all the warnings that food in London is not so good. Arielle ordered an encrusted filet with shallots and “fancy” onion rings which she cut without a steak knife. Sherri had vegetable pockets which were tasty veges with a little cheese wrapped in phyllo dough served with a yellow garden tomato and pomegranate salad. Both YUMMY! Of course the waiter told us the desserts were delicious so we partook. Arielle ordered hand made passion fruit, lemon and strawberry sorbet served with each of the real fruits in combination and Sherri had almond cake with honey and blood plums with blood plum ice cream. The almond cake was served hot and was delicious. Sherri liked Arielle’s sorbets better than the plum ice cream. A easy ride home and in bed by 8:40, asleep at 9 for …..drum roll please…13 hours!!!!!!
Saturday January 22, 2011
We woke up at 10 am……YAWN and out for food and air at 11 am!!!! Stopped for breakfast at Omar’s place in our hood! Omar knew customers by name and made friends with Arielle over milkless, butterless scrambled eggs. We decided to embrace our tourist persona and bought tickets on The Original London Tour bus. A great decision. We traveled around London on our Double Decker bus with Tom our tour guide and John our driver. We hopped off at Buckingham Palace to see Elizabeth, but unfortunately she forgot we were coming and was not at home. Saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, House of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, Tower Bridge (and we knew the difference), JK Rowling’s house who has a large fake dog on her patio (just fyi).
We hopped off again at the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels (really amazing) and to climb the Tower of Blood where we learned about prisoners of the crown who had been held hostage there. We then raced home to rest our weary legs before meeting up with Arielle’s friend from home Alix Kraft. Ride to meet Alix was crazy…ticket machine would not take our credit card for ticket, tube was packed and we had to push our way on. Our Arielle is very “feisty”. Alix was late too so all was well. Had dinner at a Japanese Restaurant we wondered upon as the suggested spot had too long of a wait. A really beautiful restaurant with delicious Teriyaki salmon and chicken both served with miso soup and wasabi mashed potatoes and grilled peppers. YUMMY! And now off to the show…WE WILL ROCK YOU!
The Dominion Theater was beautiful inside and we got Alix a ticket only a few rows behind us. We sat in the third row for a really fun show with great music (all from Queen); great costumes, dancing, energy. A very fun and enjoyable evening. Uneventful ride home on the tube and off to bed by midnight ( ok really 1 am) tonight!
Sunday January 23, 2011
We both woke up tired this morning, but in time for our extensive English breakfast of hard boiled eggs, hash browns, toast and jam, corn flakes, cut up fruit and OJ and tea. Still a little sleepy, we went to our Victoria tube station to find out that the two lines we needed were closed for repairs and the round about way to get to Spitfield’s outdoor market was way too round about..so we guiltily hoped in a taxi! The taxi dropped us off, and pointed us across the road where we entered a swarming hive called Spitfield market. It was enormous…all outdoors with vendors selling jewelry, clothes, purses, wallets, art work, vintage pieces, food, hats, scarves, coats, gloves…and lots more. Arielle bought a clock necklace for herself that was really pretty. We then had lunch in a place called Giraffe. Their motto…love eat live and the menu stated “we wanted to create a friendly place where a smile goes a long way.” How could we resist!
Back to hotel for a rest…and then out in the cold so we could go into the cold. We went to a place called the Ice Bar. What a blast (pun intended). After being adorned with a 10 pound cape suitable for walking Nikki (our dog) or the -5 degree C temperature we were about to enter. It was so cool…..and cold. As the sliding doors opened we walked into a 20 x 20 ice castle. The room, the seats, the walls, the bar and even our cups were all made of ice. Arielle ordered a cosmo while Sherri ordered a 5 below arctic breeze. They were delicious, chapped our lips and it was actually tricky to drink out of a large square ice cube! We stayed for 10 minutes listening to the techno music before we exited to the warm quiet London night air. Not wanting to call it a night, we went to The Riply’s Believe It or Not museum conveniently located across the street. What a fun experience looking at all the unbelievable things. Among our top favorites were
*Dipping our hands in a tub filled with water set to the temperature of the ocean in which the Titanic sank. It really was cold.
*The portrait of Princess Diana made completely out of dryer lint.
*Queen Elizabeth’s face made out of 5200 pennies.
*And finally, in a room filled with mutated people, the most frightening was the ancient Asian emperor with two pupils in each eye socket.
After we left, believe it or not, we headed back to our hotel and stopped into one of the neighborhood restaurants for a delicious Italian dinner. Pasta with Bolognese Sauce and Margarita Pizza. AHH we can already taste Italy! Buona Notte!
Monday January 24, 2011
Yipeee a sleep in day. At least in theory because around 8:30 am we were woken by a hammering sound as the owners of the house were repairing and painting the front door! NO PROBLEM…up we got, and off we went….to the RITZ! We indulged ourselves in a high tea fiy for the queen. Passsion tea, Darjeling, and English tea were our choices and they were combined with tomato, cucumber, egg, chicken and ham sandwiches. Atop the fancy tea tray were very sweet, very creamy, very dairy desserts. As per our order, Arielle enjoyed fresh fruit and some diary free dessert options. And of course scones were served! What a fancy indulgence.
After tea we taxied to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. What a cultural treat. We took a tour through the globe theater and learned about trap doors, penny stinkers and printing presses. Shakespeare himself would have been proud of us. We left the theater and walked across the Millennium Bridge (better known by some as the bridge over which the death eaters flew in one of the Harry Potter films). In that spirit we then jumped onto the Piccadilly underground tube line and went to King’s Cross where we visited Platform 9 ¾.
I waved goodbye to Arielle as she pushed her trolley through the platform to catch her train to Hogwarts. I yelled, “What about Italy?”, she hesitated and luckily turned around to head back to our hotel with me to get dressed for a big night out with tickets to see Billy Elliot!
Tomorrow we head to Florence!!!!
