Lessons from London - Part 2

A little bit more about our London adventures...

Outside Westminster Abbey

After our tour of the Abbey, we decided to visit Piccadilly Circus, which is kind of like London's Times Square. Here there are lots of theaters but our sights were set on the shopping. We had gotten a tip that Lillywhites is a great place to buy sports souvenirs and we were not disappointed. The store was huge...we only visited three of the four of five, maybe even six floors. And we picked up just a few things on the way. :)

Lesson 6: The Exchange Rate will trick you!! Today 1 British Pound is the equivalent of $1.66. Which means when we got excited about a shirt that was on sale for 10.99 Pounds, that really meant $18. And when your grand total comes to 100 Pounds, that really means you spent $166. Your money does not go very far in London so beware!!

Some of our shopping bags

After all of that shopping we thought we deserved a break. So we stopped at a British pub. There are tons of them everywhere and they are so cute! Actually, everything in London was exactly like you see in the movies. A lot of the pubs we saw had fun creative names (The Queen's Head, Sherlock Holmes, Ship and Shovell) and had the bar portion on the bottom floor and a more formal dining area on the second floor. Separated by tiny, steep staircases.

Lesson 7: Get up and order your food at the bar. Not sure if this is the case for every single place in London or Europe but it was the case at a few of the places we tried. Especially at The Comedy Pub where there was one man working the entire bar and restaurant area. They won't greet you at the door, seat you or send servers to take your order so it's best to get up and order as soon as you're ready.

This one was The Comedy Pub where we had a pint of Carling, fish and chips and meat pie.

The London Eye is a giant ferris wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames. It also happened to be right next to our hotel and part of the view outside our window. It was huge and moved VERY slowly. Apparently so slowly that it does not even stop for you to get off...you just kind of hop out as it moves towards the ground! This was another recommendation but it was not something we ended up having time for. I think it would have given a magnificent view of the entire city.

Here's the London Eye from right underneath

London Eye straight back, Hotel is the building on the right

One of my favorite moments was enjoying complimentary wine and cheese in the Library at our hotel on Friday evening. Our view of Big Ben was incredible. It was so nice to just slow down for a second and enjoy our surroundings and the fact that we got to spend time in such a great city.

Our next adventure was to conquer Harrod's, a very upscale department store located in the Knightsbridge area of London. We got there with only an hour and a half to shop until it closed (see Lesson 5) but we got a taste of the shopping experience. The building itself is old and beautiful and has SEVEN floors. We just scraped the surface of all there is to discover here.

Lesson 8: You could (and probably should) spend an entire day at Harrod's. You have your standard men's wear, women's wear, luxury goods, etc but also a perfumery, personal shopping, an accessories section, gift wrapping service, wine spirits and cigars, toy kingdom, technology, furniture, and so on. We spent most of our time in the Food Hall buying gifts.

On Saturday morning we got up bright and early to pack up and see a few more sights. We walked through St. James Park...

...to Buckingham Palace. We wanted to see the Changing of the Guards, which takes place every other day during this time of year. Even an hour before the ceremony, the area was crammed with people.

Lesson 9: Allow lots of time to get a good spot if you are really interested in Changing of the Guards. Otherwise, it's fun to be in the area but maybe a bit overrated. There is much pomp and circumstance surrounding this very old tradition. They still make a big deal out of this ceremony so it's fun to experience.

The Tower of London was our final stop before we were off to the airport for our next adventure. This is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames. It's known as Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress and is home to the Crown Jewels....which were breathtaking. It's illegal to take pictures so you'll just have to imagine them.

From the outside

With London Bridge in the background

After our visit to the Tower, we headed back to the hotel, hopped in a cab for Heathrow. We checked our bags, thought we had plenty of time for dinner and beer and ended up having to run through the airport to get on our flight! What a hilarious time!

Lesson 10: Put London on your bucket list. It's an incredible place full of world history and lots of activities. I am already planning to go back someday and spend a longer period of time there.

I'm sure there are plenty of details that I've left out so I hope I get to share my stories, pictures and videos with you soon. Also, I've been working on loading my GoPro videos to my YouTube channel. You can check them out here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrh4FvTHZKFdIShDC4HkR6RtJcMonr4Zg. I will also start a South Africa playlist once I get home (the internet here is slow and it takes at least two hours to upload one video). Cheers!

British Slang

Thought I'd write down some of the catchiest English terms we've come across. And to add to the fun, check out The Best of British Slang.

• Brilliant - describes something cool or impressive
• Cheerio - A police officer said this to us as a goodbye after giving advice and instructions about local sites
• Cheers - seemed to be a way to say hello, goodbye or thank you
• Mate - friend or buddy; everyone at the pub is all of a sudden your good mate!
• Mind the gap - instead of warning to "watch your step" when entering and exiting the Tube
• Nibbles - referred to appetizers in the hotel lounge; headed to wine and nibbles
• Toilet - a more crass term for the bathroom or restroom
• Way Out - exit

Lessons from London - Part 1

This is the first free moment I've had since we left LAX at 5pm on Wednesday evening!! But cheers from London! This city is more amazing than I could have imagined. I've heard great things about London but it's just something you have to experience to truly understand. I only wish we had more time to spend here.

Here's what we've been up to...

Flying into Heathrow

Accenture's in London too!

We are staying at the Marriott London County Hall which I would highly recommend! It is right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the city. We even have a view of the London Eye and Big Ben from our room. You can hear the clock tower ring every 15 minutes.

We landed at Heathrow around 11am but spent some time collecting our bags and going through Customs. Instead of taking a cab, we chose to take the Underground or the Tube from the airport. Price difference was more than 50 pounds which is about $80!

Lesson 1: Invest in an Oyster Card. This is what you will use for the Underground and the city bus for your entire trip. We loaded 15 pounds on the card which got us from the airport and all around the city. It saves you time and money since you don't have to stop and pay every time you get on and off. We ran out tonight so will have to reload in order to get back to the airport tomorrow.The public transportation here is really quick and really easy. It can get pretty crowded during rush hour so you have to be ready to battle the crowds.

Once we got situated at our hotel we freshened up and headed out for High Tea. We walked about a mile (across the Thames River and through Trafalgar Square!) to The Rose Lounge at the Sofitel Hotel. It was very quaint and so delicious! Something I will always remember!

Lesson 2: If you plan to pay using a debit or credit card, always ask the restaurants what their service fee is. Apparently it is different for every place and is in addition to any fees your bank may charge. We ended up putting a few things on the charge card but then found a Barclays ATM and took out cash. Since Barclays is a partner of Bank of America, the service fee was just 3% (instead of the possible 10-15% at the individual restaurants).

Rose and Lichi Champagne Cocktails to Begin

An assortment of sandwiches, scones and jams.

And of course dessert to top it all off.

It was very relaxing to sit at tea for a couple hours after such a long trip AND we were still getting the English experience. We walked back to our hotel and pretty much crashed.

Lesson 3: Don't sit down after such a long trip unless you are ready for bed! We ended up going to sleep around 9 or 10. I could hardly think straight and I fell asleep so easily. The night felt like a series of naps though and I didn't feel as refreshed in the morning as I would have liked. Hopefully tonight's sleep helps!

We got up around 8 this morning and headed to breakfast at the hotel. This traditional English breakfast was included with our stay and was one of the best breakfasts I have ever had! That's saying a lot considering I am a huge breakfast person. There were eggs, bacon, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, and lots of freshly baked breads and croissants. This might sound like your regular old continental breakfast but, believe me, it was not. What made it even more special is the way everything was presented...in cute, quaint, English jars and pots.

Lesson 4: Croissants and breads are much better when they are freshly baked! I say this because I've had a croissant in America but never freshly baked. And never with soft butter or black currant preserves. I picked the croissant thinking I'd have a little taste and before I knew it, the entire thing was gone.

Hot options. I added cheese into the mix!

Our own coffee pot.

Croissant!!!

Le Creuset

Panorama of the entire setup

We had a busy day planned and thought we'd gotten up and around early. Breakfast was so yummy and so relaxing that I think we spent more time there than planned.

Lesson 5: Everything takes more time than you think. Plan accordingly. In my case, since we only had a few days, this means come back to London soon!

First on our list today was the Westminster Abbey. Now I had heard the Abbey is a must-see and is the location of weddings, funerals and coronations for British Royalty. But I had no idea how incredible it would really be. I was in awe the entire time. It cost 18 pounds for a 1 hour self paced audio tour. The building itself was enormous and absolutely stunning. Just a few of the incredible sights included the burial places of Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, and George Frederic Handel; the Quire area where this infamous picture of Will and Kate was taken; the tombs of Henry III, Edward I, Eleanor of Castile, etc. etc. Each of them with their own amazing story and role in British and World History.

Submitted a prayer request, lit a candle and snuck a picture

It's after 11pm now and I'm exhausted so the rest of our day (and lessons) will have to wait. Tomorrow we are getting an even earlier start to get some more sightseeing in before we leave for Johannesburg at 6:30pm. Cheers!!