June 12, 2023

📍London, England, Part II 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇬🇧

The one where my best friend comes to visit.

Day 1: J and I took the train from Knaresborough to London. We were just about to leave when J’s British dad—the host family he had stayed with for a majority of the time we traveled solo—told him he had heard the rain and wind caused trees to fall and created a LOT of delays. Turns out, he was right. There were horrible storms and trees had fallen on the tracks in multiple places. We called for a cab; the wait time…FOUR HOURS. I could walk the 220 miles to London faster, so that wasn’t going to work. We were constructing plan B when all of the sudden we heard a train. We ran for the tracks and, sure enough, it was the train heading in the direction towards London so we jumped on. Apparently, the train got stuck going the other way because of a tree so they decided to turn around and this was the only opportunity to start making our way to London. We got to the point where we needed to transfer with about 5 minutes to spare. We sprinted and we made it. Travel success story for the books.

We arrived in London, checked into our hotel Oliver Plaza Hotel, quickly put our things down, and started making our way to Erin and Jaime who were awaiting our arrival at the bar. It had been a stressful day of travel and my scent reflected the stress, so the nice lady at the front desk gave me some soap. I graciously managed the stank in the lobby bathroom and we were on our way. Luxury travel at its finest. We found our friends and made our way to Borough Market for some fish ‘n’ chips with a quick stop at the London Bridge. Can’t miss a photo op.

Not pictured: the fish ‘n’ chips because we inhaled them.

I had remembered the hazelnut espresso martini from Grind and seeing as it was Jaime’s birthday, a proper drink was in order. We celebrated with a drink (or 4) and intensely discussed the infamous question on our trip: “What is the difference between a shot and a shooter?” Is it based on size or what makes up the drink?

Jaime’s cousin met up with us and we all went to a rooftop bar called London Bridge Rooftop Bar. We continued our celebration while enjoying the view.

Erin had taken a redeye and J and I hadn’t showered since we sprinted through the train station, so we all decided to head back to the hotel and clean up. We did make a quick pitstop to see the big guy they call Big Ben and to see the London Eye at night.

Once everyone was ready, we went to SoHo for dinner at Goodman and a night out. Most of the clubs had long lines, so we grabbed drinks at a pub. Around 11ish though, it seemed all the pubs were closing. Not that the city of London is looking for my opinion, but the fact that the pubs close that early is quite absurd. We waited in line for a bit at a club, but ultimately decided to call it a night.

Nothing good happens when you break up your day drinking to shower. Power through people, power through.

To be fair, she had taken a redeye and had not slept.

Day 2: My friend had told me about a beer festival that was happening, so without further questions we purchased tickets and made our way. Frankly, J and I aren’t the biggest beer people (ok, we never really drink beer), but 1: I had read there was food and other liquor and 2: my friends do like beer and I am selfless, apparently. We had invited a few London friends as well, so we spent the day all together happily drinking and playing games.

Once the festival was over, we ubered to the strip of bars our London friends recommended. We got in the Uber, after I chased it down as it was trying to leave without it’s passengers (rude), and we were on our way.

We got to the bar and found ourselves a standing table. It is common knowledge that the high tops at the bar are first come first serve. So we collected some chairs, ordered some food, and began to relax. Apparently, London doesn’t just drive on the opposite side of the road, but they have different bar rules too. The hostest came over and told us the table was reserved. There was a tiny table in the corner and she said that was fair game. So, we moved. Ten minutes later, we were told to move again. Found another table, it happened AGAIN. Finally, we found a nice table outside. It was perfect…until they closed the outside area 15 minutes after we sat down. I truly cannot make this up. The silver lining here is we did get one free drink at some point, but we decided enough was enough and it was time to find another bar.

Day 3: Erin and I woke up early to go to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards. I’m not sure if we thought we were the only two people in London that wanted to watch, but we got there WAY too late and it was packed. We maneuvered ourselves to find a good (enough) spot to watch and we waited. We learned two things that day: get there early and it is not a short event. After 45 minutes of standing on our tippy toes to see the fuzzy little hats, we watched some people march, heard some sounds from an instrument, and eventually got close to one of the guards exiting. Truthfully, for our lack of planning it turned our pretty well for us.

We continued our tourist day with riding on the top of a red double-decker bus (a tourist must) to get to our lunch location called Dishoom. If you read the blog, you have seen this name a time or two and that is because I love it and need to share it with everyone I have ever met. We somehow got in without a reservation and enjoyed ourselves a nice, heavy lunch.

Fueled and ready to continue on, we made our way to the London Eye. While we were on our way, we saw what we thought was a burial service on the bridge. We had absolutely no idea what was going on, but we needed to find out. It was a group of people, the men and women were separated, and the men were not wearing shirts. They were holding a casket and many were crying. The prayers were not in English so we were VERY confused. Were they going to throw the casket in the water? Do they do all their services in the middle of this busy bridge? Was this person who passed important for some reason? WHAT WAS GOING ON!? I tried to google it and did not find much. I asked the security guard and all he said was burial service.

To the left you can see the casket being held up.

After watching intently for a rather long time, we got on the most expensive ferris wheel I have ever experienced (shout out to my sugar mama Erin for buying my ticket).

J was eventually meeting up with us (he had already done all the touristy London things that we had not, so he had himself a peaceful morning). Before we met up with him, he recommended The Graffiti Tunnel which sounded like something we would like and since it was close by we went. It was so cool. There were street artists doing their thing and the entire tunnel was covered in impressive graffiti.

J met up with us and recommended we go to Sushisamba. It has the best sushi and the best views, but was really expensive, so we got a few rolls to share and I have been thinking about those rolls since. We watched the sunset from the 39th floor with sushi in hand. Life was good. Jaime eventually met up with us and we had a drink here before we went to look for more food.

We walked passed Rock & Sole Plaice and the sign said it had the best fish ‘n’ chips so I had to find out. The restaurant was full, but J and Jaime were able to order to go while Erin and I scoped out a table in a food hall called Seven Dials Market. The four of us had some food (well, a lot of food), hung out for a bit, and then headed home. Erin had to leave early in the morning to catch her flight.

Truthfully, Erin and I wanted to do a few things that day that didn’t exactly go as planned. Note to self: plan things in advance in London. Things we wanted to do and failed:

Go to high tea: all full
Go to a comedy show: all full
Go to a bingo event: again, all full
See the Harry Potter show: obviously, full as well
Go up to Sky Garden: fully booked
Go to a market: closed on Sundays
Go to Wimbledon: a bit too far to make it in time for the last available open timeslot

The good news is we were together in London and still had the best time and found plenty to do. Life hack: travel with someone like Erin.

Day 4: Erin left and we were sad. J and I had absolutely no plans, but he wanted to see other parts of England. We went back and forth for a bit but eventually decided to leave that night to head to Salisbury to see Stonehenge. Since we had the whole day before our train, we went to tour Wimbledon and explore the area.