London Town

We had another free weekend (there are very few left) so we decided to hop over to London to see the sights and visit Surrey, Drew's old stomping grounds.  (If you didn't know, the Solomons lived in England from 1996-1998 when Drew was a wee lad in 6th/7th grade.)  I've heard about his life over there so much that he wanted to be able to show it all to me before we leave!  We managed to fit some touristy stuff in too.

First stop: one of our favorite places in the world, Borough Market!  I've written about this before (and posted pics of the grilled cheese sandwich that Drew took the last bite of that I STILL get riled up about) but this is seriously a food lovers version of heaven.  It's amazing food stall after amazing food stall, all serving up different stuff, selling delicious baked goods and other food stuffs.  We had to go back for the aforementioned grilled cheese sandwich from Kappacasein and we also tried a Chorizo Roll from  Brindisa.  SO GOOD.  I wanted 20.  We also got a chocolate chip cookie the size of my head, no joke. Forgot to take a picture of it though before I ate it.

I'd been to the British Museum before in 7th grade, but I don't remember much except some stuff about Egypt and the Rosetta Stone.  We went back to check it out and learn some things.

My bro and I have a pic in front of this large Egyptian where I look bored and John looks like he doesn't want me near him.  Wish I could find it - but I tried to capture it again anyway.  Without looking bored.

Afternoon snack at The Plough after the museum!

We ran back to the hotel for a cat nap (because evidently we are OLD and can't do super early morning travel without an afternoon nap) and then got ready for an evening out.

We stopped by Buckingham Palace to wave to Queenie.

Pretty Big Ben in the distance!
(We couldn't figure out what all these additional fences were for and we realized the London Marathon was today.  Whoops!)

And we walked down the Mall to Trafalgar Square!

We got a pre-din drink at The Wellington in Covent Garden before dinner at The Delaunay.  I read about this restaurant on an admired travel blogger's website and she described it as an "elegant" restaurant that felt like a "Viennese cafe from another day", and she wasn't lying.  This place was lovely, elegant, classy, timeless, but surprisingly affordable!  It felt like a special evening out celebrating something, even though we weren't!

We both got the Wienerschnitzel with potatoes and broccolini.  Yummm.

Saturday was Surrey day!  But we woke up early and ran by (spent a few hours at) the Notting Hill Portobello Road Market that they have every Saturday.  Tons of shops are open and people from all over come to sell antiques and...anything else they want.  There were SO many people and I don't think we realized just how popular this thing was.  Great people watching and I picked up a pretty set of rings too!

We got some breakfast sandwiches from a cute cafe and finished it all up with a red velvet cupcake from the Hummingbird Bakery.

Then it was off to Surrey!  We took the 45 minute train from Waterloo Station and hopped off at Walton-on-Thames to walk to Drew's old house.

This is evidently the church where Julie Andrews got married, right around the corner from his hood.

His street!

The name of his house!
(The Brits are so great in that they have house NAMES instead of NUMBERS.  I wish we did that.)

The house itself!  (Drew's room was up there over the garage.)  Looked different than the pictures I'd seen but I felt like I was seeing something famous and historical!

Drew's alma mater, ACS Cobham.
(Middle school on the left and the high school on the right.)

The gym where Drew made it rain with 3-pointers.  Hell yeah!

The beautiful mansion that was Bethie's kindergarten.

The Prince of Wales is the local watering hole that David used to hang out in and we stopped by for lunch and some pints!

They had a gorgeous little beer garden in the back and the pub inside was cozy and cute.  I fell in love with it!

We decided to walk back to the train station with a couple of beers in our bellies, but the station turned out to be about 3 miles from where we were/thought it was.  And we couldn't find a cab.  And we had to walk.  And we had to pee SO BAD.  So we may or may not have literally climbed under a fence and gone to the bathroom in the woods behind the train stop.  But I can't be sure.

Next: home to change, out for drinks at the Lamb and Flag (a hole in the wall pub tucked away in a small alley, great atmosphere), and an exciting and yummy dinner at Dishoom, a trendy little Indian restaurant that had good cocktails and Indian "tapas".  So good!  We stuffed ourselves silly.  By accident.

Then we had more drinks at the Lamb and Flag again, where I tried to take a selfie of us but Drew kept ruining the pictures with weird faces.  Ugh.

It was a quick trip, but a good one.  I love London, and Drew definitely loves London, but every time I'm there I feel like I get a good grasp of just how big it is - and it's much too big for us/me.  The train/tube system is huge and impressive but I felt like we were on trains for 50% of the time we were there.  It made me long for the small town of Dublin where I can actually walk everywhere I need to go!  We probably won't be back to London for a long time so we were glad we went and happy to see Drew's hood again, or for the first time.

Goodbye London, we'll miss you!