London: Day 3
I slept through the whole night last night! WEE!!! That’s a HUGE accomplishment in combatting jet lag. But, now, of course, I feel a cold coming on. Must. Sleep. More.
The beauty of traveling somewhere that’s a full 8 hours ahead of where you live is that your regular workday doesn’t begin until about 5pm. This is brilliant.
Today, Dan and I went to the Tower of London while Marc went to the one meeting scheduled today (we didn’t need to join him). The Tower was magnificent — it was so neat to see so much history. We walked in and out of towers, up and down endless spiral staircases and learned about a good chunk of English history. Royalty is pretty interesting. I was a little disappointed in the restoration efforts, however. Some of the rooms were restored in the early 1900’s, and some you could just tell were restored recently. They…lacked authenticity. Overall, the view of the London Bridge was unbeatable, and walking around a castle isn’t bad at all.
For lunch, we walked to Notting Hill (nearby our hotel) and ate at the chain restaurant, “Nando’s.” It was quite good - so good, Dan was licking PERi PERi sauce off his plate.
The Notting Hill area is adorably quaint. Littered with antique stores and flower pots, I can see why Notting Hill is where Americans choose to live when they move to London.
Next, we hopped on the Tube and explored Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. Now this is a shopping district. Hustling and bustling. Double decker public transit buses swept the bottoms of British flags strung across the street.
From there, Marc (inadvertently) led us into what must have been London’s red light district. Strip club, strip club, sex shop. Sex shop, gay bar, phallic cupcake bakery. Needless to say, we stopped into one of the pubs and grabbed a pint. Tank-top adorned, muscular bartenders poured my Swedish Cider into a glass over ice. The man across the bar was flipping through a nude male magazine. It was…awesome.
We arrived back at the hotel just as the California Context Optional team got into the office. Perfection.
Things I learned today:
1. Boot’s Drug Store is exponentially better than Walgreens.
2. Women in London wear extraordinary amounts of eyeliner and lipstick.
3. Notting Hill is just like the movie.
4. British chocolate is deliciously different from American chocolate.
5. Qype is England’s version of Yelp and it led us to a wonderful Greek restaurant in our neighborhood.
