London!

E and I went to London this weekend! It was the most fun we've had in a long time! We absolutely loved it there, so prepare yourself for a mass of photos and don't be surprised if this blog gets renamed to LizzyGoesBrit in the future ;-)

Here we are on the DLR heading into the city...

The first thing we saw was the Tower of London

And the Tower Bridge!

 

Sometimes I still can't believe my life. 5 years ago, I never would have even imagined that I'd be standing on this bridge someday.

Our first views of the city from this bridge had us so excited to go explore it!

It was a little grey and rainy, but this is London.

Who can resist this classic tourist pose?

Monument, the Great Fire of 1666 started near this point.

In the tube! People kept warning us about what a nightmare the public transportation in London is, but I have to say that we had nothing but an easy and smooth experience with it. Plus, everything was in ENGLISH!

We arrived at Buckingham Palace just in time to see the Changing of the Guards Ceremony.

Basically they just did a lot of standing around and playing trumpets for about half an hour while a couple of guards marched back and forth with swords and flags, but we were glad to have seen it anyway.

Victoria Monument outside Buckingham Palace.

Cute British taxi on "The Mall".

St. James Palace

The Ritz Hotel

We stopped for lunch at Guerilla Burgers in a shopping/eating area called St. Christopher's Place just off of Oxford St. I was anxious for my first customer service experience in London, and it didn't disappoint! Though I have to admit my standards have been severely lowered since moving to A'dam, where customer service is basically unheard of. Look, they even put ice in my drink and the smiling waiter actually sat down at our table and chatted with us (*gasp!*).

We got the aubergine and goat's cheese burger...

...and the garden veggie bliss. Delicious burgers and chips in a really great location! We felt like we were eating where the locals do their lunch hour. I totally recommend it.

Afterwards, we checked into our hostel. It had been newly renovated and was really nice! The service was also very friendly!

Just a quick rest before we headed out again...

The view from our window.

In London, there are racks of cycles for hire on just about every corner. I was surprised we didn't see more people doing it, but perhaps the fact that you have to drive on the opposite side of the road in a big fast city scares people. At £1 a day, you can get a code that lets you take a bike for as long as you like, and if you return it to any rack in the city within 30 minutes you don't pay a penny more. That's totally doable, considering there are so many bike racks. You can get from one famous building the other for next to nothing! Being so used to biking in A'dam, we thought it was a steal and tons of fun! It was way better than the underground where you didn't get to see anything.

We hopped on some bikes and headed over to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Just down the road were the Royal Courts of Justice.

And a bit further we came to Trafalgar Square, where we saw Nelson's Column and the sun started to come out!

  and Admiralty Arch, which leads to "The Mall",

Just a bit further down the riverside, we came to the Houses of Parliament

and Big Ben.

The detail on these buildings blew us away!

The views from Westminster Bridge were my favorite! There's the London Eye.

This building contains the Cabinet War Rooms and the Winston Churchill Museum.

This building is the Foreign and Commonwealth Info Services, and in front of it is the Cenotaph for war victims.

No. 10 Downing Street is back there! I kept waiting to see Hugh Grant ;-)

We went into St. James Park for a bit, where we saw a lady hand-feeding squirrels. Adorable!

Then we came around and saw Westminster Abbey!

The Sanctuary, Westminster Abbey

What a view!

Later in the evening we took the tube down to the West End.

We had to grab a beer at this pub we saw on Craven St. (Cravens is my grandmother's last name, so I thought that was cute.)

I like how everyone hangs outside the pub after work, I didn't so much like the warm beer.

In Covent Garden we saw a market and street performers. Those parasols are from an Italian restaurant called Fuel. We shared a decent pizza there the next day.

 

Cute shopping streets... I saw so many stores I recognized from America! I do miss the shopping there.

And more theatres.

We saw Leicester Square,

China Town,

and Picadilly Circus!

(These 2 pictures are from Mildred's website)

We ate dinner that night at a place in Soho called Mildred's Vegetarian Restaurant, where among other things we had vegetarian "bangers and mash". The place is seriously popular and was even packed at 9pm. We didn't go home raving about the food, but it was definitely good and the service was again quick and friendly!

The next morning we did some shopping on Oxford Street and stopped by St. Christopher's Place again for breakfast.

Smile! You're always on camera in London!

Our not-so-impressive vegetarian English breakfast at Sofra, but it was still fun! 

Primark! Cheap clothes, enormous crowds of shoppers. The line to the fitting rooms was amazing! With clothes that cheap, I'm not sure why you'd bother trying it on.

A cute poodle in Selfridges shopping mall.

Marble Arch leading into Hyde Park

Stopping to smell the roses in Hyde Park!

On to Knightsbridge for some fancy window shopping!

I would totally wear this red one!

Harrod's

I'm taking collections for this oven, thank you ;-)

Natural History Museum

Jumping on a train at Victoria Station.

Day 3, we hit up Southbank and the Borough Market area.

This is the Old Operating Theatre, where spectators in the early 19th century could watch patients be blindfolded, gagged and bound to wooden operating tables and performed on without anaesthetics or antiseptics!

Forget I just mentioned that, because now I'm going to tell you about the most delicious patisserie where we had breakfast that morning ;-)

Patisserie Lila, right by Borough Market, is like a sweet-lovers dream come true!

We had regular and chocolate croissants and huge buttery scones with jam and cream! Good morning!

Then we listened to the bells on Southwark Cathedral...

...and saw the Golden Hinde, "a full-sized reconstruction of the Tudor warship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577 – 1580".

What's left of Winchester Palace

Pub on Southbank

Shakespeare's Globe! (Again, how did I get here??? Incredible!)

Southbank on the Thames river (St. Paul's Cathedral in the background)

The Fire Station Pub near Waterloo Station,

where we stopped for a spot of tea...
 (Side note: Has anyone ever seen that SNL sketch, "Tales of Ribaldry"? I think you can watch it on Hulu if you live in the States. I so wanted E to start quoting, "Hellio.. and welcome to  "Tales of Rrrribaldry"! I'm your host, Evelyn Quince. Tonight, I would like to share with you a naughty tale of a lusty woodsman and a wanton lady, and possibly a cuckolded husband! Oh, it's high rrrribaldry at its best! And it's about to start - let's watch!"

...and a cider.

Then we headed for the London Eye Pier...

and waited for a "Thames Clipper" boat to come take us down the river to Greenwich.

Views from the boat...

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Tower of London, it says "Entry to the Traitors Gate"

Tower Bridge

When we arrived at Greenwich, the sun came out again!

We looked for a place to have vegetarian nut roast for Sunday roast, but had no luck, so we just had some more tasty burgers and chips at Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

Yes, they dip fries (or "chips") in mayonnaise in Europe. Trust me when I say it's delicious!

The views from the Royal Observatory are spectacular!

This week I'm going to try my hand at making a typical British (vegetarian) Sunday roast dinner and a Bakewell tart! Yum! Stay tuned for that!