WE’RE HERE!
We have arrived on the first leg of our European tour in London! We took a nonstop red eye on United and slept most of the flight, thanks to very large sleeping pills. This was an important part of getting acclimated to the new time zone, and I’m happy to say we’re all set! So far we’ve only forgotten to pack hand sanitizer which we grabbed before we headed to the airport in Denver.
Thanks to a coworker who spent a few months working here, we used oyster passes to get downtown to our AirBnB. We are staying for two nights in the Baywater district just north of Kensington (where William & Kate) live. We somehow figure out the tube and walked a very far distance through Hyde Park, the park surrounding Kensington, and made it here. After dumping off our bags and getting recommendations from our host we made the 2.5 mile trek to Primrose Hill, the best pollack for views of the city. All of this was in search of a late lunch. We grabbed some pounds at a nearby ATM on a lovely local street, which we wished we would’ve just stayed at. The ATM was quite the bust and we think it upcharged us $20 for conversions. We’ve found that almost everywhere accepts our Southwest Visa, which has no foreign transaction fees. We walked a bit through Little Venice and came upon Primrose Hill. Primrose was great and had wonderful views of the city. We think there were more construction cranes than actually buildings.
After checking out the views we headed to the next suggestion which was Camden Market. This area was crawling with tourists. We’d give it a 1 on the scale of 1 to 5, 5 being “we could stay here all day”. I grabbed a Peruvian street pan al arena and John a burger. He wasn’t feeling too adventurous for our first afternoon, lol. After this John discovered most restrooms across the pond are in fact not free. This was a very cruel surprise and after realizing he was too stubborn to pay we moved onto finding coffee to get us out of our afternoon jet lag. We jumped on the tube to Tottenham Court and found a less busy, more classy part of London. After walking for a bit we found Gail’s and sat down for a dirty chai and cappuccino, which John proceeded to discover he does not care for. He loves his black coffee!
After walking around SoHo we gandered back to Hyde Park which we would rate a 5 on the 1 to 5 awesome scale. We seemed to go from park to park until we got there, stopping and resting on benches, chatting with dog owners, and laughing at all the pups running loose. We wish we could’ve shrunk Millie and brought her with us! Hyde park was by far our favorite part of the first day. Good people watching, plenty of benches, lots of dogs, blooming flowers and green everywhere.
We sorely made our way back to our place and stopped at a nearby grocery for crackers, salami, cheese and fruit. A light dinner for only $10! John was even too tired to break into the chocolate. Tomorrow we’re ready for our bike tour and a stop by my company’s London office!
HYDE PARK | My favorite photo of the day
Daily Highs and Lows:
Rachel:
High - Walking through Hyde Park and seeing John’s reaction to having to pay to go to the restroom
Low - Bickering about what the world is coming to when you have to pay to poop
John:
High - walking through the park
Low - finding out we had to pay for toilets