“Cheerio” London, EN

Our 2nd anniversary ‘gift’ to each other was a one-week stay in London and we took in as much sights as we could.  While I could sit here and write about all that we saw, it is much easier to post photos of what we saw – since a picture is worth more than a thousand words.  This might be our ‘photo-heaviest’ blog to date.

Despite the bumpy start to the trip, we blessedly got a clean bill of health (as far as malaria was concerned) and were able to tour London at our leisure.  We had to do the double-decker tour bus and so we paid for hop-on/hop-off tickets that lasted us 48 hours and was also valid for the ferry along the Thames. We visited the big name sights: London Tower, Tower Bridge, London Eye, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace.

But the places that stuck in my memory are the ones that we took our time walking through and taking ourselves on self-guided tours. We’ve visited all the major parks in central London and even enjoyed a picnic lunch in Green Park, which is named due to the fact that it’s the only royal park that does not have any flowers. Another great park was St. James park, which we strolled through on our way from Picadilly Circus to Buckingham Palace. As the week wore on, we found ourselves gravitating towards the the Leceister Square, Picadilly and Covent Garden circuit, since there were so many restaurants and pubs that we could rest at and journal. At Covent Garden, we had a great dessert at an ice cream shop called ‘The Icecreamists’, which had funky uniformed wait staff and a really odd item on the menu – an ice cream flavor made out of human breast milk! Apparently, this controversial menu item sold out in its first 3 hours of release, was banned from serving it and then unbanned a week later for Lady Gaga to try it out. Anyways, it was a little too weird for us, so we stuck to the hazelnut chocolate and creamy custard flavours, which was served in a martini glass with a black wafer cone – highly fashionable and also very tasty! On another day, we also visited the area of Kensington, just so that we can see where our neighbourhood back home was named after. We enjoyed a pint and a platter of a classic British fair: breaded scampi, steak & kidney pie, steak & ale pie, mashed potatoes and gravy, fish & chips with tartar sauce, mushy peas and pork sausages served with old english mustard. We completely filled our boots and at the same time watched the live cast of Kate and William kicking off the Stampede parade on the telly – ironic.

Of course, we couldn’t visit London without attending one of the many live theatre shows that they offered here. On the night of our anniversary, we watched ‘Dirty Dancing’, which stayed true to the movie. The Aldwych Theatre, where it was held, was cozy, but still classically elegant. It was amazing to see the dancers move about the stage and the set transitions were extremely creative, given the fact that they were limited to a small stage. On another evening, we watched the much bigger production, ‘Wicked’ at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. We scored some last-minute discounted tickets and I actually preferred this show over ‘Dirty Dancing’, while Dan (believe it or not) enjoyed ‘Dirty Dancing’ more than ‘Wicked’.

Perhaps, it was the ‘newness’ of the storyline, since I didn’t know what to expect, or the big production sets, or the amazing songs and actors/actresses who performed with outstanding vocals, but whatever it was, it was superb! The actress who played Glinda the good witch had a comedic flare that had the audience laughing hysterically. The music and songs took me back to my childhood Disney movies and I’d highly recommdend this show to my family and friends (since I’ve heard that it’s currently playing in Calgary as we speak).

While the Apollo Victoria theatre was much larger than the Aldwych theatre and had a state-of-art set, it still maintained the classic, old english decore of the original building. After both shows, we popped into one of many nearby restaurants that offer post-theatre 2-course dinner specials – it’s wonderful that central London is still alive in the evening, unlike the sleepy Calgary downtown area that shuts down every day after 7pm.

And then there was shopping – not as much as in India, but we took up Sandeep’s suggestion and went to the Sunday Spitalfields market, where I scored a couple of new things and Dan found himself his perfect wallet at last. We did have a gander at the cheaper, Petticoat Market, where I found a light pull-over, since it’s MUCH colder here (at 17-24 degrees) than in India – I have yet to acclimatize. We also found our way to Harrod’s department store during one of our daily outings and were just floored with all the stuff that they offered. We picked up a couple of cans of fancy coffee for the parents, because that’s literally all we could afford in that store, but it was good to visit anyways. We also found ourselves in Oxford Circus, which were just lined with stores, although suprisingly enough, nothing really interested us. We did find a shop called ‘The Great Britania’ where we had a fun time looking at all the cheesy London souvenirs, including the fancy top hats.

We have enjoyed this city and are a bit sorry to leave, but the rest of Europe awaits us, which, by the way is quite beautiful so far (as I have been typing this post on the train to Chester). We should be in Dublin by 7pm this evening.