Eric & Sarah’s London Adventure

As you’ve read, Sarah had an interview in London.  The plane tickets were expensive (especially if returning within less than a week), so we decided to make a bit of a vacaion out of it.  Now, it’s recap time!  Everything all at once!  Hooray!  Oh, and you can click on Big Ben above to see all of the pics.

• Sunday – Not much to report on this day, except that we spent all day on an airplane.  Although, we did hear this great announcement at Spokane International Airport:

“Attention in the airport! Attention in the airport! Please do not allow your children to play on or around the escalators.  This is an airport, not Disneyland.  Hey, kid in the blue shirt…I’m talking to you!”

• Monday – We’re in London!  We took the tube from Heathrow to Highgate, walked up to Muswell Hill, and then checked into our teeny hotel room.    A couple of quick showers, and then out to explore Muswell Hill and dinner at Giraffe.

• Tuesday - We ate orange eggs for breakfast…and survived!  We walked up to Coppetts Wood (Simone’s school) to take some pictures for Simone.  Just when we started walking back, a car stopped and someone asked us for directions…to Coppetts Wood!  About the only place in London that we could actually give directions to (especially since we were only about 1/2 block away)!  On our way to the tube, we discovered Highgate Wood, which is a really cool, really big wooded park just south of Muswell Hill.  It has a great playground, a café (the Pavillion Café), and trails everywhere…I can see us spending a lot of time here.  After we walked out of Highgate Wood, someone walking by asks us where the Pavillion Café is!  Twice in one day people ask us directions to places that we actually know the directions to!  What are the odds?  Then off to Harrods for ridiculous window shopping and lunch, then a peek at the Victoria & Albert Museum.  On our way back to the hotel that night, we stopped by the aforementioned Pavillion Café for dinner with the world’s worst-behaved kids really bad parents.

• Wednesday – Interview day!  Took the train to Romford, which was a surprisingly cute place with a pedestrian-only shopping area next to a pretty big (and un-air-conditioned) mall.  Sarah went to her interview while I explored the mall.  I had a pit in my stomach I was so nervous, so I can only imagine what Sarah was going through!  She felt that the interview went well, so we went back to Muswell Hill and celebrated by eating half of a duck (the delicious half)!

• Thursday – Took the tube down to the West End today, and Sarah put her hands in the exact same spot that Colin Firth did!  Oh, we also walked around the West End, Oxford & Regent Streets, and Trafalgar Square;  made a quick stop at the National Gallery;  had a quick fight;  and then a great Italian dinner.  Finally, we went to our first West End play, Fat Pig (with Kris Marshall and Joanna Page, who were both in one of our favorite movies, Love Actually).

• Friday – Sarah got the job!  We celebrated by going to a letting agent and talking about renting a flat near Coppetts Wood.  And then, a foot-massacring walk basically over the entirety of North London!  We walked to and all over Alexandra Park, back to Muswell Hill, then down to Highgate (and had lunch at a great French café), then to (and all the way through, north to south) Hampstead Heath, took the tube back to Highgate, walked to Crouch End (and went way out of our way to get there) and had dinner at a Caribbean restaurant, and finally stumbled back up to Muswell Hill for sleepy time.

• Saturday – Another walk-a-thon!  Took the tube to Leicester Square, walked to the South Bank and over to the Tate Modern (for lunch and, you know, art), across the Thames to St. Paul’s Cathedral (and had really good ice cream from an ice cream truck), through the city, and along the North Bank to Parliament.  Finally, over to beautiful Belgravia for a dinner of way too much lamb and way too much wine!  Perfect.

• Sunday – All day on a plane!  We were up for 23 hours straight this day!  Yaay!  But we got to hug & kiss Simone again, so it was worth it.