Whirlwind London

Sorry for the late post but yesterday was incredibly exhausting so I am composing from the London City Airport as we wait for our flight to Amsterdam.  Our time in London was quite a whirlwind but I think we managed to hit some of the highlights.  Here is a traveling tip that was learned the hard way.  I had brought some cash with me and exchanged it for pounds once we arrived at the airport in London.  My exchange rate was abysmal and much higher than I had anticipated: $200 transferred into £99.....say what?!? Sensing that something wasn't right with this rate, Leah decided to withdraw £100 straight from the ATM. After checking her bank statement today, the conversion rate was $175 including the foreign transaction fee. So if you're ever abroad, I would recommend just withdrawing money from local ATMs instead of transferring it at a currency exchange center.  Ok, on to the highlights.  

Best part of the day: So yesterday started off with a lot of hope and promise. We had a pretty packed agenda in order to successfully navigate and make it to all of the places on our to-do list. So we started off heading down to a nearby market and making a few small purchases - scarves for me and a London frat tank for Leah. For those of you not familiar with frat tanks, they're tanks usually worn by drunken fraternity brothers or AC Slater that we have discovered are incredibly comfortable and starting to become a wardrobe staple.  After the market we traveled to the Tower of London and toured that for about an hour.  I had been previously but it was my favorite tourist spot and Leah was interested in going. This is definitely a top tourist spot and for good reason as it is really neat and has a lot of history. Sir Walter Raleigh was even imprisoned there for 13 years. 

This is the entrance to the Tower of London. The red flowers are actually handmade poppies that are a memorial to the fallen soldiers of World War I. 

 

Inside the square of the fortress. The guard is not there for show and actually guarding the residence of the governor.  

 Sir Walter Raleigh's "prison cell". It's definitely no Rikers - perks of being the Queen's friend, I guess. 

King's bedroom in the Medeival Palace

Obligatory tourist pic

View of Tower Bridge (commonly confused as the London Bridge) from the fortress

After the Tower of London tour, we took a Thames River cruise in order to see some of the sights down the Thames. This was probably my happiest part of the day as it was very breezy on the river and I was quite comfortable instead of my usual hot mess.  

Notice the pure joy radiating from me because there is a good breeze. 

Big Ben and Parliament

More joy and happiness

Fun fact: Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside this tower and so you technically only hear Big Ben, not see it. 

After the tour, shot with the London Eye. 

Bonus experience:  For any fellow fans of the amazing BBC series Sherlock or, I suppose, the Sherlock Holmes books for the nerds, I was determined to locate 221B Baker St. If you have not seen Sherlock, I highly suggest binge watching this weekend as it is wonderful and highly entertaining (available on PBS and Netflix). So after the river cruise, we headed to Baker St. to find his "house" and go to the Sherlock Holmes museum. Upon arrival, we found that the line to enter was 1.5 - 2 hours so no museum for us. In the spirit of a true fan, I did manage to get a few pics of the building though. 

Since we had time to kill before tea, we found an antique's shop that would make my mother cry tears of joy and then tears of sorrow after looking at the price tags. Leah and I both left with antique prints because one can never have too much wall art. 

Best thing we ate:  Yesterday's culinary highlight was high tea at Dean St. Townhouse, which I had researched and found to be one of the best places for traditional high tea in our price range. It was quite delicious and everything I had hoped it would be.  It has inspired me to buy a tea set at T. J. Maxx to recreate the event, although Leah pointed out that the only people who would provably want to have tea with us like that are each other. 

Earl Gray heaven

The spread: 

Most awkward moment: After tea, we were pretty exhausted and our bodies literally ached as if we had walked a marathon distance. Leah suggested that we find a cheap place to get a foot massage, citing that she had seen one where we could pay £10 for 10-15 minutes. Screw the conversion rates, it sounded amazing and I was sold. We found a Chinese massage parlor near the restaurant and tried to order a quick foot massage. They said they couldn't do both feet in 15 minutes and since we were on a schedule, we settled for a quick neck, shoulder, and back massage.  I was seated in a massage chair in the front of the building while Leah was whisked back to a private room, told to undress, and ended up with a deluxe session (I think I was jipped).  Anyway, while I was getting my massage up front, I heard a man walk in and ask my lady where the "sexual health clinic" was. She said she didn't know and so he left. But when Leah came out and we were walking away, she stated that she thought it was totally a "happy ending" massage parlor, which was even further evidenced by the unsatisfied potential male customer I had heard. I guess I should care more where those hands had been but I don't because it felt amazing and I was rejeuvented enough to continue the last part of the itinerary. 

Worst part of the day:  The worst part of the day is actually many parts because it is related to navigation.  I consider myself to be an excellent navigator and have never had issues finding my way around any city - foreign or domestic. London is a different story since everyone seems to be on metric time by extreme underestimation of time spent getting places (10 min walk metric = 25 min walk standard measurement). Additionally, the maps we have suck and are not to scale and leave out a lot of little streets that make navigation much more difficult when you don't realize there are four more blocks instead of one to go.  Anyway, our navigation had us running around like crazy and everything took much longer to get to than anticipated. For example, our pit stop to the Hard Rock Cafe was supposed to be right off the tube and it took about 20 minutes one way. See amateur map below:

  

By the end of the day, we were doing the grandma shuffle because we were so tired and aching. Harrod's was our last stop and it was very difficult to enjoy when we are walking at the pace of an 85 year old woman with arthritis. But still beautiful:

A shoe display: 

Best quote: "These maps ain't loyal" sung to the tune of a popular rap song (see worst part of the day) and "That card doesn't like you" by one of the many tube workers who had to manually swipe me in and out of every tube we took because my card never worked today or yesterday.