Sep 22, 2011
London

Day 1

Apartment Nell Gwynn House

  • Arrived early in the morning and welcomed by a huge-ass line for immigration and customs. It moved fairly quickly considering how huge-ass it was and we got through in less than 2 hours.
  • Bought Oyster cards at the Heathrow Tube station and rode the train for almost an hour before getting to our Kensington stop.
  • That’s right, we stayed in THE Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
  • The Royal Borough was royally confusing and we got lost, but then my super map skillz got us back on track.
  • Our apartment at the Nell Gwynn House wasn’t ready yet so we took a walk around the lovely neighborhood, but then had enough of that and sat in the building lobby until the porters couldn’t handle our odor any longer. They gave us the keys to the apartment a few hours early without checking ID or signing anything. 
  • Against all advice, we took a nap.
  • I hate advice so much.
  • I left Cylinda jetlagged in the apartment and went to a bakery to pick up a birthday cake for the lady.
  • We ate the cake even though it wasn’t her birthday yet. It didn’t feel right, but it tasted really good.
  • Time for dinner! We wanted Indian food, but it turns out, Kings Road in Chelsea is the only road in all of London that has no Indian restaurants.
  • So we stopped at Waitrose supermarket and bought out all the boxes of Krave (Tresor), the best frickin cereal in all the world. Oh yeah, we also got frozen Indian meals.
  • SLEEP!

 

Aug 05, 2011
London

London calling

I’ve never really wanted to visit London. Ok, let’s be honest, I never really want to visit any place not in France, but that’s a ridiculous thing to do, even for me. There are actually plenty of places I have on my must-travel list and somewhere on that list, not at the top, but maybe hovering in the top 15, is London.

London belongs on a short list of worldly cities and I figure it’s high time I see what all the fuss is about. Now, I’m not gonna lie to you (at this moment): I wasn’t too excited about planning for the trip, mostly because I’m not into all the royalty or other anglophile crap. What else could there possibly be of interest to me?

So I looked at a map and it turns out that there’s lots of great museums since England was so good at plundering and stealing the world’s treasures. There are immense amounts of Desi food which I love with all my heart. There is a Roman bath and white cliffs and henges and really old universities only an hour or two in all directions. In short, I found myself getting behind this London thing.

But it wasn’t until I put down a deposit on an apartment in Chelsea a few months ago that I got full-on London mode. We’re visiting for a week and a half later this year, but I’ve already gone nuts making itineraries and marking up Google maps. I guess I really am looking forward to NotFrance.