Mum, where are my crisps?

We all arrived to London at different times, and all encountered the insane commute to our respective hotels/places of work that is London. Wow. I can barely handle it for a long weekend, living, there's just no way. So, I spent Thursday in Islington (a London neighborhood) that a friend told me to check-out. Basically, I just wandered about & ate a heavenly lunch at Ottolengi . I was told best brownies in the world, and oh delectableinsanegoodness. Please, if you go to London ever, go, get the brownies, eat the salads, love the life. I continued to walk around for a while & was asked by a few individuals if I would be interviewed on camera about coffee. So, I did it. According to them, "that was a sound-bite," (relating to a comment I made.) Booyah. Afterwards, I headed to Greenwich, which I also really enjoyed. They have a gorgeous maritime museum, the queen's house (which pretty mundane), and a look-out point over London that's also the prime meridian. All of these nice attractions were free. PartyBonus! Plus, the town is really gorgeous to boot.

We spent the evening out for dinner with one of Joe's co-workers. Incidentally, across the street from our hotel, there was an Asian restaurant complete with DJ, alternating light-up dance floor, disco ball & Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody." Literally, it was surreal. There were probably 20 round tables of 10, instantly making us believe we'd wrongly entered a private party, but no, every Thursday, Friday & Saturday night, the restaurant also moonlights as a sad 'club' for all the middle aged, heavy-set Londoners who want to eat big Chinese dinners, then watch 3 sad, rythymless, middle aged, heavy-set women hit the dance floor.

The next morning I headed into the city to meet David & Joe went to work again, hey, someone's got to make money to pay for more of those brownies. David arrived only a few minutes after I & we were lucky enough to get into our room immediately. He decided to shower, which was quite a good move, because he stunk. I've obviously spent a lot of time around him, and I've never wanted to pass out in his presence until Friday (amy on the other hand --- that time david had his wisdom teeth pulled before south haven, she may have another opinion on the matter). It was really disconcerting & seemed to be mostly coming from his feet. Although, I'll admit, when he got in the shower, I smelled his shoes & they smelled fine. Odd. Ah well, he's a boy I figured. So, after we were all settled in, we headed out to the London Tower, which is not free, not free at all. But, it is quite interesting. We opted for a fish & chips afterwards, as a guy David knows told him that the fish & chips they sell directly outside the tower is delicious. However, there are two stands & I'm pretty sure, we chose the wrong one considering our fish still had skin on it, underneath the breading. I used a bit of my surgical skills though & managed to get most of it off. Friday afternoon, we hit up the British Museum, after David had a bit of a nap.

Then, we headed over to this pub, the Lowlander, that was nearby the British museum & was highly recommended. They have all sorts of Belgian beers, so David & I settled in for pint. The beer was just so delicious though, so we thought, we'll just have Joe meet us here & he can have a delicious beer & some dinner with us after a long day at work. However, Joe also happened to have his computer bag & his fold-over suitcase, which combined weigh 764 pounds & do not have wheels. I instructed Joe on how to get to the bar. Over 1 hour later, one hour of walking with said 764 pounds on one's shoulders, he arrived to the bar. He was not a happy camper. And, it was 'all my fault,' apparently due to shoddy directions. I may have stated, "if you see a fork in the road, you've gone too far." Unfortunately, I didn't notice & David was in a zombie-like state, that there was in fact two splits in the road, and the one Joe saw was not at all the one I was referencing, which was more like the road exploding & diverging into 3 different, and totally new roads. Thanks, you have neat roads London. To his credit, Joe did shake it off, and we all had a fun time. And, he also got to experience toxic David feet that evening when we got back to the hotel.

Saturday, we got out relatively early & arrived to the Churchill Museum & Cabinet War Rooms a few minutes after opening time. The Churchill area was built in 2005 & is one of the most dynamic & insanely dense parts of a museum that I've ever seen. I have never in my life ever thought I would be exposed to so much information about Churchill. To sum it up: he was a badass. We also saw Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, went in the National Gallery (where 'mum, where are my crisps' was overheard) & this was all before we met up with an old grade school friend & her husband, Gemma & Matt, who are living in London, for a late lunch at Borough Market. We waited in the excessive line for what we heard was 'the best coffee.' A guy comes up to get your order, like at Portillos, except you have no idea what you want & this guy has a hole in his ear as big as Kansas. So, we say we've never been here before and he tells us you can get anything here that you can get at a Starbucks, minus the syrups and such. I order what he recommends & then David says, 'I'll take a red eye' to which giant hole says 'what's that?' and David tells him 'it's a coffee with a shot of espresso in it.' Giant hole man looks at David like he is a re-tard & says 'we don't do that,' while continuing to stare incredulously at him. It put us all a bit on edge. So finally, we enter the store, as the line was out the door, and see what we've just ordered. It's like a coffee filter, in a porcelain filter & they pour hot water into the filter, then it bubbles up, and coffee starts to drip out of the bottom of the contraption & into a paper cup. So, unlike the brownies, it was not the best in the world, it was just different.

We spent Saturday afternoon around Harrods, omg, never again, and then headed out to another recommended restaurant, which was delicious but a serious pain in the ass to get to considering all the line closures that happen every weekend in London. Ugh, the boys kept threatening, 'it better be worth it.' I had an amazing dish, soft shell crab with asparagus, & spicy deliciousness. My mouth was on fire, but gdamn, it was good. The boys both had pad thai, so sorry if your lameness in ordering didn't make it feel like the place was worth it.

Sunday we spent the morning at Spitalfield's market & the boys got some KFC (joe had talked about it non-stop on Saturday night). The market had all these independent artists with a whole range of jewelry, purses, scarves, artworks, clothes, etc. I could have spent a few more hours wandering about, but the boys were growing weary & hungry again, so we headed in for lunch at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which is another must if ever in London. It was delicious, American-like burgers & chicken. Afterwards, we quickly hit up the Imperial War Museum, where both David & I took minis. London is an exhausting place, I'm sure every single one of us could have spent more time in certain places, and less time in others, but we seemed to find a way to please everyone.

Turns out David's feet were so toxic because he had a fungus. We went Monday to the pharmacy, after he once again, almost killed me when he took off his shoes. And, David almost died when the lady told him it was 17.50 for Lamisil. After one day of treatment, we are happy to report, the smell was gone, and after two days, his feet looked back to normal. Certainly worth the 17.50! We've had good weather the past few days in Zurich. David & I saw the city, had a great hike, had friends over for drinks, played cards & planned out the rest of his visit. We are leaving in a few hours for Easter in Budapest, David's navigating Vienna on his own right now, then will catch a train into Budapest from there. Hoping you all have a great Easter weekend!

Happy Birthday Nickerbocker! Here's a virtual fist bump for you!