Our First Visitors

This past weekend we had our first visitors here in the UK! My friend and sorority sister, her husband and their 9 month old daughter came to visit us for the weekend. Seneca is in Barcelona, Spain for 3 weeks for work and Jessica has always wanted to visit London.

They arrived late Friday, after BA failed miserably and losing their stroller and car seat... yes, on a flight that was less then 2 hours they managed to lose a stroller and a car seat! Ugh! Lets just say we are not big fans of BA right now. Thankfully they had a ergo carrier so we were still able to get some sightseeing in.

Saturday morning we headed into London for the day. We started off by taking a double decker bus tour of London - good way to get all the sights in within a few hours. We opted to not take the boat portion of the tour, which I would recommend. We took the boat portion of the tour in February and it takes longer to get to the boat, wait for it, get on & then off it then your actually on the water. Plus since its all enclosed the photos aren't very good.

Jessica, Samantha & Seneca are Canadian 

Big Ben!

London Eye

Tour Bridge

After the bus tour Jessica wanted to the M&M world store, so that's what we did. It was a mad house, mind you it was a beautiful Saturday so everyone in London was out and about, and a good third of them were at the M&M store.

M&M store 

By then it was 4pm and we were STARVING! Steve was craving cheese burgers and the best burgers we know is Shake Shack, so we took a quick cab ride over to Convet Garden. For the record I hailed  the can with one swift movement in 2 seconds. This never happens so I figured it was worth noting.

Piccadilly Circus

From Covent Garden we took a quick walk down to the river where we took a water taxi over to the Globe to walk the South Bank.

London Eye

The Globe

After a few quick photos & a stop at Starbucks for tea and recharging phones we strolled down the South Bank. We had a quick drink at a pub with some friends before we stopped for dinner just below the London Eye. 

It was a long day, we didn't get home till after midnight but it was a great day showing friends from home around our new city. 

Update!

Sorry Ive been quiet the last couple of days, my computer has decided it didn't want to connect to the internet so Ive been without for a few days. Thankfully I have built in tech support - AKA Steve. Not sure what he did but I think it worked (fingers crossed).

So here's a quick update on whats been going on.

Saturday: Steve and I took a quick trip over to visit the town of Windsor  - lots of shopping & of course a castle. We took an open bus tour (cause we love them and we're lazy and its an easy way to see the city). Here are a few photos from our tour:

Windsor Castle

Queen Victoria

Old car driving by the castle

Thames River

View of the castle from across the park

This is the famous crooked house - its not open anymore, it used to be a restaurant I think. Its super close to the castle so an easy photo opportunity.

Later in the afternoon we took a river tour up the Thames. It was a nice way to end our day in Windsor but we sat behind a couple with the most obnoxious kids! They were crawling all over the seats and kept jabbering on. Don't get me wrong, I love kids but I love the well behaved ones. Picky, I know. In spite of them I got some pretty good photos. 

Sunday was our lazy day. I didn't get out of bed till about noon. Yes, I know thats terrible but with this stupid head cold I haven't been sleeping all that well. I stay up way too late, like tonight, its midnight and Im here on the couch blogging while Steve is snoring in the other room. Of course Ive gotten myself hooked onto another TV show - Dead Like Me. Anyone ever watch it? Its pretty good. Of course there are only two season on Netflix, which means Ill be done with the show in about a week. Anyone have a suggestion on what to watch next? Remember I only have access to UK Netflix. 

Tonight we had dinner.... wait for it... with friends! Yes we have actual friends here in Reading. Its kind of amazing to be able to chat with someone in the same time zone as us. Plus she's america, from Tennessee (aka she gets Southern stuff, not just american stuff). We went to this Sushi place called Yo Sushi... I think thats whats its called. On Monday every plate is $2.70 (pounds not dollars but I don't know how to make the pound symbol. It was cool, the sushi goes around the restautant on this conveyor belt and you just pick the plates up you want. Very cool and the sushi was pretty good too, more expensive then we're used to, but still good. 

Our blue plates

Beer in a wine glass - pretty good. 

London Sightseeing

Sorry for the lack of posts since February. Lots going on, I turned in my notice at both of my jobs, started to sort through stuff to sell, starting to think about a going away party, spending time with my parents & just overall worrying about the move in general. 

So today I'm home sick in bed. Yuck! Watching RHOA and eating soup and tea and thin mints (the real cure). I figured throwing back to our fun day in London doing some sightseeing.

The Queen's guards going through the Marble Arch

Queen's guard

Outside of an entrance to the Palace

Big Ben

London Eye

Big Ben and the Parliament

Tower Bridge

Big Ben

Big Ben and the London Eye

In other news...

Steve proposed right before we left for London and I said yes! This was our Facebook announcement we made on the flight home from the UK. 

Enjoy the photos and I'll get back to my marathon & tea! 

XOXO

Bridget

Platform 9 3/4

Friday night we arrived in London and needed a quick activity to fill some time before we went to dinner. One thing I had never done in London was anything Harry Potter related. When I left Europe in 2000, Harry Potter was big but not huge because the movies hadn't started (first one was in the summer of 2001). So there was little to no hype about it in the city. Obviously things have changed drastically since then, there are studio tours and walking tours and of course, platform 9 3/4.

Since it was pouring rain we grabbed a cab to Kings Cross station, about a 10 minute drive from the hotel. After walking around for about 10 minutes we found the short line where a few other HP fans were lined up to take photos with the famed wall.

Here are some of the photos we took:

Steve rocking a Gryffindor scarf

Steve on his way to Hogwarts 

After doing our obligatory Harry Potter fan photos we went to The Parcel Yard - the British pub right there at Kings Crossing station. They had excellent food and and fun atmosphere. The service was a little slow but the food was outstanding. From the appetizer to the dessert to the beer, it was an all around excellent meal!