London, Paris, Everett
Mar. 5th, 2018 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
christopher575One of the best parts of a vacation if you can swing it is a day or two off before heading back to work. Garrett and I are both off today and I also took tomorrow off. Right now I'm watching the Celebrity Big Brother finale, which I'm amazed hasn't been spoiled for me, though I can probably take credit for that because I also took a Twitter vacation while we were gone. Garrett's upstairs making lunch, Sam's in his spot on the love seat, and Steve's on my lap.
Here's my attempt to summarize the trip, starting with the first meal I made there. For those who don't know, we prefer to rent apartments and make our own breakfasts when we travel. It's nice to do that because you don't have to rush to get out in the morning.
Obviously there are tons more photos and videos at flickr and IG than I'll show here.
Garrett was a little disappointed that Big Ben('s tower) was under construction while we were there, but I think it's pretty cool that we got to see it that way. One of my favorite eras in cinema is "Statue of Liberty in scaffolding."
One thing I never got tired of in London is the juxtaposition of old and new stuff. It's not really unusual for people who live in Europe, but having lived in the Western half of the USA, I'm used to most of what I see being relatively new. Here's one of the Tower of London entrances flanked by lots of ultra-modern buildings in the background.
Similar.
I'm so glad Garrett and I have similar feelings about museums; you should go for an hour or 90 minutes, try to see a lot, but don't try to see everything because you can't. The British Museum is amazing, though they've got a pretty cavalier attitude right now about their obligation to provide bathrooms.
We had a pretty mediocre fish and chips and discovered the hard way that we don't care for shrimp cocktails in the UK as much as we do in the US. But at least this pitcher of Pimm's lemonade was great.
We've always wanted to go to an ice bar, and didn't know London has one until Garrett happened to spot it on the map! That was a lot of fun. We got there just after a 40-minute session started, but they're smart enough to also have a comfy lobby bar to wait in for the next one.
We didn't eat here, I just spotted it on my to the London Eye, which Garrett didn't join me for. Best name I've seen in a while.
People warned me about wait times on the Eye, so I guess I was lucky to snag a spot on the 11:45 ticket at 11:42. The views were great and it was an awesome day for clouds.
From there, I had a very lovely walk to the Tate along the Thames.
I'd been wanting to see the Tate since it opened and it definitely didn't disappoint.
While I was at the Eye and Tate, Garrett did the Imperial War Museum, and we agreed to meet up and do the ABBA exhibition I found near the Eye. We both got caught in a surprise snowfall, which was a little tough to walk in, but a lot of fun to experience.
The after-work crowd in the tube station was crazy, so we killed a little time in a pub before heading back to the rental. We couldn't stay out too late, though, because we had to get up at 3:00 the next morning to head to Paris for a day trip. It's pretty great that the Channel Tunnel enables one to do that!
Garrett found a great tour service that drove us around in a 2CV for three hours, which was a cool way to see a lot of the city in the limited amount of time we had. I took lots of Snapchat video from the backseat and exported it at the end of the day.
Our guide and the car. There are lots of still photos from the tour if you click through.
The next day back in London, we went to the Victoria and Alert Museum. Rather than choose from among all the photos I took there, here's one that ended up being one of my favorites that I've ever taken. Check the lower right corner. :)
On Friday we did a little pub crawl in Brixton, our neighborhood. It started at Meat Liquor, which we really loved and wanted to eat at, but unfortunately they lost partial power due to the storm.
Here's Jonny, a new friend we made at the Prince Albert.
From there, we had one more at Queen's Head, our neighborhood joint, before going home to order Indian delivery food.
For our final day, we got dressed up and went to a matinee. Everybody's Talking About Jamie is a great show.
A lovely dinner at Whyte & Brown.
A last look at our rental and the immediate neighborhood while we waited for our driver to the airport.
I missed getting a really good view of Reykjavik from my seat while I was in the bathroom on the plane.
Here's what the cats were up to while we were gone.
Here's my attempt to summarize the trip, starting with the first meal I made there. For those who don't know, we prefer to rent apartments and make our own breakfasts when we travel. It's nice to do that because you don't have to rush to get out in the morning.
Obviously there are tons more photos and videos at flickr and IG than I'll show here.
Garrett was a little disappointed that Big Ben('s tower) was under construction while we were there, but I think it's pretty cool that we got to see it that way. One of my favorite eras in cinema is "Statue of Liberty in scaffolding."
One thing I never got tired of in London is the juxtaposition of old and new stuff. It's not really unusual for people who live in Europe, but having lived in the Western half of the USA, I'm used to most of what I see being relatively new. Here's one of the Tower of London entrances flanked by lots of ultra-modern buildings in the background.
Similar.
I'm so glad Garrett and I have similar feelings about museums; you should go for an hour or 90 minutes, try to see a lot, but don't try to see everything because you can't. The British Museum is amazing, though they've got a pretty cavalier attitude right now about their obligation to provide bathrooms.
We had a pretty mediocre fish and chips and discovered the hard way that we don't care for shrimp cocktails in the UK as much as we do in the US. But at least this pitcher of Pimm's lemonade was great.
We've always wanted to go to an ice bar, and didn't know London has one until Garrett happened to spot it on the map! That was a lot of fun. We got there just after a 40-minute session started, but they're smart enough to also have a comfy lobby bar to wait in for the next one.
We didn't eat here, I just spotted it on my to the London Eye, which Garrett didn't join me for. Best name I've seen in a while.
People warned me about wait times on the Eye, so I guess I was lucky to snag a spot on the 11:45 ticket at 11:42. The views were great and it was an awesome day for clouds.
From there, I had a very lovely walk to the Tate along the Thames.
I'd been wanting to see the Tate since it opened and it definitely didn't disappoint.
While I was at the Eye and Tate, Garrett did the Imperial War Museum, and we agreed to meet up and do the ABBA exhibition I found near the Eye. We both got caught in a surprise snowfall, which was a little tough to walk in, but a lot of fun to experience.
The after-work crowd in the tube station was crazy, so we killed a little time in a pub before heading back to the rental. We couldn't stay out too late, though, because we had to get up at 3:00 the next morning to head to Paris for a day trip. It's pretty great that the Channel Tunnel enables one to do that!
Garrett found a great tour service that drove us around in a 2CV for three hours, which was a cool way to see a lot of the city in the limited amount of time we had. I took lots of Snapchat video from the backseat and exported it at the end of the day.
Our guide and the car. There are lots of still photos from the tour if you click through.
The next day back in London, we went to the Victoria and Alert Museum. Rather than choose from among all the photos I took there, here's one that ended up being one of my favorites that I've ever taken. Check the lower right corner. :)
On Friday we did a little pub crawl in Brixton, our neighborhood. It started at Meat Liquor, which we really loved and wanted to eat at, but unfortunately they lost partial power due to the storm.
Here's Jonny, a new friend we made at the Prince Albert.
From there, we had one more at Queen's Head, our neighborhood joint, before going home to order Indian delivery food.
For our final day, we got dressed up and went to a matinee. Everybody's Talking About Jamie is a great show.
A lovely dinner at Whyte & Brown.
A last look at our rental and the immediate neighborhood while we waited for our driver to the airport.
I missed getting a really good view of Reykjavik from my seat while I was in the bathroom on the plane.
Here's what the cats were up to while we were gone.
