My friends and I arrived back in merry ole London yesterday morning, and already we’ve crammed quite a bit in to the two days we’ve been here. After getting to our hotel, the St James’ Court, yesterday, we headed back out towards the edge of town to ride the Emirates Air Line. While it wasn’t super exciting from a touristy standpoint (there were really no notable sights to see from the sky that make London the city it’s known for), and it was slightly terrifying when the wind picked up (swinging from a cable car over the dirty Thames is not how I want to go), it was super cheap at about £4. I think it would be a lot cooler had they built it closer to the city center, but there are probably reasons why they didn’t, and it’s a good excuse to travel farther to the outskirts than you might normally do.
After puttering around Westminster for most of the day, we decided to regroup at our hotel (which is super swanky and probably the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in as an adult paying my own way) and then head to the West End to catch a show.
The abbey of Westminster.
When we studied abroad here ten years ago, we made it a habit to just show up to the ticket window just before showtime and score whatever last-minute discounted tickets were left. While we didn’t get super cheap seats like we were accustomed to back then, we were still able to score dress circle seats at the last second for Waitress starring Katharine McPhee.
The show was great. Unfortunately we made the decision to see an almost three-hour musical after an extremely long travel day with no nap and some serious jet lag. Let’s just say we all caught some shut eye at one point or another during the show. Still, it was entertaining with a very talented cast. Definitely worth the money and time spent.
After the show, we took a very European approach and decided to have dinner at 9:30 at night. I’d never understood why they wait so long to eat dinner until now; it becomes sort of necessary depending on what other scheduled events you having going on. Although I can’t say I enjoy eating so late, at least I can begin to see why they do it. With my recent dietary restrictions (no gluten + no dairy + no sugar = a difficult task of finding somewhere to eat), we settled on a Mexican restaurant near the Adelphi theater where Waitress was playing.
The restaurant, Lupita, had a lot of really tasty dishes, and I was extremely happy with my gluten-free and vegan quesadillas I was able to enjoy. But man, the service. I don’t get why every restaurant I’ve ever eaten at in Europe seriously sucks when it comes to the service. Maybe it’s the lack of motivation, since European servers don’t work for tips the way Americans do. But seriously. If I have to flag you down after 20 minutes of being completely bone-dry on my glass of water, we have a problem and I hate you. It makes it extremely hard to like your restaurant if the food is good when the service is so terrible.
Today’s choices were slightly better (although not by much). We got some much needed sleep after our long flights and skipped breakfast, instead forging ahead right to lunch at the Thai restaurant Patara. The food was delicious (they even had a gluten-free menu!) but again, the service was less than mediocre. Luckily, I decided to treat myself to a tasty gluten- and dairy-free macaron (yes I cheated with the sugar but who cares?) from Laduree, so I quickly forgot how annoying the service at lunch had been (although I definitely appreciate the special menu, and how they made sure to tell me not to eat the appetizer they brought for the table, which apparently turned out to be incredibly gross anyway).
We did some light shopping at all the best stores (Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, Topshop, and of course, Primark) before ending our day with some delicious sushi at Sticks’n’sushi (which was able to provide me with gluten-free soy sauce).
We were even able to sneak in a quick nighttime visit to Buckingham Palace on our walk back from dinner (who knew Buckingham Palace was so close to our hotel on Buckingham Gate road, am I right?).
Though there’s still so much to do the remainder of this quick, 9-day trip, I feel like it’s finally starting to sink in that I’m really back in this city that captured my heart all those years ago.
mind over madness 