First coupla days in London

By the time our plane arrives at the London Heathrow Airport, It's 7:05AM London time. If you count time at the aiports and flight time, we're talking17 hours of travel time. Both of us are exhausted, and rather than take public transportation (The Tube) into London, we hire a cap which is hella expensive. ($110 total for a 30 minute ride). We get to our hotel, and we weren't able to check in yet. Yet, we were able to use their bathroom to freshen up and check back in a couple of hours

Julie and I laughed at the politeness of the sign "Mind Your Head" in the narrow stairwell



In our exhausted state, we decided to walk around the 'hood and see where we were at. We were staying in the Brompton Quarters, down the road from Harrod's, and apparently a very posh neighborhood considering the lowest end cars that we saw were BMW's and Mercedes.




Across the street from us, the Brompton Oratory:



We find some convenience stores nearby with cheap sodas and crisps (potato chips). Also, all the cadbury I can fantasize about. I immediately discovered Steak and Onion crisps, as well as worcestersire crisps and tomato ketchup crisps. Delicious! Don't forget about Cadbury Flake and Twirl bars- I couldn't eat enough of either and they were a staple for my breakfast for the days ahead.

We walked around where we were at, and slummed around Harrod's. Both of us were too tired and trashy feeling to take pics at this point. We're finally able to check in to our hotel, where we have twin beds right next to each other:



We were cool with this, because at least we weren't in the same bed. So after a nice long nap and shower, decide to go out and hit a pub. We find one around the corner from Harrods, and can't figure out how it works. Do we wait to be seated? Do we wait for a waiter to approach our table or do we head to the bar? Do we pay at the table? How much do we tip? How seriously do we take the sign that says "There are known thieves in this area. Take Care of your Belongings."??

We muddle our ways through, and crawl into bed that night, with the intention of waking up early in the morning and hitting the pavement. We were shocked to find out everything in London City shut down by 11pm on a saturday night.... who can make fun of Salt Lake City??

Sunday Morning:
"Christy, It's after 11:30!" I hear Julie say. Sure enough, it's 11:48 AM London time, which is 2:46 AM Utah time. Both of us are pissed that we overslept, and get up and get ready.

While Julie is finishing her hair and makeup, I pull out the London City Street map and talk about what we want to do that day. Since it was later than we wanted that day, we decided to go to Notting Hill (for the sake of the chick flick), and then to the Portabello Road market which was right next to it. We'd take the day from there. We asked the hotel concierge where the nearest tube stop was. "South Kensington Station. Go down this road, and take a left at the light. The station will be immediate to your left. Bear in mind, only the Picadelly line is open today." It was sunday, the rest of the lines were down for renovation.

Okay, scratch the plans for Sunday, fast forward to the plans for Monday.

Crap. We were going to take the Picadelly line the next day. Fast forward, switch around. Okay, it's cool. Let's see where our adventures lead us today!