The First and Second Days - Portobello Road, Westminster

I know SO many of you are interested in this blog, right guys? Right? Hey, uh... guys? Anyone there?

(Cricket, cricket)

That's how I feel writing a blog. Regardless, here we go! 

Thursday, February 6:

At 2pm, After shuffling the contents of our bag about 14 times to get them to 50lbs each, we boarded the plane to JFK. We landed at about 8:30pm and hustled to get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 4 where we boarded our flight to Heathrow, and prayed our bags got on board as well. Lucky for us, it wasn't a full flight, which meant I got a whole row of 3 seats all to myself. Sleeping on planes is the worst, but it's a little better when you can actually lay down.

Friday, February 7:

We landed at Heathrow, and went through Customs. The cute girl working there was so careful to stamp our passport so the words were legible. "Americans care most about the stamps. It's like I've got a lot to live up to because all the other stamps look so good!" They let us into England (suckers!) and we grabbed our bags off the carousel in about 5 minutes. 

Shortly afterward, we met up with cute little Aunt Jill! Chris's aunt lives in Brighton (a small resort town south of London), and she made the 2 hour trek to welcome us. We took a taxi into the city, right to our front door at Princes Square.

Right up there, at the very top on the end! 

Our tiny, tiny bedroom.

The Kitchen/Living Room

The Loo.

The view from our kitchen window. And our bedroom window, really. They face the same way. 

GUYS. I love this flat. The location is fantastic. Within about 5 minutes we can walk to Portobello Road, The Bayswater Tube Station, or a mall called Whiteley's, which has a store called Marks & Spencers, which is where we've been doing our grocery shopping. 

The only terrible thing about our place is this: FOUR FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, NO ELEVATOR. We knew this going in, but I neglected to remember that I'd be carrying my 50lb suitcase up them. It's 76 stairs! SEVENTY-SIX It was the worst. Even without luggage, I get a bit winded on about the third flight. I'm hoping by the end of 3 months, I'll just be able to sprint up them, and not even notice. Haha. 

Jill helped us get situated with a few necessities before heading home, and we promptly took a nap. It was about noon London Time, which is 5am at home. Yuck.  We planned on napping until 3pm, and woke up at 5pm. Oops. Jet lag is hard. When we woke up, we made our first meal in London: grilled cheese and tomato soup! (If you know me, this doesn't surprise you at all. I eat grilled cheese and tomato soup about 2 times a week in the winter. Or more.) OH MAN, you guys. This cheese over here! It's like 10 times better than cheese back home. We went to the store today and bought another pack, because we're going through it like crazy. I might be the culprit, not Chris. 

After dinner, we went on a walk to orient ourselves with the area. We walked down to Bayswater Road, which borders Hyde Park. Turns out they close the park at night time, bummer. We'll see it another time, I'm sure.

Saturday, February 8:

This morning, we woke up BRIGHT and early, and went to the Portobello Road Market! I was just giddy about it. You've seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks, right? You haven't?! How are we friends??! Watch this:

I WENT THERE, PEOPLE!!! I sang this song in my head the entire time. It was lovely. Chris was disappointed with it. He says the markets in Mexico City are better. He's just sad that the whole crowd didn't do a big dance number. It's okay, Chris. I was sad too.

But not THAT sad. I saw this little gem at Portobello Road.
I don't know who Robbo is, but he's got great taste. "Let's get Dangerous!" I hope he got well.

So listen, we didn't stay as long at Portobello Road Market as I'd have liked on account of 70 mph winds! It was so cold and so rainy. I was so whiny. I got chilled to the bone. (You'd better have read that in a British Accent, because that's how I typed it.)

Man, I'm weird when I blog. I blame jet lag. It's rough, guys.

We rushed home, and I napped a little bit. We ate PB&Js for lunch, and the weather seemed better, so we headed back out at about 2pm (or 7am in the states). 

We bought some Oyster Cards, which you can basically load up with money at your leisure, and you use them to ride the Public Transport. We hopped on the Tube, and headed toward Westminster.

OH man. I almost forgot to tell this. On the tube, there were some CRAZIES! About 10 high school kids got on the train wearing big phony glasses and oversized bow-ties. They were singing at the top of their lungs "I can see clearly now the rain is gone! I can see all obstacles in my way! (mumble mumble mumble) I, I, I like the sunshiney day!" 

Chris whispers to me, "Was that you in high school?" I said, "No, because I knew the lyrics. It's 'it's gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright sunshiney day." 

At this point, the kids were hopping on and of the trains any time the doors opened, and just fooling around.  One of them jumps off, and the door closes and the train starts moving. His friends yell, "NOOO!!! WAIT!" and the train screeches to a halt. The driver gets on the intercom "There seems to have been something that's caused an alarm. Is everything okay?" SILENCE.

Well, he opens the doors and lets the kid on, and a constable comes to talk to the group. An actual constable. Very British. And the train is delayed this whole time, mind you. Very annoying.

The whole situation gets resolved, I'm not quite sure what happened. I do know one kid asked for the constable's number so they could go get drunk together. Very odd. 

The driver gets on the intercom again and says "Just a reminder that it's against the law to bring alcohol aboard, kindly refrain from doing that. It's rather obvious that some of our party is drunk..." and I missed the rest because the crowd of kids is cheering for themselves. Weird. They got off at Sloane Square, along with a few people dressed in cow costumes, and some dressed in bunny costumes. Sloane Square must be a weird, weird place. 

Moving on. We get off the train, and the first thing I see is BIG BEN! It's so great. Just look. 

Chris was slightly miserable on account of the canvas Chuck Taylor's he was wearing in the pouring rain. Poor Guy. But he wanted me to see the city. Such a trooper.

We get to Westminster Abbey. It's gorgeous on the outside, but it was closed for the day, so we didn't get to go in. It got real rainy again, and we weren't really sure what else to see in the area, so we hunkered down in a small gift shop nearby. 

I love these reflections! The upside to the pouring rain. 

Once the rain let up a bit, we walked through St James Park to Buckingham Palace.

The Queen LIVES HERE. I was where The Queen was. You don't understand. 

The fanciest gate I ever saw. I don't even know what it led to. I was blinded by its fanciness.

This is what my hair does in this humidity/rain. My fringe sticks to my forehead. I had to say fringe because it's British.

Union Jack.

Taking a selfie with a giant DSLR camera is a two man job. Chris held the camera, and I pushed the button.

Feeling a bit tuckered out, we took the train back to our flat. I can't quite say that I've mastered the directions from the Tube Station to our place, but I'll get it soon. We came home and had some freezer meals from Marks & Spencers. Chris had a curry dish, and I had something called Cumberland Pie! I'm not really sure what that is, but it sounded British, so I bought it. It was just okay. Haha.

Bonus: This is plastered EVERYWHERE in the Tube Stations:

I love a Mormon, too! But I don't think we're talking about the same thing...

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT, FOLKS! Our first few days in London. More to come. This will probably be my nightly ritual. Well that, and watching the olympics. 

Cheers! 

Kami & Chris, the Pseudo-Londoners!

UPDATE:
The Cheese Ploy worked! I may or may not have written that I was eating all the cheese, so that when Chris read the blog, he'd get up and look in the fridge to see if I indeed ate all the cheese. At which point, I could say "Chris, since you're up, can you get me some cheese?"  Worked like a charm.

UPDATE 2: Okay, okay. Chris is fact-checking me. It's not 70mph winds, it's 48.8mph winds. The 70 mph winds were on the coast where Aunt Jill lives. And they weren't 70mph, they were 80 mph. All I know is England is dang windy.