Yesterday morning we went to Anne Hathaway's cottage, again I was completely enthralled by the gardens. It was a nice end to our stay in Stratford. We walked back into town and headed to the train station to begin the next leg of our journey. The train ride from Stratford to London was about 2 hours...and Lyle slept for a large portion of it. I wrote most of yesterday's blog from the train, which conveniently had wifi.
I miss the countryside already. London is a great city with much to do, but is not nearly as pretty as the country and small towns.
When we got into London we made our way out to the house we are staying at. We are in the east end of the city near the Upton Park tube station. On our walk to the place we quickly realised that we were the minority in this neighbourhood, every clothing store we passed was selling beautiful saris. For the next three and a half weeks we are staying in apartments that we booked through homeaway.com and housetrips.com. This one is a room in a house, it's fairly spacious and we have no complaints about it or the owner. It's quite a nice room and we really appreciate having access to laundry!
Last night after settling in and planning out what we wanted to see while we are here we went out to find some dinner. I wasn't sure what I wanted so we headed for a pub that I had seen on our way... well turns out they only sold alcohol. So we turned around and went to a kebab restaurant, at first I wasn't sure about it but the food turned out to be amazing! We had chicken tikka, lamb korma, rice and naan, and a pitcher of mango lassi. If you are unfamiliar with any of these look them up, find them and try them! Everything was freshly made and very delicious.
To back track slightly while we were headed back to the restaurant Lyle spotted in the window of the shop next door an Indian sweet that he has been trying to explain to me and to find since we started dating. After dinner we stopped in to buy this strange looking orange thing. I had no idea what to expect for taste so I was pleasantly surprised when I bit into what was essentially a very thin, crunchy funnel cake that had been soaked in syrup. Jelabi is what it's called and it is delicious.... we may have purchased more this evening.
This morning we got a bit of a later start because I actually slept well, go figure. We headed down to the Tower Bridge area since we had a list of sights to tackle in that vicinity. We decided to start at the Tower of London since it was on my list of things to do that I had not been able to see on my last trip. We were there for a few hours and I found it highly interesting. Both Lyle and I can be pretty geeky and we both love to learn so we had a blast. Seeing the Crown Jewels was interesting and a bit sad thinking about how much money was tied up in jewels and just sitting there. The highlight for me was the White Tower, the oldest building in the palace, it is about 940 years old. To me it was awe inspiring to stand in a building that old and be able to admire its construction and the history it holds. Lyle says his highlight was our guided tour with our Yeoman Warder Jimmy. Jimmy was informative, captivating and rather funny and as Lyle says he made fun of Americans. He also made fun of Scots and even the English a bit.
After leaving the tower we headed to a little cafe for a lunch of sandwiches and a cup of what they claimed was the best hot chocolate in London.
I am not sure if this picture truly shows the consistency of this drink, by the end I was referring to it as "the sludge". Let's just say, I hope that was not the best hot chocolate London has to offer.
We headed to the Tower Bridge Experience next which allowed us a few historical films about the bridge as well as access to the upper walk ways and the engine rooms. This was pretty interesting, probably not something I would have done without the London Pass, but worthwhile since we didn't have to pay for entrance.
After this we headed for the HMS Belfast, an attraction we were both really excited about. Upon arriving there we found out it is closed for the time being due to walkway reattachment :( so sad.
Our next adventure was the London Bridge and London Tomb experience. Think of this as part history part amusement park haunted house. Very entertaining and quite scary for Lyle at some points as he was at the back and kept having people either reach out and grab him, or sneak up on him. I on the other hand kept taunting the employees, yes I am a bit twisted...I know.
We stopped at Borough Market to grab some dinner, we ended up with baguette sandwiches Lyle had lamb and I had grilled haloumi which made me a very happy girl!
The capstone of our evening was our City Secrets Blood and Tears walk. It was a 2 hour walking tour about the creepy parts of London's History including Jack the Ripper and where William Wallace was hung. We both enjoyed our evening even though by the end of the day our feet were very sore.
Ok that is my post, I think Lyle might just write the next one! Today was a fun filled day so look for the upcoming post :)
Love you all,
L&H
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