London Baby!!! - Part 4

Today is our last day in London! We hit up our favorite breakfast place Absolutely Starving and then took off for Buckingham Palace.

The Pastry table at Absolutely Starving

We leisurely walked through the park across from the palace to relax and also avoid the changing of the guards crowd. It was almost over so we took our time. We walked down the mall to the main streets and saw the horse guards coming by which was really cool.

We then walked towards covent garden, but on the way stopped in book shops so Adam could get maps for our house in IL when we come home. On our route shopping Adam stopped in an old book store and the owner said that the street we were on was where they filmed a bunch of Harry Potter Movie Scenes. Ummm very cool!

Covent Garden was full of vendors, I think they have a market going on all the time there. We also walked by the famous Savoy Hotel and finally settled in at Crusting Pipe for a lunch snack. The rain had also moved in so we decided to hang out for that reason too =)

Adam's sandwich was really good. It was a beef tartare sandwich...ie raw beef. It was delicious!

I got roasted red pepper hummus which was also great, and some tea. While we ate the rain came and went which was really nice.

So since we only had a couple of hours left and the weather was hit and miss we headed over to Harrod's for shopping, Food shopping that is. We got Coffee, Tea, and biscuits to take home with us.

We started off in the chocolate, tea, and coffee room. Then moved around to all the other kinds of foods. Harrod's is always so much fun to wander around in. It's definitely a food mecca. You can find anything you could possibly want there. We rode the Egyptian escalators all the way to the top and back down again looking in various departments. Nothing serious but a lot of fun.

Then it was time. We finally had to say good bye to this english speaking town and head back to Switzerland. I was really going to miss being able to eaves drop on other people's conversations again hahahaha!

We had so much fun in London and are looking forward to going back again some day. Our favorites were probably Barbacoa for eating and the Tower of London for being tourists.

London Baby!!! - Part 3

Today we started our tour at the Tower of London. We headed in and started with the Crown Jewels which were gorgeous. The history of the jewels was amazing. Sorry again...no photo's.

This is where the Crown Jewel's are kept

The next spot in the tower was the white tower in the center. It had all sorts of guns, old books, armor for people and horses. You name it and it was there. One of the coolest things I thought was the area where they had the different swords and fighting weapons that you could lift and see just how heavy they were. No wonder everyone was so fit back then. They were constantly carrying around swords that weighed 20+ pounds!!!

The white tower on the very inside of the walls at the Tower of London

Adam and the sword

Guns

Ledger of Receipts...Yes we thought it was funny!

Adam does not want to Audit these people

Armor..teeny tiny and the daddy one hahahaha

Lots of Gun's...Right up Adam's alley

You could also walk around the perimeter of the outer wall where we got some great shots of the bridge.

Us on the perimeter wall at the Tower of London

 Another area we went was the Bloody tower where they tortured people. Doesn't look fun!!

A torture contraption

Torture Contraption

One of the guards marching around

We took the tube over to Covent Garden to hangout, grab a snack, and walk around. This was my favorite area when I was in London the first time. On our way there we walked by the Free Mason Temple.

Free Mason Temple

Covent Garden Market Hall

The Ice Creamists shop at Covent Garden was awesome. We got popcorn flavored Ice Cream

Me goofing off in the booth

Adam in the Red Telephone booth

Adam knew I really wanted to do a high tea so he e-mailed Bea's of Bloomsbury and got us a reservation for today. No lie...this was so much fun. I loved it! There is a good chance you will leave with a ridiculous sugar high but it was awesome!!

High Tea at Bea's of Bloomsbury

Our Tea Sandwiches, biscuits, and desserts

We were really looking forward to tonight because we were going to see our friends from Edwardsville Allan and Jen Cochran. They were traveling through the area as well so we were really excited to see some familiar faces. We met them at La Pietra, an italian restaurant in town. it was so fun hanging out and catching up with them. We went over to Westminster and Parliament area to take some night pictures before they had to get back. It was so fun hanging out with friends.

The London Eye at night

Adam, Abby, Jen, and Allan

Parliament and Big Ben at night

Hahahaha Adam's a Giant!!

London Baby!!! - Part 2

After getting some much needed rest we were ready to rock on Sunday morning. We went to Absolutely Starving for breakfast and split a traditional english breakfast, a box with Scrambled eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, and bacon. Surprisingly, really great! We grabbed a hop on hop off bus by Tower Bridge and rode around town seeing all the sights.

Us at Picadilly Circus

Trafalgar Square

The Countdown clock to the Olympics

Parliament and Big Ben from the Bus

Much later we got off around Oxford Street and went to yet another bbq place for lunch, Bodeans. Great sandwiches and a nice place to sit and relax off the beaten path. We grabbed a different bus and got off at another interesting destination for Adam...Bakers Street...221B to be exact! The Sherlock Holme's museum is there. So we went in to rummage around and Adam got something he really wanted for his b-day.  A nice set of the Sherlock Holme's books.

Adam at 221b Bakers Street

A movie Scene being filmed ...but what movie you ask...James Bond!

And who hops out of the car but Judy Dench

Big Ben and Parliament

Westminister Abbey

Parliament on our warm sunny day

The park behind Westminster Abbey

The London Eye and Acquarium

Another shot of the park behind Westminster Abbey

The Front view of Westminster Abbey

We hopped on the bus again and rode around for awhile. Then grabbed a quick snack and dropped the books off at the hotel. We met up at 7:30 for the Jack the Ripper tour. Also, another tour where we couldn't take pictures, but so cool. We walked around a lot of side streets and alley's to area's where the bodies were found. They explained what life was like back then and why some jack the ripper theories and movies couldn't be true. It was a truly fun experience for us and highly recommended...not for kids though. You all know my weak stomach for blood and guts and she was quite detailed on how each person had been killed.

London Baby!!! - Part 1

Well Adam Palooza started last saturday morning. In honor of his birthday we took a trip to London.  We landed a little after 8 in the morning and took off for the hotel. After dropping off our luggage we set our sights on food for lunch. Our first stop was the Borough market a few blocks from our hotel. It is a huge market selling organic produce, meats, cheeses, desserts, and home brewed coffee.

The Borough Market

We walked around the market to see what they had to offer, and finally settled on pulled pork sandwiches. I mean when your out of switzerland go meat crazy!!!

The Pulled Pork Restaurant Hobbs

After refueling we started viewing our next purchase, oysters. Adam really wanted to try raw oysters. I can live with out those little booger looking things, but he liked them.

Yum Oysters 

Adam is certainly enjoying these

The guy selling oysters at the market

We left the market and walked down the pier towards Tower Bridge. We walked across and walked around the Tower of London. I wanted to find the entrance for a surprise later that night for Adam. As we started heading back to our hotel we stopped into what became our favorite snack and breakfast place for the whole trip, Absolutely Starving. We got some snacks and warmed up. As you can see from the pictures it was very grey and overcast that day and quite chilly.

The Tower Bridge

More Bridge

Our favorite snack and breakfast shop Absolutely Starving

After cleaning up we headed to Adam's surprise dinner spot. His favorite chef from food network is Jamie Oliver. It just so happens that Jamie Oliver has a couple of restaurants in London so I got us a reservation at Barbacoa. The one with lots of steaks...meat Yum!!! Adam was definitely surprised and loved his dinner. He ordered the pork scratchings which ended up being glorified pork rinds. The main event was his steak and my pork chop. Best pork chop i've ever eaten...and I certainly ate the whole thing.

Pork Scratchings

Adam's steak

My Pork Chop

The big fat grill where they cook our meat

After gorging ourselves at dinner we decided to walk back to the Tower of London for the special event. It is the Changing of the Keys Ceremony. It is a free ceremony to go to, but you have mail off for the tickets in advanced and request the night you want. The ceremony has been going on for hundreds of years. It is the locking up of the Tower of London. It was very cool to watch the guards. Unfortunately no pictures can be taken...sorry!!

The Tower of London