London

We made it home and survived our first day back at work. For a moment, though, indulge me and allow me to take myself back to the final stop on our honeymoon journey - London.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon. Our England home base was a really nice apartment no more than a block away from the Notting Hill Gate tube. It was a very convenient and pleasant place to stay. After settling in, we got ourselves oriented in proper London fashion - hopping among pubs. But first, a side trip took us to the Tower of London, at which they were just beginning to deconstruct an amazing tribute to England's fallen soldiers in the First World War. The arranged thousands of red poppies, one for each English life lost during the war. It was a beautiful and poignant tribute. You can see pictures here. From there, it was on to the pubs. Our neighborhoods of choice that evening were the South Bank of the Thames and the City of London. The Old Thameside, The Founders Arms, and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese were our stops. The first two offer good mingling and reliable cask ales, the crown jewel (...) of the group is clearly the Cheshire Cheese. It's a pub with more nooks, crannies, corners and caverns than are easy to count. It is also full of history. Truly one of our favorite places to try a cask ale.

The next day began with me sleeping off the ales I just mentioned. Once we took care of that, we headed east. We started with a tour of the Tower of London, led by one of the famous Beefeaters. After watching him and listening to his stories and very dry seanse of humor, I more fully understood the English blood that I have always been told runs in my dad's family.

From there, we went farther east to Greenwich, which is famous for arbitrarily haven been chosen as zero degrees longitude. Greenwich offers the feel of a small English town and the convenience of a 20 minute train ride from central London. When we arrived in Greenwhich, it was a bit cold, windy, and rainy. While not ideal, such weather is part of what you sign up for when visiting London. How did we cope with the dreary weather? You guessed it - Pub time. We waited out the worst of the rain at the Meantime brewery, where they make their own trendy microbrews in the shadow of the very old Royal observatory, through which the prime meridian runs. After that it was still raining a bit, so we sufferred through another stop at a local pub, this time the Greenwich Union, which offered the feel of a local college bar, including a very welcome bartender full of good suggestions and generous samples. By the time finished at the Union, either the rain had almost completely subsided, or the beer made us not care as much. We took the long stroll up the hill to the old observatory, which now hosts a nice little museum with telescopes and watches and all sorts of great geeky gadgets.

Sam in the Western Hemisphere and Stephanie in the East

On the way home, we stopped to walk around the docklands. The docklands are the relatively new and shiny answer to the City of London's tradition and elegance. Skyscrapers seem to be shooting up everywhere you look in the docklands, a relatively recent development for an area that had been previously neglected and run down, and before that had been the heart of the world's busiest port, welcoming ships bearing all sorts of goods to London via the Thames. We found a Spanish Tapas restaurant and enjoyed some wine and Spanish cured meats and cheese. It was a nice little snack. The combination of lots of beer and greasy pub food didn't sit well with Stephanie, so we laid low that night, including an interesting outing for Sam in search of the UK equivalent of Pepto-Bismol (Tums was the best I could find, and I also bought some cookies which were labeled as digestives, which makes them totally healthy).

Friday we slept in again. A honeymoon full of tours, hikes, and walks adds up, and we were more than willing to trade in some sight-seeing time for rest and relaxation by that point. Once we did get moving, we visited the London Transport museum near Covent Garden. Fun fact: because they don't celebrate American Thanksgiving in England, they have no barrier to starting the Christmas shopping season at the beginning of November! The high shopping streets and several markets were well on their way to fully-decked (double-decked?) status.

Along with several elementary school classes of children, we walked our way through the history of public transit in London, which may sound dull, but London does a really really really nice job with public transit, including the world-famous underground. It tuns out that 2014 is the "year of the bus" and there was an interesting exhibit about London buses that were used to support English troops on the front lines of battle in World War One.

Hey Dad (Joe), check out the pigeons!

 In addition to the museum and exhibits, the transport museum is home to what I think is the greatest museum gift shop in the world. The place is full of endless books, posters, mugs, magnets, models, fine china, home decor and basically anything else you can print a tube map on. And it's all fantastic. It was perhaps my greatest display of discipline our entire time in Europe to refrain from buying anything.

And that's where me not buying anything came to an end. Those of you who have followed S&SGTE since the first trip will know about my longing to find a coat like the Euros wear. In Paris and London, everywhere you look, you see a stylish man wearing a really sharp looking overcoat. They are the envy of all the Euroladies' eyes. But I have never had any luck finding one. Until now. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: Sam in a (moderately) fancy London coat:

This is navy, but Sam actually bought the black one

Seen here

Next up was an evening London Walk - this time we chose the Knightsbridge pub walk, which took us through some of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world, and ended up by the famous and quite fancy Harrods's department store. Once again, our diet of pub food and pub ale was not sitting the best with Stephanie, but she trooped on through. Our guide was familiar to us, the same one we had on our SoHo tour last year named Richard III (London walks employs 6 Richards). Among the extremely expensive and fancy looking row-manors, we saw an impressive array of very very expensive cars, all parked out on the street. The one that reigned supreme (...) was a McLaren, which left a couple of the men in our tour group a few blocks behind while they salivated over the car. Candidly, this was my least favorite London walk of the three I have done. Richard III takes some time in warming up, so for the first while he seems as though is slightly annoyed to be leading the tour. In addition, there weren't many sights of note along the way. The tour was notable mostly for the overpricedness of everything we walked past. The icing on the cake was that we only stopped at two pubs! Despite the walk not living up to those past, it was still a worthwhile activity for a couple hours. We ended the night with a late meal at the Kensington Nando's, the tasty Portuguese chicken chain.

Saturday brought the bittersweet finale to what we both agree was a fantastic vacation. This time we woke up relatively on time. Our first stop was the Portobello Road market. We indulged in crepes, doughnuts, coffee, a german sausage, and a potato that was spiral-cut and served on a stick.

We also bought cheese, meat, and bread for a meal later that day. After the market, our day was spent rather aimlessly. A stroll through Hyde Park, a stroll along the South Bank of the River Thames, and  a night time stroll through Kensington. We took a boat ride along the river, which was a relaxing way to take in the sights. We also enjoyed the meal from the market on the terrace of our apartment.