2 Days in London (with breakfast food porn)

 Hey, ho, hey nanny yo! 

Yes, we're just back from seeing As You Like It at the Globe and that was the theme song.  More on that later. 

In case you are having trouble with the itinerary, K, RR and I are now in London for 4 days, she having joined us at Heathrow Friday as we arrived from Edinburgh.  It was really, really good to see her, if only because she doesn't fart out loud, tell bad jokes, or generally act like...something. :)  Also, I can't keep track of the itinerary either K asked during a break today what it was. :) 

Let's start with our flat.  We are two or three blocks from Baker Street station, just off the same road (Crawford Street) where I've stayed many times, including 3 years ago on my last trip with students.  They were in a flat on this street, too.  It's on the fifth floor and has two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  It's perfect for the three of us. 

To yesterday: the first breakfast place (there have been a bunch and there'll be more here) was like 50 feet from the door to our flat. It's called Avobar.  There was a crowd there today, too. 

Here is food porn one:

The ubiquitous avocado toast. 

Scrambled eggs on toast with bacon.

An omelet with cheese and chili paste with avocado on top.

Ciinnamon bun and chocolate croissant (which only just got eaten). 
  

You can tell, it was a bump.  

Then we jumped on the Tube from Baker Street to Westminster.

RR has never been here before.  He wasn't ready for Westminster on a Saturday, although I started with a talk about him doing Zen, deep breaths, because there was going to be a crowd and he hates crowds.  

There was a huge crowd.  If you don't know, you come out of Westminster Tube station with Big Ben looming right there above you. There were lots of pictures and several "you need to slow downs" as we made our way to the river, a look at Westminster Bridge -- no longer famous for the Wordsworth poem but for the two guys who ran their cars into people on it in the last X number of years -- and then over to Westminster Abbey.  There were no tickets left for the day, so we moved on. 

We made it up Parliament Street, stopping to see if Larry was out at the Prime Minster's residence at #10 (he wasn't), then a pic in front of the Horse Guards, then up the hill to Trafalgar Square.  

After some pics, we went into the crypt at St. Martin's-in-the-Field and had drinks.  I "snuck" a delicous-looking piece of triple-layer chocolate cake. :)

Pause on the narrative to say the side story of this blog.  Twice in the last two days K has avoided calamity.  Last night they were standing outside Tesco around closing at 11 while I looked for decaf coffee and a drunk decided he was flying (acc to RR) and stumbled and ran into her! 😡 RR happened to turn and see it coming and was able to grab her arm as she was knocked off balance to keep her from falling. :) 

Then today we were back in the crowd at Westminster and K was like a step behind me (RR had bolted ahead) and a rickshaw cut in behind me, breezing my backside. 😡  I thought he had to hit her!  I turned and she said "I saw him coming and stopped.  I knew he wasn't stopping." 

After snacks and drink, we decided to spend some time in National Gallery of Art.  It's free.  (I made a donation) RR wanted to see the Impressionists (he'd just been to the D'Orsay) and so we went into the rooms to the right (45) that end the journey of the gallery.   We looked in 45 and then into 46, where it was all Monets (spoiler alert: we're going to his home this week) and...we were all in 46 and it was crowded and RR went out and I went out into 45 and I waited for K.   She never came out!!!  RR came back and we talked and I checked in 46 -- no K.  The long and the short of it was she disappeared and I couldn't find her.  I should point out that K does not have any cell coverage and has been using wifi. Well, there were no messages. I expected one asking where I was.  In the end she showed up.  I told her that I was worried someone took her and she said "no one's going to take me."  Well, tell me that when you disappear like that. ): 

Back to the flat for a quick nap, then off to the footie.  

Yes, we had tickets at Wembley to see England play Spain.  You know, the World Cup winner and the 3rd place finisher. 

It was RR's first football game (there are going to be a lot of RR firsts). 

He got a great game for his first.  The England defender fumbled away the ball to Yamal, Spain's best striker, in the opening 2 minutes and he beat the goalie one-on-one and it was Spain 1-0 early.  I wonder if there wouldn't be rope-a-dope for the rest of the way but late in the half England scored 2 goals to go into the locker room 2-1.  It was a long time in the second half with England trying to score and failing, Spain looking second-best.  Harry Kane even missed a penalty kick.  Then Spain came back and scored two late in the second half to win 3-2.  We had food truck burgers for dinner.  No photos.  :)

And that was day one. 

Day two started with another top brekkie.  The place was WatchHouse, which has several restaurants in central London.

This is a chocolate swirl.  Think cinnamon bun except with chocolate swirl in it.  And, yes, that's a chocolate genache on top. :)

Carrot cake. The second time RR has had it for breakfast on the trip. 

Cappucino -- it's not an onion! :)

Eggs benedict (it was dark there)

This is there butter toast, which RR loved it. 

Then off to Lambeth and the Imperial War Museum (IWM).  Funny bit is that we came out of the station and K said she remembered being there (I didn't, unsurprisingly) and we followed the first and second brown historical sign and then we got to a corner and I admitted I didn't know which way to turn.  We looked at Google maps and found it was across the street, with the entrance a half block back.  We missed the huge naval guns out front. 😂

You need to know RR is a WW2 buff.  OC he's never been here, or seen anything like some of their exhibits.  Like this one -- 

and this one

The kind of Soviet tank, made in Czech Republic, they used in WW2.

From there we went back to the Tube and RR got a ticket for the 1430 into the Churchill War Rooms (he really likes this stuff) and, having been through them last year, we waited in St. James Park.  I may have had chocolate gelato though since K can't testify against me, who knows? :)

After a quick hit at Buckingham Palace (Charley didn't come out and wave to us ):) and a hard walk through Green Park (we were all exhausted), we got to the Tube and made it back to the flat. 

We decided to take a cab out for the night. The goal was Dishoom in Southwark.  The cabbie talked our ears off -- how bicyclists are killers, how he worked so hard to get his cabbie license (everyone does), some about the football, and about the district we were going into (it used to be sketch when I started going to the Globe), etc.  He charged us £40!!! 😕 

There was no Dishooms -- it wasn't open yet (someone didn't bother check the deets ):) and we ended up at Wagamama's, which some of you will have been with us to.  This one let us down by not bothering to wait on us for at least 10 minutes -- grrr -- and we got our food fairly quickly.  I was in a rush and pissed at the wait staff so forgot to feed my phone.  I had the usual chicken katsu curry; RR had salmon on noodles; K had chicken on noodles; we had chicken won tons.  I had to go to the serving station to check out, rushed the other to to finish dinner (having not eaten nearly all of mine) but we made it to the theatre at 620 for the 630 show. 

I gave RR a thumbnail, as he hasn't done any Shakespeare, of both the play and the theatre's interesting history and we sat in the lower gallery, almost straight in front of the stage.  

The play was As You like It, which I thought was a good, soft opening for us all.  OC, the Globe company sticks mostly to comedies, since it's a very touristy crowd. 

They don't allow pictures once the production starts so I got this one of the stage before -- 

 During the play, they filled the white board with free hand drawings of trees.  Although most of the gallery for musicians is obscured they had some and the guitarist rocked the production.  There was lots of music.  The opening scenes were set in Restoration dress (you know, elaborate waistcoats, high heeled shows and big wigs) and it got rather weird with the move to the forest.  I didn't think either Rosalind or Orlando were particularly well cast, but the production was full of music and the actors played to the audience -- Touchstone started a speech with "She's a slut" (paraphrasing) and the crowd groaned and he paused and ad libbed "I haven't even finished the sentence yet!" and got a laugh.  He called the crowd goats...which got a laugh.  

The finish with the guitarist in a white "wedding" dress, knee high white boots, a huge ruffle, and a white 12-string guitar, leading a couple songs, including the nth renditon of Hey nonny, was a winner.  RR said he really enjoyed it, as did we all, and we Ubered back and were done.  

And that's 2 days in London. 

Hey nonny!