How is time flying so fast? It is now September 30 and I landed in London on August 30! I can't believe I am now a month behind on this blog. This week I am going to do everything in my power to catch up! Ok, so we left off with me saying farewell to the Irish, and bonjour to the British! The flight from Dublin to London was very short and I was so excited to meet up with Erin. As soon as I landed and retrieved my luggage, I spoke to an airport employee and asked for directions to the terminal for international flights. His reply was that it depended on the airline. Crickets…. Um, Erin and I had never swapped info about the airline and flight number that she was on. What were we thinking!?! Oh my gosh. All I knew was the time she was supposed to arrive…which in airline language means just about nothing. Whoops! Heathrow is huge and I really wasn't sure what airline Erin was on. I had British Airways at the forefront of my mind, but Air France was also rolling around my noggin. I went with my initial thought, British Airways, took the tram to that terminal, and was thankfully correct! What a joy it was to see Erin come out of the terminal! To be in London with one of your best friends and getting to travel together for two whole weeks in Europe! Happy dance!! We had done some research and learned that Uber is also in London, so we requested an Uber to pick us up and shortly we were on our way to our London flat in SOHO! For those that don’t know, Uber is a car service that you can request via your smart phone. You just need to download the app onto your phone, enter your credit card information and then when you request rides, you don’t have to worry about an exchange of money! Everything is charged directly to your credit card! It is the best system and we ended up using Uber in London and Paris.
As we drove toward Soho, I saw my first red double decker bus and felt like I was in a movie or something! The Georgian building designs were gorgeous and we were just so excited to be there!
Unfortunately, our elation was set back a bit when we arrived to our flat to find what I’d pretty much call a dump. I mean, it wasn’t horrendous and it wasn’t dirty, but we definitely did not feel it was worthy of what we had paid. I am a huge proponent of Air BnB and usually rave about this website and company, but I was so disappointed with the flat. The WiFi was totally spotty and really only worked in one room (we were counting on this to figure out plans, routes, do research, etc), the bathroom was TINY, the second bedroom was more like a closet, and worst of all, the bed in the second bedroom tilted a good thirty degrees. I mean, it was truly unsleepable. Furthermore, we were in the very heart of SOHO and it was SOOOO loud at night, it was very difficult to sleep. I wouldn’t consider myself or Erin old fuddy duddies when it comes to noise or sleep…but this was rough. Oh, and to exit the building we had to pass heaps of stinky garbage bags from the restaurant below our flat. When we contacted the host of the apartment, her suggestions were to use earplugs, put a book under one of the leg posts to help with the tilt, or sleep on a thin twin sized mattress in the living room. Really? We responded with the suggestion that she give us a 20% refund. Ha! Luckily she did not fight us on this suggestion, considering we payed extra to have a two bedroom apartment and it really did not meet those expectations. Anyway, enough about the crappy apartment. By the second day we would make a game of it and place bets on how many bags of trash we'd have to hop over to exit the building. It didn’t get in our way and we truly enjoyed London.
Erin did a great job of researching some places for us to go. Our first night we went to dinner at The Wolseley.
The Wolseley is a gorgeous restaurant located on one of London’s most famous boulevards, Piccadilly. It was originally opened in 1921 as a prestigious car showroom. The architect who was commissioned to design the building drew on Venetian and Florentine influences and the interior is truly magnificent. The building boasts grand arches, towering pillars and elegant stairways and the upscale cars sat upon the shiny, checkered tile flooring. The Wolseley Car Company did not last long, and in 1926 Barclays Bank acquired the building, opening a branch in 1927. It remained a bank for many years. In 2003, the site was purchased, renovated and restored and what is now The Wolselely restaurant opened in November of that year. It has an absolutely stunning interior and I would definitely recommend a nice dinner here.
It is also a good location for tea or brunch, but we had the most amazing dinner including seared scallops, beetroot and goats’ cheese salad, and a heavenly dessert of pistachio, hazelnut and almond nougat ice creams, whipped cream, and butterscotch sauce. All of this was washed down with several dirty martinis and a whole lot of laughter. It was a perfect first dinner in London and we were full and happy!
On our way back to our flat, we had the pleasure of seeing portable urinals set up on the sidewalks. Soho is a predominantly gay neighborhood, so the bars and clubs had gorgeous men spilling into the streets in every direction. I can sort of understand the need for extra urinals, but my goodness! It came as a shock to us as we came around the corner from our elegant dinner at The Wolseley to see Joe Shmoe dropping trow in the middle of the street. Shocking, but hilarious. Picture worthy…. ;)
The next day we planned on hitting several touristy spots. We woke up early, grabbed coffee and were on the go! More to come in my next post! xo
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