Family 5K’s

No, not literally. But Mom, Dad, Amber, Endo and I got some nice sprinting training in our voyage through London, Bath and Dover. Megan and Ben- you’ll have to make up for your loss of running in Greece or our cross country times will be minutes apart.

I had class all day on Monday, so I was only able to enjoy some British pub food for dinner with the fam and then quickly showed them my place in Camden. However, they were able to go to Windsor Castle for the day and Mom and Dad even caught a Westminster Abbey evensong service later. That was to make up for the tour they missed on Saturday because of a cancelled flight; that’s a story you’ll have to ask them about, though.

However, Tuesday was a different story. Despite my morning class, where I visited Lord’s Cricket Ground, the most famous cricket stadium in the world, we were able to fit in a lot. Mom, Dad, Amber and Endo went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in the morning, which Amber found to be her all-time favorite museum and Mom loved too. Afterwards, I met them at Kensington Gardens and showed them just how close my classroom was to Kensington Palace. From here, we quickly got some falafel before our first run to the Tower of London. The Tower impressed me just as much the second time around and we got some more great views of Tower Bridge. Mom spent an hour (just a slight exaggeration) looking at the Crown Jewels- Dad wasn’t as impressed. Our next run was to Borough Market, which I thought closed at 6 pm- apparently not. We got there around 5:35 and all the stands were already closed; we settled for a nearby Mexican restaurant. Then, to end the night, which was one of my highlights of the week, we saw Les Miserables at the Sondheim Theatre. The musical exceeded our expectations and we couldn’t get the songs out of our heads for the remainder of the trip.

Wednesday started off hot with a nice breakfast before our visit to the British Museum. I only had an hour and 15 minutes before class, so we visited the Greek and Egyptian exhibits while I was there before I set off. While I was in class, they finished up and went to St. Paul’s Cathedral and got their first beautiful view of the city of the day. Their second came immediately after, as I met them at the London Eye, something I had been waiting to do. The view was amazing, especially of my friend Ben the bell-tower/clock. After the ferris wheel and a stop for dinner along the Thames, I literally ran to Ben’s Cookies because Mom and I were craving some dessert. After all the cookies were sold out at the first location, I hurried to the next closest and acquired the much needed sweets. The hour-long round-trip was definitely worth it though, and we had a good end to the night (especially since I won the card game we played).

The next morning we went to Paddington Station for our train to Bath, appropriately named for our first destination: the Roman Baths. The architecture of the bathhouse was beautiful and wonderfully preserved, which made for some great pictures, especially with Bath Abbey looming in the background. We saw some pretty cool Roman inscriptions describing crimes of those who had done customers wrong; these tablets request the goddess Minerva (patron goddess of the bathhouse) to intervene and curse the thieves. I doubt Minerva was able to retrieve the stolen clothes of one such victim in time for his embarrassment to subside. After our visit to the baths, we took a free walking tour around the city to learn and see more, the highlight of which were the parks. The crescent and the circus were two parks surrounded by or partially surrounded by fancy residences, one of which used to be home to Nicholas Cage (in case you were wondering). After the tour, we had afternoon tea at Sally Lunn’s, who made some great bunns. To finish the day, we walked around the city some more, I beat Amber in a maze race, did cartwheels and (attempted) handstands in the crescent and ate at the Giggling Squid. But, when Dad checked the time of our return train to find out it was at 8:13 pm and not 8:31 pm, we found ourselves sprinting again. We made it with minutes to spare and received lots of stares. I hope they were laughing with us rather than at us, but doubtful.

Another day trip found us in Dover the following morning. We hiked quite a bit on this day, hitting a high of 27,182 steps on the day (although I know Mom and Amber had over 30,000). My average for the week was 19,913, which says quite a lot about our nonstop days. Anyways, our first hike was to Dover Castle, which stood at the top of the city. In addition to learning about the royalty who had lived there (Henry II, as Dad didn’t let us forget), we learned about the wartime tunnels and Dover’s role in WWII. Dover was the location where the escape from Dunkirk was planned out and soldiers were brought to upon rescue. The tunnels had been built in the 18th century and expanded later on for planning and safekeeping during warfare, and they have been preserved to this day. After our tour, we visited the iconic White Cliffs of Dover, which were a great picture place. This required a fair bit of hiking as well, especially as we had to go down from the castle before hiking up to the top again. It’s a good thing Mom didn’t wear her heels today (although watching her walk a few steps and then jog the next few continuously during our sprints is quite the sight to see). To end the day, we got some fish and chips along the English Channel accompanied by some cider- Endo’s had it right all along, ciders are the only way to go.

Saturday, Amber and Endo’s last day (sad), was more relaxed (sort of?). We went to Camden Market in the morning, which everyone loved. Everyone commented on how unique of a place it was, full of fun shops and great food. We took advantage of both and would have stayed longer had it not been for the Premier League match we were going to. We took the overground to Vicarage Road Stadium, the home of Watford, for a match against Brentford. Despite sitting in the hot sun, everyone loved the experience and the match did not disappoint, even though Watford lost 2-1. Although this must have hurt the home fans, it hurts 10x more considering they lost in the 95th minute, 30 seconds after Watford missed two open net chances on the same play to win it themselves. After the match, we went back to Camden for one last pub dinner followed by an amazing dessert.

Sunday, Mom and Dad’s last day (sad), was quite the unique Easter. After visiting Big Ben (somewhat on accident), we got breakfast and then headed over to Greenwich. Greenwich is the home to the Royal Observatory, where the Prime Meridian (hence Greenwich meantime) is located. Stepping from hemisphere to hemisphere and seeing lots of cool clocks made for a fun time. Then we went to Cutty Sark, a 19th century sailboat that was the fastest of its time. Specifically used for trade, it made many tea-driven trips to China and wool-driven trips to Australia. It was pretty cool and after learning more about tea, I appreciate it even more. Then we went through Greenwich Market before heading to Brick Lane in Shoreditch for some Indian food. We went to Aladin, and it’s here I had some of the best food I’ve gotten in London. I got chicken tikka masala, England’s national dish, with some rice and naan and it was absolutely delicious (and also a little spicy). To end the day, we took the double decker bus, Dad’s highlight of the trip, all the way back to our airbnb. We got to see all the sites in one trip, and it was a fitting end to the week.

The week wasn’t all running. We mixed in the occasional relaxing in the form of food. I got to show everyone how London is the best place for diversifying your cuisine portfolio. We had English breakfasts and French pastries throughout the week for breakfast. We had Lebanese, Thai, Italian, English and Pakistani for lunch. Dinner consisted of English pubs, Mexican, Italian, Indian, and Thai. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty impressive to me. I’m going to come home a new man (but I WILL continue to refuse onions and tomatoes).

As much as I fit in this week, the fam also went to the Churchill War Rooms, Buckingham Palace, the National Gallery, and the other places I mentioned earlier. I’m told London exceeded everyone’s expectations and I couldn’t be happier. I’m so glad they were able to visit and, although it seemed too short, it was a great time. Megan and Ben, I’ll definitely come with you when you guys make the trip down ;).

Now there’s only 11 days left. Let’s make it a challenge to fit in everything I haven’t seen yet in this short amount of time.

Cheers