After a few days to recover, I am ready to recap the last couple days of our trip.
Thursday, November 2:
Instead of getting up and trodding down to the sub-par breakfast offered by the hotel, we picked-up some good eats from the local grocery the night before. We started the day with a nice little meal in our closet ... I mean, in our room. (It's easy to make that mistake. We actually do have a closet at home bigger than our room.)
After yesterday's tourist stops, we were ready for a little local flavor. Our first stop was Kings Road. I wanted to go here because of its history as the home to Malcolm McLaren's shop: SEX. This was ground-zero for the UK punk scene, and the place around which the Sex Pistols were formed.
We took a couple of trains and landed in Sloan Square, and the beginning of Kings Road. As we took a leisurely stroll down the road, it was easy to see that it had changed a lot since the Punk days. Regardless, it definitely felt more like an area that typical Londoners might frequent, as opposed to the tourist-heavy stops of the previous day.
We stopped for lunch at a little shop, the name of which escapes me, and had a couple of traditional Cornish pasties. They were a bit messy, but absolutely delicious. And again, despite people's warnings, we had yet to have a bad meal on our trip.
After lunch, we walked the rest of the way down to 430 Kings Road, the former location of SEX. Interestingly enough, it is now a restaurant called Nirvana. We hopped-on a bus, which took us back to the train station, and caught the train over to the Oxford Circus.
This location was Medina's pick, and is a shopping Mecca. As we climbed the stairs out of the train station, we were swarmed by thousands of shoppers. Everywhere we looked there was another big-name shop, the likes of which you just don't see in Louisville. Our first stop was H&M, which was absolutely insane. I don't like to shop under normal circumstances, so this was absolutely unbearable. People were literally running through the store. They ran to the rack to get the clothes, ran to the fitting room, and ran to the register. I had to step outside to catch my breath. Medina was not far behind.
Leaving H&M, we fought our way along the sidewalk to another store. I can't recall the name, but it was like a department store, separated by designer. We walked in an were immediately greeted by the Louis Vuitton and Gucci areas. I felt like a fish out of water in that place. I probably don't spend as much on clothes in a year as it would cost to buy one bag from the LV store. We did have fun, however, wandering around and rolling our eyes at the price tags.
We left there and made our way back to the train, which dropped us right back at the station near our hotel. We recovered for a little while, then headed out again. This time, we were out to find dinner and our last souvenir purchase: OXO. Sharron, whose mother is British, and who is a chef, requested this item specifically, and we had to search several grocery stores to find it. But we were successful in the end, and then went into a busy restaurant for our last sit-down meal in the UK. It was delicious.
We headed back to the hotel to pack our bags and try to get some sleep. We had to get an early start to make our way out to Heathrow in the morning.
Thursday, November 2:
Instead of getting up and trodding down to the sub-par breakfast offered by the hotel, we picked-up some good eats from the local grocery the night before. We started the day with a nice little meal in our closet ... I mean, in our room. (It's easy to make that mistake. We actually do have a closet at home bigger than our room.)
After yesterday's tourist stops, we were ready for a little local flavor. Our first stop was Kings Road. I wanted to go here because of its history as the home to Malcolm McLaren's shop: SEX. This was ground-zero for the UK punk scene, and the place around which the Sex Pistols were formed.
We took a couple of trains and landed in Sloan Square, and the beginning of Kings Road. As we took a leisurely stroll down the road, it was easy to see that it had changed a lot since the Punk days. Regardless, it definitely felt more like an area that typical Londoners might frequent, as opposed to the tourist-heavy stops of the previous day.
We stopped for lunch at a little shop, the name of which escapes me, and had a couple of traditional Cornish pasties. They were a bit messy, but absolutely delicious. And again, despite people's warnings, we had yet to have a bad meal on our trip.
After lunch, we walked the rest of the way down to 430 Kings Road, the former location of SEX. Interestingly enough, it is now a restaurant called Nirvana. We hopped-on a bus, which took us back to the train station, and caught the train over to the Oxford Circus.
This location was Medina's pick, and is a shopping Mecca. As we climbed the stairs out of the train station, we were swarmed by thousands of shoppers. Everywhere we looked there was another big-name shop, the likes of which you just don't see in Louisville. Our first stop was H&M, which was absolutely insane. I don't like to shop under normal circumstances, so this was absolutely unbearable. People were literally running through the store. They ran to the rack to get the clothes, ran to the fitting room, and ran to the register. I had to step outside to catch my breath. Medina was not far behind.
Leaving H&M, we fought our way along the sidewalk to another store. I can't recall the name, but it was like a department store, separated by designer. We walked in an were immediately greeted by the Louis Vuitton and Gucci areas. I felt like a fish out of water in that place. I probably don't spend as much on clothes in a year as it would cost to buy one bag from the LV store. We did have fun, however, wandering around and rolling our eyes at the price tags.
We left there and made our way back to the train, which dropped us right back at the station near our hotel. We recovered for a little while, then headed out again. This time, we were out to find dinner and our last souvenir purchase: OXO. Sharron, whose mother is British, and who is a chef, requested this item specifically, and we had to search several grocery stores to find it. But we were successful in the end, and then went into a busy restaurant for our last sit-down meal in the UK. It was delicious.
We headed back to the hotel to pack our bags and try to get some sleep. We had to get an early start to make our way out to Heathrow in the morning.
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