London Day 2 - Portobello Market Moosef*ck

Tube station

Hit our first snag on the way to Notting Hill this morning. Got to the tube station and discovered that most of the north-south tube lines are closed this weekend for maintenance. They were offering busses instead, but when we got to the bus stop it was packed with people…and the busses that came were already full with people.  So what should have been a quick ride on the tube became a longer journey, as we opted to go back to the tube and take a round-about way to get to Notting Hill. 

Entering the market

Notting Hill, of course, is the little town made famous by that movie where Hugh Grant’s character lets Julia Roberts’ character kick him in the nuts over and over. It is also the home to a very popular outdoor Portobello market where the streets are lined with vendor booths selling everything from clothes and souvenirs to antiques and all kinds of food.   

Our gnome surfing the market crowd

And oh yeah…it was a mass of humanity.  We made it through maybe half of the market…and that was still quite a lot. It was tough to move with all of the people, particularly the stupid tourists who’d just stop in the middle of the road.  Ally found a cute union jack scarf, but as far as souvenirs go we decided we’d wait and shop for those where it’s less crowded.

Huge cauldrons of paella

Crepes seemed to be really popular with lots of vendors making them, and there was one place with three huge bubbling cauldrons of paella brewing.  Figured since we were heading to Spain we'd wait and do paella there. We opted for grapes to munch on as we strolled.

From Notting Hill, we decided to go back to our home base at Earl’s Court and watch the Chelsea game at a local pub. We were surprised to find the game wasn’t being shown on TV…nor were any other games of the top league.  Turns out we see more EPL games in the states than they do in England.  Very odd.

Ally wants to point out that our neighborhood of Earl’s Court reminds her a lot of Ballard. Lots of shops and restaurants, annoying motorcycles, and sirens. Lots of sirens.

 

We’re going to be a bit screwed tonight trying to keep tabs on the Sounders game.  It would be starting at 9pm here, and our Starbucks hotspot will be closed by then. However, our good friends and soccer buddies the Cooks will be tweeting us updates!

London Day 2 - Early Morning Risers

It's officially Day 2 in London, but we sure didn't get much done. Our goal was to try and stay up as late as possible so we could get on a London schedule. I think I made it to 7:30 last night, Jorge and Ally not much later. Jorge and I both work up at 4am today, Ally says she was up since 2:30am. We did discover the kebab place across the street stays open until 5am; could see the place from our window...didn't look like they had much business.

Not having internet in the apartment is turning out to be more annoying than we'd thought.  We're now sitting at Starbucks, having a coffee and using their wireless.  Have a feeling this is going to be a habit while in London. This place doesn't seem to have heard of "whole wheat", so while Jorge got the coffee Ally and I walked the area checking all of the bakeries and other coffee shops looking for anything healthy.  Not a lot of luck, but did settle on a small baguette that looked more wheaty than white and had seeds on it.

Since we're up early, we're heading out to the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill first, then we'll wander over to South Kensington to where Ally used to live, and then we'll head to Stamford Bridge where we can mock the giant John Terry photo at the stadium. Since Chelsea has an away game at 2:30, we're going to try and find a pub in the area to get the experience of watching a soccer game with the local hooligans. 

Tabs report on Kate's topless photos

The big news over here is the topless photos of Kate Middleton. We aren't seeing the photos, mind you, but hearing the debate over this "dreadful invasion of royal priv-acy." The BBC hosts did say you could find the pics on the internet if you were so inclined. Loved one tabloid's headline of "Kates's Gone Titters!"

We did have a small issue with the water heater at the apartment. It was supposed to be set for 24-hour continuous hot water, but Ally found her shower to be of the cold water variety.  Felt a bit for her as we heard her squeals coming from the bathroom.

Signing off for now...heading out to explore.  

London Day 1 - We Arrived!

Travel day was long, but fine.  For those who don't know, we had enough frequent flyer miles to make the trip on business class, which was nice. We had three seats together in the center of the Boeing 777.  The seats went into all kinds of positions, and went nearly flat for sleeping.  Best part were the larger restrooms in biz class...twice the size of the usual airplane bathroom...and it always smelled so nice. 

Service was good...loved the little cup of hot nuts and of course the hot towels to wash up.  Meals were decent. Had some fresh fruit with my meals that included a mystery fruit that couldn't be cut with a knife. Probably not a commentary on the fruit as much as the dull little knives, which didn't cut salad either. Ally took a bite of the mystery fruit, and declared it had no taste whatsoever.

Welcome to London!

You know how the giant photo of smiling Kobe always greeted you at LAX?  At London Heathrow you have the giant photo of the smiling (and I think much younger and royally Photoshopped) Queen. Ally is channeling her "not impressed" face.

Customs line at Heathrow

We made it through customs fine, were wished a pleasant holiday, and caught the tube out to Eart's Court, where the apartment we're staying at is located. Paul, the landlord, let us in and showed us around.  It's a nice enough place, though the couch is really low to the ground.  But it'll work. The location is great - we're a block from Starbucks, there's a pub next door, and the tube stop is less than two blocks away.

Ally says Paul looks like a British Seth McFarlane (Gramme, google him) and said things like "bruvah" and "favah" when referring to his brother and father.

We were dead tired, but it was only 2pm and we wanted to stay up as late as we could to try and get on London time.  First order of business was a shower...and boy did that feel good!  We didn't go beyond our neighborhood today...wandered a long time to find a place with food I could eat.  Came to the realization that will not be easy in London.  Turkey, sandwiches or otherwise, simply doesn't exist here.  As Jorge pointed out "it's an American bird." We finally settled on a burger place called Byron, where they serve "proper burgers." I got them to take the chicken from a caesar salad and put it on a Nicoise salad for me, and that worked.

Then it was back to the apartment, where we could find nothing but bizarre British game shows on the telly.

It's Finally Here - We Leave Today!

It wouldn't be a family trip if it weren't the morning of our departure with Jorge yet to start packing. Ally and I are both packed in the large suitcases; he thinks he's going to get all he needs in one of the smaller suitcases. We'll see how this works out. Ally showed up last night with her suitcase bulging at the seams; we went through it together and eliminated about a third of the clothes she'd packed (trust me...that still leaves plenty of clothes).

Biggest "must haves" of course are the electronic gear and all of the various chargers - laptop, iPad, iPods, iPhones, cameras. Though we don't have internet in our London apartment, Ally did a Google Earth search last night and found the place is about a block from a Starbucks, so we'll have at least one internet hotspot nearby.

Meals will be a bit of a challenge today with our flight times and the time zone changes. For example, we leave Chicago at 9:30pm, which means it's unlikely dinner will be offered on the flight...but it will just be 6:30pm body time for us, which is too early to have eaten before we board the flight. I'm taking a thermal tote with some fruit and other stuff.

I'm once again traveling with that horrifying passport photo. Wondering if I should make that same "runaway bride" face when I go through customs?

10 Days to Go!

(Gail) Due to a brain fart on my part when we booked our reservations months and months ago, Jorge did not get on the same flight over to London as Ally and I. He would be leaving 5 hours earlier and connecting in New York, while Ally and I would be connecting through Chicago. He has called many times over the months to see if he could get switched to our flight, but there were no frequent flyer  seats available. We hoped that as it got closer to our departure, American might relent and give him a seat if they weren't all sold.

He called American again today, and great news!  He is now on our flight! We don't know if a seat opened up, or they just decided to accommodate him, but we don't care.  He had the AA operator on speaker phone, and when the guy said there would be an additional charge, we braced ourselves for the total. It was $3.82! Turns out all he had to pay was the difference in flight tax between Chicago and NY.  Thank you, American!

With that taken care of time, it's time to get serious about packing. Jorge, of course, is thinking that all three of us can go in one suitcase.  Wrong!  I'm already on record saying that I want to take one empty suitcase solely for souvenirs...should I find things to buy. The biggest regret of our other trip to Europe was not having room for souvenirs other than postcards and refrigerator magnets. I still kick myself for not buying that butt-ass ugly Frank Ribery scarf at the Bayern Munich superstore. It was so seriously wrong that it would be a collector's item.  Not making that mistake again...especially since this trip is only to two cities, so we don't need to be traveling nimble. Plus, we need to take our Sounders jerseys and scarfs for those photos at the Barcelona game.

Nice thing about this trip is we won't need to pack the heavy coats and sweaters like last time.  Jorge's planning to get the suitcases out of the attic later today, and Ally will be stopping by Friday after work to pick hers up.  Getting excited!

One Month

(Ally) I can't believe that in just one short month, my parents and I will be out and about in London-town.  It seems like ages since we bought our plane tickets, but now only 30-some days stand between me and my international home away from home.

However, I would be lying if I said I was most looking forward to my return to London.  Anyone who knows me (and even people who don't know me particularly well) knows that I am obsessed with all things Spain and all things Barcelona.  Unlike my parents, I've been to Barcelona before.  It was in November of 2008, while I was studying abroad in London.  I spent a pretty awesome two and a half days in Barca, gallivanting around with my friends Alex and Natalie.  But we didn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the great things Barcelona has to offer.

Ever since that three-day weekend in '08, I started compiling a list in my head of all the things I wanted to do if I ever got back to Barcelona.  Easily topping that list was to see FC Barcelona play at their home stadium, The Camp Nou.  What can be better for any soccer fan than to see the world's best soccer team play in one of the largest, most storied soccer stadia on the planet?  Answer: nothing.

Well, come September 23rd, I'll get to cross that off my list.  In all honesty, I can say that I have never been more excited about anything than I am about seeing FCB play in the Camp Nou.  This game will most likely top my college graduation, my high school graduation, even the day I found out I got a job in my field of study as my greatest life moment.  That's how amped I am for this game.  I might even cry upon arrival to the stadium's gates.

Obviously, Barcelona can't have all the soccer fun.  In the next few weeks, my parents and I need to figure out which soccer game we want to attend while in England.  Our easiest options would be to go see one of the bigger London clubs (ie Arsenal, Chelsea).  We figured it would be easier to find tickets at a 60,000 seat Stamford Bridge or Emirates than to find one at a 18,000 seat Craven Cottage (for those not versed in EPL stadia, that's where Clint Dempsey's team Fulham plays).

Old Trafford

Now while it would be awesome to see Chelsea at the Bridge again (I've seen them twice, my dad once) or to go see Arsenal get their ass pummeled at the Emirates, there's only one place to go to see soccer in England - Manchester United's Old Trafford.

Again, anyone who knows me knows that I have an illogical hatred of Man U.  But if this European vacation is doubling as a familial soccer pilgrimage, there's no way we can miss out at a chance to see a game at one of the most iconic sports venues in the entire world.  You just can't!  Hopefully we can get our hands on some tickets. 

But until that time, I just need to get through one month -- 21 work days, 9 weekend days.  Let's just hope I can hold out that long.

Getting Closer to Barca!

(Gail) Its' just a little more than a month before we leave for Barcelona and London! Actually it's London first and then Barca, since the soccer schedule finally came out and we'll be seeing FCB play on Sept 22 or 23 (actual game date TBD). But at least we finally know that our trip will start in London and then go on to Barcelona, so now we were at last able to find some places to stay.

Barcelona Apartment

Ally was in charge of finding our lodging, and used a website called AirBnB to locate apartments that are available for rent. We wanted to try the apartment option so we'd be able to make our own breakfasts at least while traveling.

She found lots of options in Barcelona, so all we had to do was figure out what part of the city we wanted to stay in. We picked a place that's a 10 minute walk from the beach, and located on the major transit lines to get everywhere else. It seems like quite a find with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (though I reserve judgement until we actually see the place). There's also a little balcony. We're renting from a lady named Gloria.

London Apartment

It was a bit bigger challenge to find a place in London, as those in our price range were quite a ways out of town. But with persistence, Ally managed to find a place in South Kensington, which is where she lived during her year abroad. It's a very nice neighborhood and pretty central to all we'd want to do. We put in our reservation request, and then noticed the flat was on the fourth floor with no elevator - 77 stairs up.  Uh...no.

Forunately we were able to get out of that and she found another place in Earls Court...just one tube stop further from the S. Kensington location...and we got that. We'll have to make due with just one bathroom here, but I'm sure we'll survive. We're renting from a dude named Paul.

Camp Nou

With lodging nailed down, the next challenge was actually getting the soccer tickets. Though the schedule was out, the tickets didn't go on sale for several more days. Jorge was up in the middle of night trying to order them online, and finally managed to get us 3 seats together. Did I mention those seats were in the 400 level? Though by the looks of the size of the stadium, there may be even more levels. The game is at the iconic Camp Nou, which seats close to 100,000. For soccer fans, seeing a game at the Camp Nou is like a religious pilgrimmage to the Holy Land. Gotta admit I'm pretty excited about it!