London — Day one
May 26, 2011
After a rough spring, we escaped to my favorite city, London, for Memorial Day weekend.
We arrived on the red eye on Thursday morning. Since we couldn’t check into our hotel yet, we grabbed a bite to eat at a local bistro and then headed to Oxford Street for some shopping, hitting Niketown (sadly, even though Tim wanted to buy some soccer gear in honor of the Championship match that Saturday, it was my goal to purchase anklet socks there as they have smaller sizes available than back home) and some shops on Bond to look for a light raincoat for Tim (what better place to look for such a piece, right?). The misty afternoon had created a rainbow by the time we returned to our hotel and checked into our room.
That night, we met up with one of my old University friends, Rys, and his friend Verity, at an Italian place in the close suburb of Twickenham. While the food was good, the conversation was fantastic. Only with my British friends do we cover such various topics as politics, literature, history and archaeology throughout the course of a meal. (Of course, the fact that Verity was on leave from duty in Afghanistan and a fellow history buff led to much of this discussion.) As the restaurant started sweeping up around us, we reluctantly said goodbye to Rys and Verity and headed back into the city.
