Weekending in London
This weekend just gone was spent in London. It was the first time I've been off the island in two and a half years and it was nice to spend the long weekend freely roaming the city.
Friday
James and I woke up at half 6 to get ourselves ready and to the airport for check in. Despite our flight running a little behind schedule, we landed in Gatwick on time, at 9:30am. We didn't have too long a wait for our luggage and soon headed into Central London.
Hotel check in wasn't until 3pm, which is the main reason for only packing a gym bag. It made wondering the city much easier as we didn't have to drag around big suitcases. As we had a few hours to kill, we went for lunch at Ed's Easy Diner, which was a solid favourite from the last couple of times I've visited London. I just love how quirky the place is and the variety of food they serve makes choosing what you want quite the decision!
We wondered through Trafalgar square before taking a walk to the hotel for a drink before check in. For dinner, Hard Rock Cafe was the venue of choice. We were seated instantly, and the food and service certainly did not disappoint! As a main, I opted for the Texan burger and James chose the ribs and pulled pork combo. When it came to the dessert, neither one of us felt we could manage a whole one each so decided to share a brownie.
The portion sizes are very generous and worthy of the prices charged. The staff all have a high level of customer service skills, being so happy, friendly and relaxed despite every seat in the restaurant being filled. After they seat you, they introduce themselves, tell you the name of the person who will be serving you for the evening and then give you a bit of background info on the restaurant which I thought was a lovely touch.
As for the drinks, we both opted for a couple of cocktails. James had two 'hurricanes' and I started with a red sangria then went for a hurricane. They were running some sort of discount offer where if you ordered one large cocktail and went for a second of the same, then your refill would work out cheaper.
We both agreed that anywhere we went throughout the rest of our weekend would have a hard time topping both the food and service we received from Hard Rock Cafe.
Saturday
Saturday was mostly spent walking around.
As breakfast is one of my favourite parts of the day, we headed down to the hotel restaurant around half 8 and had a fair amount considering how much we ate the day before. We began with a walk down to Buckingham Palace, where we saw some of the Palace guards being guided by police escorts. Of course, every tourist went running to the road side with their phones and cameras at the ready.
Come lunchtime, Oxford Street was calling for me. And so was food. With how busy the tube was and also being unsure of when Lucille would arrive, we decided we didn't want to go somewhere where we'd be waiting a while so we stopped in at McDonalds. All I'll say is that I cannot stomach any McDonalds food now. Literally. I felt quite ill throughout the afternoon, and had to cut our evening short due to just how bad I actually felt.
Moving onto a more positive note, we met Lucille at 2 and shopped together for a full two hours. We all did very well actually. Despite venturing into many of the big name shops, such as Topshop, River Island and Zara, we only found items we liked from Primark and left the shop an hour later with a big bag full of stuff.
Lucille headed off to meet some more friends for the evening so we roamed around a few more shops before heading to TGI Friday's. James ordered a burger while I went for chicken fajitas. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy my food, but with the McDonalds situation, I just wasn't up to being in such a crowded area.
Sunday
There are a couple of ways to describe my levels of excitement when I awoke on Sunday morning.
Both ways are accurate. I have no shame in that fact. I do have a post coming later on this week on Friendsfest. Including it in this one would have made this far too long a post.
We returned to the hotel for 6pm, dropped some stuff off and went to the pub for dinner. It was steak and chips for me and while James had another burger. We finished the evening with a bottle of wine to share.
Monday
This was the day James was more excited about. We went to the zoo. Not only that, we also fed the giraffes! For me, some of the excitement was taken out of this because I've done it before two years ago. Don't get me wrong, I was still excited to feed the giraffes but this trip was more about Friendsfest than the zoo.
We awoke at half 7 and much to our disappointment, the wonderful weather we'd had the three days previous decided to leave us. It didn't rain for too long, luckily we were either at the hotel or on the tube while the rain fell. By half 11 when we began our walk to the zoo, it was drying up a little. Upon entry, we were given the option to put our bags in a locker for the day which we took advantage of.
By half 3, we felt like we had seen everything so made our way to the airport. We aimed to catch the train from Victoria by 5 so that we could beat the rush hour traffic. We did this successfully.
We both had such an amazing trip. To say London is only an hour away by plane, I still have the holiday blues already and I just want to go back! This trip was exactly what I needed and despite wanting to go back, I feel better for going.
Charlotte.
The portion sizes are very generous and worthy of the prices charged. The staff all have a high level of customer service skills, being so happy, friendly and relaxed despite every seat in the restaurant being filled. After they seat you, they introduce themselves, tell you the name of the person who will be serving you for the evening and then give you a bit of background info on the restaurant which I thought was a lovely touch.
As for the drinks, we both opted for a couple of cocktails. James had two 'hurricanes' and I started with a red sangria then went for a hurricane. They were running some sort of discount offer where if you ordered one large cocktail and went for a second of the same, then your refill would work out cheaper.
We both agreed that anywhere we went throughout the rest of our weekend would have a hard time topping both the food and service we received from Hard Rock Cafe.
Saturday
Saturday was mostly spent walking around.
As breakfast is one of my favourite parts of the day, we headed down to the hotel restaurant around half 8 and had a fair amount considering how much we ate the day before. We began with a walk down to Buckingham Palace, where we saw some of the Palace guards being guided by police escorts. Of course, every tourist went running to the road side with their phones and cameras at the ready.
Come lunchtime, Oxford Street was calling for me. And so was food. With how busy the tube was and also being unsure of when Lucille would arrive, we decided we didn't want to go somewhere where we'd be waiting a while so we stopped in at McDonalds. All I'll say is that I cannot stomach any McDonalds food now. Literally. I felt quite ill throughout the afternoon, and had to cut our evening short due to just how bad I actually felt.
Moving onto a more positive note, we met Lucille at 2 and shopped together for a full two hours. We all did very well actually. Despite venturing into many of the big name shops, such as Topshop, River Island and Zara, we only found items we liked from Primark and left the shop an hour later with a big bag full of stuff.
Lucille headed off to meet some more friends for the evening so we roamed around a few more shops before heading to TGI Friday's. James ordered a burger while I went for chicken fajitas. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy my food, but with the McDonalds situation, I just wasn't up to being in such a crowded area.
Sunday
There are a couple of ways to describe my levels of excitement when I awoke on Sunday morning.
- I was like a 15 year old girl at a One Direction or Justin Bieber concert.
- I was just like Monica on the day of her wedding.
Both ways are accurate. I have no shame in that fact. I do have a post coming later on this week on Friendsfest. Including it in this one would have made this far too long a post.
We returned to the hotel for 6pm, dropped some stuff off and went to the pub for dinner. It was steak and chips for me and while James had another burger. We finished the evening with a bottle of wine to share.
Monday
This was the day James was more excited about. We went to the zoo. Not only that, we also fed the giraffes! For me, some of the excitement was taken out of this because I've done it before two years ago. Don't get me wrong, I was still excited to feed the giraffes but this trip was more about Friendsfest than the zoo.
We awoke at half 7 and much to our disappointment, the wonderful weather we'd had the three days previous decided to leave us. It didn't rain for too long, luckily we were either at the hotel or on the tube while the rain fell. By half 11 when we began our walk to the zoo, it was drying up a little. Upon entry, we were given the option to put our bags in a locker for the day which we took advantage of.
We walked around pretty much every enclosure before making our way to the giraffe enclosure for 13:50. The feeding slot lasted about 45 minutes and we were able to do this purely in a group of 6 without the general public pottering in the background
We both had such an amazing trip. To say London is only an hour away by plane, I still have the holiday blues already and I just want to go back! This trip was exactly what I needed and despite wanting to go back, I feel better for going.
Charlotte.
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