Merry Christmas from London!
Okay, we know it’s already Boxing Day, cut us some slack, all right? 😂
We had ourselves a merry little Christmas, just the two of us, because it feels like we’ve truly been doing something every single day leading up to this past weekend. Somehow, we have almost as many friends in London as we do in Los Angeles, and naturally, all of them have wanted to see us at least twice. In the past few weeks, we’ve been to lunches, dinners, and drinks all over the city; a Formula 1 arcade experience; a large assortment of famous London landmarks and museums (we know so much about clocks now); the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland Fun Fair (where the King drove past us as we were waiting to cross the street!); a concert at The Garage in Islington followed by live jazz at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s; and, for three nights in a row, the Blues Kitchen in Shoreditch, where they have £6 cocktails on Wednesday nights along with a killer house band.
We watched nearly every match of the World Cup, and journeyed all the way out to Kent to watch the England-France match at a friend’s local rugby club in New Ash Green. It was bitterly cold outside and though England lost, the experience of the entire room getting to their feet and cheering when Harry Kane scored his first penalty was electrifying. We were enthralled by the semi-final matches and in particular, the epic final between France and Argentina. Though we’re by no means long-time football fans, we were very happy to see Messi win his first World Cup in such a crazy fashion, and who knows–maybe we’re football fans now? According to our friend Antonio, Arsenal is the best team in the Premiere League 😉 so maybe we’ll hop on that bandwagon for the rest of the season. (If you’ve got a different team you support–tell us why in the comments and maybe you can sway us!)
We got about a week of freezing temperatures highlighted by a thick early snowfall that gave the entire city a magical feeling, but it’s actually gotten quite warm in the last week, with temperatures in the low 50s (or about 10 Celsius), which is positively balmy after we’d grown accustomed to the cold. We’ve even missed a lot of England’s fabled rain, and the sun is shining as we write this!
Of course, our visit to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park was in the midst of the cold snap, so despite warming ourselves with more mulled wine and hot chocolate, our noses nearly fell off on the rollercoasters and spinning swings that took us high above London and gave us spectacular views of the city–not that we could see too well with our eyes tearing up! Della’s cousin Savana joined us for the day, and Ross won her a giant stuffed Squirtle toy from one of the fair games (allegedly by cheating, depending on who you ask).
Though we’ve done our best to budget, we’ve still been eating very well–the street food at places like Camden Market and Borough Market is incredible, and our excellent sit-down meals include places like the Groucho Club, Pham Sushi, OKAN, and perhaps the best, Copper & Ink in Greenwich, helmed by a former schoolmate of Della’s! The highlights there were the venison Wellington and crab…mash? salad? Whatever it was, it was delicious.
Our parents will also (not) be delighted to learn we’ve recently gotten a couple new tattoos at a shop called Gypsy Stables in SoHo; Della got the Sun, and Ross got the planet Saturn. Photos available upon request. 😉
All in all, we’ve been simply overjoyed to spend this magical holiday season in a city like London, which fully goes all-out for Christmas. There are decorations everywhere, from the smallest high streets to Oxford Street and Regent Street, to the massive displays at Harrods and in all the department stores.
To conclude–we’d like to give a shoutout to all of our subscribers, for sticking with us through a dry spell and continuing to ask our parents ‘when’s the next post coming?’–thank you for keeping us honest. We thought you’d get bored of reading “and then we went to lunch with this friend, and then we went to dinner with this friend, then to the pub with this friend…” on every post so we are strategizing ways in the new year to diversify the content and give you something new each time. Wishing you all (as they say here) a very Happy Christmas and a New Year! 🎄
Happy New Year! Love hearing about all the adventures. 💞💞💞
Great Update and I lifted the tattoo restriction a decade ago.