Foggy London Town - Round Three

It's hard to believe this was my third trip to London! It's a huge and fabulous city, though, so there is always something new to see.

Let's get this obligatory photo out of the way ;)

Pop Quiz: What is the name of this tower?

Raise your hand if you said Big Ben... well, you'd be wrong! It's official name is the Clock Tower (very creative).

Big Ben is just the nickname of the bell inside the tower, which is officially named The Great Bell (again, very creative). Though yes, of course, people generally call the entire tower Big Ben (but now you can top your friends with this trivia tid-bit when you need to win a quick bet).


Sista Time!
This time, what brought me to London was actually Christy. She had to teach at a conference, and she extended her stay so that we could have some time to hang out together.

Because Christy was there for work, she was staying in a super posh hotel near Russell Square; The Montague on the Gardens. Sounds totally British, huh?

Check out the lobby (all of the rooms were this fancy):

Her work was on Friday, so Wednesday and Thursday we mostly just chilled. We ate delicious pastries, ordered room service, and even had tea in bed in our bathrobes! ;-)

On Thursday, we did walk around for a bit in Covent Gardens, Soho, and the South Bank with her friend Simon. I love the store fronts and names of the British Pubs and cafes. They always have names like "The Blank and Blank," for example, The Slug and Lettuce (I love that one).

These are some good ones:

Chad's favorite, the Lamb & Flag

And, I loved this old fashion sweet shop:


It also happened to be the Chinese New Year, so China Town was buzzin:

Shut the Front Door! Is that MJ?

Needless to say tickets for Thriller Live were purchased, and the show was a lot of fun.

I had some time on my own to play around with our new Gorilla tripod, too. Here's a series of pictures I took of Tower Bridge as the sun was setting.




A Super Weekend
Christy and I had planned our trip months beforehand, but to throw an added twist to the weekend, we later realized that we would be in London for the Super Bowl. Since it is not possible for Chad and I to watch a Steelers Super Bowl apart (I mean, come on!), Chad decided to get a cheap flight to pop up to London for the weekend. We found a fun Steelers bar with a lot of other fans... but I'll just leave it at that, as we all know how the game unfortunately ended. Quite a disappointing loss. We did have fun staying up until 3am though.

Until next time, take care, and don't forget to Mind the Gap!

-S

*The full set of pics is on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kanickmoses/sets/72157626056846102/with/5448655306/