Monday, November 30, 2009

London Day 2



I was so excited for this day to come! Sam planned most of the trip, but this was one thing I was insistent on--antiquing at Portobello Road! I know that probably sounds weird, but man, I was excited! Portobello Road is just past Notting Hill Gate. For those of you who have seen the movie "Notting Hill" (and who hasn't?), that is the street just in front of his book shop and the market he walks by all the time.

We saw soo many beautiful things! Gorgeous chandeliers, candelabra (...are you a candle-a-bra?? Think Amazing Race.), amazing vintage costume jewelry, silver tea sets... oh man, I was in heaven! After a few hours of walking down the amazing stretch of the market, we finally settled on an amazing silver candelabra! It is a smaller version of one my parents got from England that I have always been in love with!


After walking along Portobello Road, we headed over to Oxford Street for some more shopping! It was so overwhelming!! We had no idea where to start. We of course headed over to H&M, as well as Top Shop, Selfridges, and Accessorize... all stores I am now in love with! Then we headed over to Harrod's. We so wish we had more time to spend in Harrod's, but we got some cool Christmas decorations!

After finishing up at Harrod's we had to rush over to the Prince Edward Theater in the West End to see Jersey Boys! We got turned around a few times after getting off the tube, and got a few conflicting sets of directions, but finally got to the theater about 5 minutes late. We thought we'd be ok, but they said they couldn't find our tickets! We were so upset! Sam pulled out his phone to show the email confirmation of the ticket purchase, and they pointed out that the tickets were for the night before! We couldn't believe it! We were both so exhausted and frustrated, Sam just collapsed from mental exhaustion in the middle of the lobby! The people who worked there felt so bad for us they offered us AMAZING seats for the Tuesday showing for a really good price! So off we went feeling a bit better about ourselves.

Next we had plans to go to the Franz Ferdinand concert later that night at the O2 Academy in Brixton. Sam had already purchased tickets for that, as well. Unfortunately, when we got there we were met with even more frustration. The clerk at Will Call was being very difficult, and wouldn't even talk to us half the time. Finally, we figured out that our credit card company cancelled our tickets without telling us! (Apparently lightning DOES strike twice.) They thought someone had stolen our credit card! How ridiculous is that?! But this time we were still able to get tickets for that night at the box office. We had so much fun at the concert! They really put on a great show!

London Day 1

First of all, Sam had about 2 weeks in London before I came, and he will blog about those later. So the next few posts will be about our trip in London together!

Have any of you ever flown Air New Zealand? It is a phenomenal airline if I do say so myself! Big fan! I had the whole row to myself, so I got to do some serious napping!

After touching down in London, I was anxiously awaiting seeing my sweet husby! I found him waiting for me with a sign and an old man's cap! hehe. What a cutie!!! We had one of our ridiculously public and romantic airport reunion scenes... my favorite!

Sam had to go back to work after picking me up from the airport, and I had high hopes of going down to Oxford Street and shopping.... yea, that definitely did not happen. I crashed on the bed for a few hours and slept through my alarm! I had to meet Sam at his office to go out to dinner with his coworkers, so I had to hop on a few buses and finally got there! I LOVED meeting Sam's British coworkers! Such fun and sweet people! We went to a pub and hung out for a bit before heading to an "ordinary" part of town for great Indian food! It was my first time having real Indian food, and for those of you who REALLY know me it was a big accomplishment... haha. I gotta say, not a fan of kebabs!

Sorry no pictures of Day 1!