So, we were super eager for our second full day in London because the most amazing coincidence happened. When we were still hanging in Philly waiting to fly to London, I was scrolling Instagram and saw my buddy Ashley post a picture of the Tower of London Bridge with the caption, “Hello, London.” I quickly jumped over to DM her to see how long she was going to be in London. I figured she’d say she was heading home that day. Instead she said - all week! And oh the fun to reply back, “SAME!!!”
To catch you up- Ashley, Jason and I have been friends for years. We all met when Jason started working at 6 Stones. Ashley’s the one who invited us to brunch some random day and casually said, “Jason, we’re starting an urban farm and I think you’re the farmer.” No one was more emphatically sure he wasn’t the farmer than Jason himself who yelled out, “I don’t even like to mow the lawn!”
The urban farm led us to wine making which led us to olive oil. Ultimately. What an amazing series of things.
Anyway. Back to day 2. Ashley has since moved to Germany and we moved to California shortly after we all went to Ireland. Man, I’m really rambling but you need to know it’s been a minute and all kinds of things have happened since we saw each other last!
We went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast which was free and pretty good. Traditional English breakfast with the beans and all. And then some curiosities - like always a bowl of cut cucumbers. I love cucumbers and I often eat weird things for breakfast, so cool, but also…I think that’s odd. I asked some British people and they also thought it odd. But, it’s really the only vegetable we encountered the entire time (other than fries, which don’t count) so breakfast cucumbers it was!
While we were walking out from breakfast, we saw Wall Texas Man! We ran over to say hi and laugh about how he knew Brent when we discovered he did NOT know Brent. LOL. Turns out the reception man asked him, “Do you know Brent or James?” Rather than, “Do you know Brent Jameson?” And, he knew a guy named James.
I don’t know how they could all be in this same tiny town and NOT know each other - but maybe this will cause them to meet up! Wall Texas Man’s sister got married in Paso Robles, of all things!!! I think we will encounter him again. Unfortunately, despite all this and having his phone number, we do not know his name so … Wall Texas Man.
After that and the very long and slow elevator ride back to the 7th floor, we cleaned up and got ready to meet Ashley and Janine! We felt like we’d met Janine because we’ve had several almost meets- she’s even stayed in our Grapevine house before but we weren’t there! But, we already felt like friends and it was awesome to meet in real life.
They were staying across London so offered to come to us since we hadn’t yet figured out all the trains, tubes, and buses. We met up in the lobby with big hugs! YAY for friends! Maybe the only person more thrilled for us to see each other is Ashley’s mom- shout out to Belinda! Moms are always happy to see their kids so happy!
Then, we were off. A wonderful walking tour to and through Kensington Palace and grounds! Tons of people out walking and enjoying the day. Met lots of British dogs. The palace gardens and pond were so pretty. We found a pub to have a refreshment and ended up hanging there for quite some time talking and catching up. I had some fried Halloumi, which is the most amazing Greek cheese that you can grill. I can only rarely find it in Paso so it was an extra treat!
And then - it was time to rush over to Westminster again because we were meeting Mike, Diana, and Rich and Ginny for happy hour. R&G arrived at the hotel around 3 so they were ready to roll. Grabbed another Uber and took off! We all met in their lobby and finally decided to just hit the hotel bar. This is when we discovered the porn star martini. It’s a nice cocktail with passion fruit juice. I never heard of this but later we saw it on every menu so it’s a London thing for some reason. Hilariously, I also saw a mock tail version of it on some menu called The Born Again Porn Star Martini. If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.
So, the MALBEC crew was together again! The 6-pack was back! So much fun catching up. We’re all going on the Antarctica cruise together at the very end of the year, so we chatted some about that. Who is doing what excursion, etc. Somehow I took NO pictures of this part of the day- dang it!!!
By then, whew, we had worn ourselves out and left them to have dinner while we ubered back to our side of town again. We grabbed a lite bite, sipped a glass of ridiculously good Amarone, which I got for 20 pounds at the grocery store next to the hotel. BAM!.
No comments:
Post a Comment