London: Travel and Day 1 - Can we just find a pub?

Also known as Damn that Marky Mark

Because of his flowing hair, abnormally large biceps and underdog working class Philly story, W and I got stuck watching Invincible on the plane for the first two hours over and barely slept a wink. We soldiered on in London, deciding to stay up until at least 9pm to fight the looming jet lag. After successfully navigating the tube pricing, maps and international travellers with little regard for personal space, we arrived at the hotel that gave us our flat keys. We weren't in the mood for more tube stops with luggage so we took an official black cab to our flat at 29-31 Clifton Gardens. These are two old buildings combined into a series of rental flats. We have a two floor flat with one bath, two bedrooms and a combined kitchen and living area (approximate sq. footage of 600). W and I decided to be nice and give the two twins to our incoming Elon flatmates and took the bunk beds for ourselves. It's like camp, but in England and free!

First adventure: the London Underground and a trip to Bond and Oxford Streets. And we thought that Times Square was crazy!!! Never have we seen such a melting pot of people and cultures all in search of one thing....a post-holiday sale. We experienced British department stores such as Selfridges at 50% off (still expensive) and all pulsating with 3am type club music. More people watching and less shopping due to the horrible exchange rate.

After wandering through the shopping district, we landed at The Three Tuns for an afternoon snack of beer, potato wedges with cheese and yummy roasted tomato soup. W had a Guinness and I discovered a new favorite in Kronenbourg Blanc, a Belgian style white beer from France! Warm fire, super friendly barkeeps calling us dear and love and some food kept us going another couple of hours.

After nearly falling asleep on the tube, W and I visited the Tesco Express - a mini grocery store down the block from us for some cereal, juice, soda and bananas. And although we're not in New England and it's not Easter, he found his favorite breakfast treat - hot cross buns. Hooray!!

So a shower to wake us up and we set out again from the flat for a traditional English pub style dinner. We tried the Prince Albert, a recognized favorite among Elon students, but the food was a bit out there and dear for us. So then we tried the Robert Browning pub on the other side of our flat, but they weren't serving food on Boxing Day. What does a person have to do to get gastro-pub food on Boxing Day?!?! We ended up across the street at Cafe Rouge, a French cafe style 'fast food' restaurant described by Frommers as so 'uncool' that it has become 'almost fashionable' again. Didn't seem fast food to us....great baguettes with chicken or steak and special sauces inside, true French servers with barely passing mastery of the English language and the best fries since the Fryeburg Fair in Maine according to W. Of course I discovered another new beer called Fruli, a wonderfully light strawberry flavored drink. Cringe at will you beer snobs...I'm happy with my beer adventures.

Off to sleep in the bunk beds for us....more to follow!