Breakfast, day five. Another English affair. This time we chose a casual, diner setting - a place called VQ. I was craving some pancakes, Dylan had a Spanish omelette. Turns out the Spanish make the omelette of Dylan's dreams, including chorizo AND potato. The pancakes were pretty good, though not as good as my own if I may say so.
The flat whites were a 6/10, Dylan had a double espresso followed by a double shot flat white. Now excessively caffeinated, I thought I'd show him the wonders of Primark. The store on Tottenham Court Rd is huge, and has a dedicated Harry Potter section (right next to the front doors which is both great and annoying). We ended up doing some extensive shopping. Dylan has a cool new faux leather jacket (only 28 pounds!). I bought some tights that were ridiculously fuzzy inside.
We left with much more than we came in with, and headed down the road to the big Foyles bookshop.
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| Foyles. Primark haul in hand. |
It was very Christmassy inside. We ended up walking out with three more books. I would like to point out that only ONE of them was for me. Now that Dylan was laden with shopping it was time for me to leave him, I had an appointment at Penguin UK!
We parted at Tottenham Court Rd station, where I headed off to Vauxhall Bridge Rd, and Dylan headed back to the hotel.
I was set to meet Justin, one of my colleagues who works in the International Sales division looking after Australia and New Zealand. It's not a very glamorous building from the outset, but inside it's very nice. The whole building is Penguin, and the stairs were decorated green for the announcement of Margaret Atwoods new book. Justin kindly took me out to lunch at Pret after introducing me to a couple of the other members of the ANZ team.
After lunch I set off to meet back up with Dylan. He picked the Duke of Wellington pub to have his lunch. On my way there I was playing 'how much does that house cost?'. I passed one unremarkable terrace house that had a sign outside saying, 'Winston Churchill lived here 1909-1913'. My estimate went up.
I arrived at the pub a little early and settled in with a pint. Dylan showed up soon after and ordered some bangers and mash. This was a fancy area, which served fancy bangers. They were excellent
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| Just waiting for a mate. |
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| Dylan with his fancy bangers and Spitfire bitter |
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| Maclaren.One of many luxury cars on that one street. |
Both of us have seen Buckingham Palace before, but you can't go to London without dropping by!
After the palace we took a walk through St James park towards Trafalgar Square. There were too many birds. One flew at my face. There were many squirrels. One threatened to leap at my face. I do not like birds or squirrels. The views were nice though.
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| The leaves leave a lovely orange gradient on the ground |
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| An evil squirrel. |
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| Nice fountain. Deadly birds featured. |
Next up came visits to two key features - Waterstones at Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Tragalgar Square's pedestrian crossings have cool LGBTIQ+ symbols replacing the green 'walking man'. At this point the weather was starting to turn, evidenced by my hair in the below photos.
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| Admiralty Arch at Trafalgar Square. |
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| Waterstones Trafalgar Square. |
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| Piccadilly Circus. |
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| Waterstones Piccadilly. |
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| A spectacular Penguin window. |
We were getting a bit tired now, so we stopped for a pint. In my case, a half. It was a nice local pub called the Red Lion. There were a group of men ironically singing 'the Sound of Silence' very loudly in a language I did not recognise. The pub claimed to serve delicious looking toasties 'all day', but we were told that the kitchen was closed at 4pm when we tried to order one. Come on.
Conveniently, we were right across the road from Charles Tyrwhitt, a high-end men's clothing store that Una had told us to check out. Dylan was escorted off for a fitting by a well-dressed man. I observed an older lady in pearls dictate what her husband would wear while trying to look secretly rich myself. We got Dylan's sizing sorted and headed off again. We were going to have dinner in Soho. We walked through Carnaby St, where we'd been with Em the day before, again and marveled at all the lights. There was a cupcake store in one of the lanes that called to us. With it now raining, we decided to eat in, which was a mistake: in London, any eat-ins attract a 20% loading...
I found some shiny Doc Martens at the Doc Marten store.
Carnaby Street!
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| Dylan: the rain and neon gave off some great vapourwave vibes |
Now it was time for dinner. Tonight we were craving curry, and headed to Masala Zone, a chain that Justin at PRH suggested to me. Dylan had some amazing Chicken Tikka and I had regular ol' Butter Chicken. I know.
Last stop of the night was to drop by Leicester Square to see the Christmas markets. Before we could go in however, we spotted THE Lego Store. It was a magical wonderland. They had everything. Lots of Harry Potter themed Lego, as you might expect. One of us was clearly much more excited than the other.
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| Another part of Leicester Square - we did not venture in but it looked ridiculous. |
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| Casual 650 quid millennium falcon. |
You can't turn any corner in London city without being greeted by cheerful Christmas lights, by Leicester Square was next level. They were beautiful. Dylan got a chocolate-coated banana and was very pleased.
Until next time!
A+D
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