Even though this was my fourth trip to London, it was different than all the others.
We stayed in a 3-bedroom apartment right outside of Notting Hill, rented on AirBnb. Our host was this sweet, high energy English lady. She rents one of her rooms to an English man named John and the other on Airbnb. Both she and John seemed to love having visitors in the house. It felt more like we were house guests from out of town than strangers.
Since we had access to the kitchen and garden, we eat breakfast in and packed lunches. There was a little co-op across the street for me to get a morning coffee. Despite the fact that our room faced the street and London was experiencing a rare heat wave so we had our bedroom window wide open the entire time, we slept like babies. The road noise was limited.
An advantage of staying away from the hotels was there were no loud groups of drunk people walking the streets at 2am, though London was full of a gay pride celebrations. It was wild to see downtown London shutdown for traffic as the people filled the streets covered with glitter and rainbows. And then to witness how quickly the streets were being cleaned up afterwards.
Instead of touring museums and old marble buildings, we took a river boat cruise, went up in London Eye, and experienced Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.
The original Globe burned down during a performance when a canon spark lite the thatched roof on fire. In Shakespeare’s day, sound effects guys had to get real creative. When the fire first started, the audience actually thought it was part of the performance. The Globe replica was produced to match the original. They used all wooden beams and wood pegs. Cow hair walls and a thatched roof. It is the only thatched roof building in London’s city limits.
Derek and I definitely wanted to go to the theater while in London. My friend Lisa is currently living in London. She wanted to have us experience theater unique to London so we let her do the planning.
We started at an Escape Room in downtown London. Prior to the event, Derek and I enjoyed a cider at the bar. It is too hot to drink inside so everyone moves out to the street. Very unique experience.
Our Escape Room was called The Million Dollar Heist. We had one hour to solve clues, find the safe, and get out with as much money as possible. We obtained 437,693 pounds. The guides told us we did really well, only needing help twice. We wondered if they told everyone that. Actually, Derek and Lisa are both really good problem solvers. I was more moral support and muscle.
The next day, Lisa had signed us up for a Beatbox workshop at the Roundhouse theater. Not something I would have ever pictured myself doing. The participants ranged from 6 to 60. Great mix of people. They were filming for BBC tv so look for us making fouls out of ourselves.
We did attend a production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in the Leicester Square Theater. It was a different type of show since it was performed by the Sh*tfaced Shakespeare group. They randomly draw a cast members from the hat and they perform their role completely hammered. It was hysterical. The rest of the cast is constantly improvising to keep the play on track. Incorporating any faux pas into the play like when the drunk guy trips on one of the ladies shirts and rips it right off of her.
To finish off the trip, Lisa took us for a bike ride along the Thames river and through Riverside park.
We returned to a pub on the river for a traditional Sunday roast dinner. Best pub food ever. Fabulous way to end a visit to London.
Thanks to Lisa for showing us a locals view of this amazing city.
For those who have heard about the Grenfell Tower disaster in London, our AirBnb was in the same neighborhood. We could see the building from our bedroom window. Quite sobering.
The Grenfell Tower was an apartment building which burned less than 2 months ago. It took more than 80 lives.
