So we've been in Charleston for 2 1/2 years now and still hadn't made it down to Savannah. Since we're planning a big family vacation this summer, we decided to make our anniversary trip a short one this year. It turns out it's only about two hours from our house to Savannah, so this worked out great! I took Friday off and Nicole had a half day. We made late dinner reservations (because I procrastinated) so that meant a late lunch would work perfectly. We arrived at our Airbnb right around 2:00 PM. It was an hour before check-in but our host insisted it was fine to go ahead and get the key.

Friday

Our Airbnb was PERFECT! It was right off of Madison Square, which put us about halfway between River Street and Forsyth Park. It's the ground floor of a four-story brownstone. The bedroom/living room was combined (which worked well) and then there was a dining room and a full kitchen! I didn't take pictures of the interior since there are already great ones in the listing. Moira - our host - had a personalized greeting on the chalkboard along with a special treat for our anniversary in the fridge. It's those kinds of personalized touches that make us continue to use Airbnb.

The only issue - and I struggle even calling it that - was the ceiling height. I'm a tall dude, and this is something I am pretty used to by now. I think if you were 6'6" (2m for people not accustomed to freedom units) or taller, you might struggle in this apartment.

After lugging all our stuff - way too much for 48 hours! - into the apartment, we headed off for lunch. We had gotten a couple recommendations from folks and settled on Little Duck Diner. It's a newer addition to one of the local restaurant groups and is styled so neatly! Also, the drinks come with little duckies.. that you get to keep!

One of the coolest things about Savannah is their liberal open container law. If you're in the historic district - basically anywhere in Savannah you'd be wandering - you can have alcohol as long as it's in a plastic cup. We noticed this sort of thing in Europe and thought it was great. People enjoying a beautiful day down by the river or in a park with a glass of wine just makes sense! We stopped at a little Irish bar on River Street to get our walking beers and then went out to the river.







After a bit of meandering, we made our way back to the apartment to get all dolled up for drinks and dinner. We planned it so Friday night would be our fancy dinner and Saturday night we could take it more casually. By some miracle, I convinced this hottie to go with me.

Our drinks stop was quite close to our apartment, and delicious! It's called Artillery Bar and is up there with some of the best bars I've had the luck at which to drink. We tried to take our patented long-arm selfie, but the bartender was having nothing of that.

The prices here were up there with - or maybe a touch higher than - Charleston, which was a bit surprising. The drinks were well worth it though. I had The Doc, which is made into a glass that is flavored with pipe tobacco. It's a really neat process that looks cool but also produces a result that adds to the drink. This is the second drink like this I've had, and I have to say that their method appears to be superior. At Crow & Quill in Asheville, they mix the drink in a vase and blow the the pipe smoke into it with a smoke gun and tube. At Artillery Bar, they use a torch to light the pipe tobacco on a saucer and then place the glass upside down on top and let it sit while they mix the drink. It is well executed and brilliantly flavored.

After a drink, we headed off towards our dinner destination - the very highly recommended Olde Pink House. Yeah, they don't have a website. That's a bit weird, but it will make sense later. The Olde Pink House is, well, an old, pink house. Above ground is the regular restaurant, and they have a tavern in the basement that has live music. We got there about 90 minutes before our reservation and they checked us in and escorted us downstairs. The tavern was quite busy, but we ended up getting a couple seats at the bar with not too long a wait. We ordered some wine and an appetizer (goat cheese stuffed artichokes). The wine was delicious and the app was good enough. Right around 9:00 PM, a hostess found us at the bar and walked us back upstairs to our table.

Let me preface this bit with a little personal note. I know I've had a reputation as a bit of a pessmist or a negative guy in the past. I'm trying - very actively - to change that. Also, we live in Charleston. We are very spoiled with great restaurants run by great chefs. If you don't bring your A Game in Charleston, you don't last.

While our arrival was handled very professionally - personalized greeting, escorted to tavern - our server seemed a bit disinterested. She did not appear to be very knowledgable about the menu items, nor did she wish to go in to details about anything. I ordered the grilled pork loin, which came with sides of collard greens and a sweet potato with bourbon vanilla sauce. The pork loin was, quite possible, the best I've ever had! It was moist and so flavorful! The collards would be best described as "end of the night" collards. They were seasoned well, but not as crisp as I'd prefer. To be fair, we had 9 PM reservations and you can't just whip up a batch of collards to order.

Nicole ordered the duck, of course. It was.. okay. The sides that it came with were vegetable crepes and fruit salad. I have no idea what the thought process was with that - really confusing.

So.. all that being said, the fact that they don't seem to have a website makes sense now. To me, this is the classic old restaurant that does not really have a top tier executive chef putting forth a focused culinary vision. The food is good enough and well prepared but it doesn't have a unified vision and some of the parings just don't make sense. It was a good experience, and I'm glad we went, but I probably would steer others to somewhere else now that I've experienced it.

After dinner, we picked up a pedicab for our ride home and got plenty of suggestions and recommendations for our Saturday.

Saturday

Nicole is training for a half marathon, again. Lucky for me, she got her longer run in on Thursday, so we only needed to knock out a 3-miler. We woke up early and took off. Moira had already provided us with a 3-mile route her husband runs pretty frequently, so we were all set! It was a bit brisk, but just about perfect running weather. Also, at 8:30 AM, the city is still waking up, so we didn't have to do much dodging along the way.

We timed our trip perfectly for the azalea bloom!

And, we saw the famous fountain in the middle of Forsyth Park.

After our run, we drug our stinky selves over to Clary's Cafe. The special was a chicken & waffles eggs benedict so I knew what I had to do.

The potatoes were more like fat fries cut into smaller pieces, but everything was delicious! Nicole got a pecan waffle which was also quite tasty.

We went back to the apartment to wash the stink off so we could head off to explore more of Savannah. Nicole wanted to check out Forsyth Park again because they were setting up a farmers' market when we were on our run. I think she also wanted to take pictures of all the blooming azaleas.

I also caught her scoping out more flowers.

To add to all the park flowers, we did find some flower boxes too. Certainly not as many as Charleston, but there were some beauties!

We were a bit parched after all of our exploring so we started looking for a decent restaurant to solve that problem. Collins Quarter had come highly recommended, and unfortunately its popularity matched it reputation. They told us of a new sister restaurant closer to the river called The Fitzroy. I think this place will become just as popular as Collins Quarter. I think they might need to fine tune their menu a bit over the first few months, but their drinks were on point.

After quenching our thirst, we headed down to the river to check out some more of the riverside. We saw the Rousakis Plaza Echo Square and the Waving Girl statue. I tried to get video in the Echo Square but it didn't pick up the echo well enough to be worth keeping.

From the river, we decided to head over towards one of our local recommendations. Lulu's Chocolate Bar is a MUST taste experience for anyone visiting Savannah. Sure, chocolate and alcohol is a match made in heaven, but these drinks are really well thought out. Nicole got the Peanut Butter Cup.

I was torn between their interpretation of a Manhattan and Lulu's Russian. The bartender suggested the Russian and who am I to argue?!

We may have also ordered the Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie because WE'RE ON VACATION!!! It was like a gourmet Reese's Peanut Butter Cup - soooo good!

We had to get a good buzz on because we were headed to the American Prohibition Museum next, to protest! Nicole's not a great actress.

The museum was actually really great! Lots of information, pictures, and artifacts. I was surprisingly (to myself) uninformed about the Prohibition and its causes. Also, towards the end of the museum, they have a Speakeasy, where they make very yummy Prohibition Era drinks. I can't tell you the password though - you'll have to track it down yourself.

We knew we needed to experience a rooftop bar on the river, so we headed that way. We were also told that they get a bit young - what, like we're old or something?! - later in the night. We went to Rocks on the Roof at the Bohemian Hotel. The drinks were good - probably a bit better than what you'd expect at a place like this. We figured we'd just have a couple drinks and enjoy the view.

I'm the photographer, not the photographee!

It was a bit crazy up there, but we managed to have a table for four. A few minutes after we got situated, another couple walked up and we offered the other seats to them. Amee and Ciaran were visiting from London and were in the middle of their southern US tour. They decided to see some of the "real" America by going to New Orleans, Natchez, Memphis, Savannah, and Charleston. Definitely a cool idea and not one that I'm sure I'd even be up for!

We ended up hanging out with them for over three hours! It's always great fun finding awesome new people to chat with. We caught a decent sunset but I think Nicole did a good job convincing Amee that the sunsets in Charleston were better.

By about 9:00 PM, we were getting cold and hungry so we needed to get going. With all the day drinking and walking and being chilled, we just wanted to find something quick. Zunzi's had been recommended by several locals. The place is a literal hole in the wall. We ended up getting our sandwiches to go, and hoofing it back to the apartment. I got the curry chicken salad Johnny Roll and it was amazing! The Shit Yeah Sauce! is pretty great.

The final check-in of the night was the Crystal Beer Parlor. We were pretty done by this point, so I probably can't give it a fair review. The beer selection and bartender knowledge were top notch. Nicole got a cocktail (which we ended up getting to go - yay Savannah!) and couldn't even finish it. That being said, it IS a beer parlor, so get beer.

Sunday

We should know better, but Sunday Brunch is a thing in the south. We got all our walking in Sunday morning by going past four different brunch places that all had significant waits. We ended up at Soho South Cafe. This place has serious Insta potential. It looks marketed as such. The food there was pretty good, but nothing to write home about. They did have a piano player towards the end of our meal.

It was a bit gray and icky out Sunday, so I'm kind of glad we weren't staying another day. That said, I think it's still worth a three or four day trip as there was a lot of stuff we didn't get to see. Surprise surprise. Our Airbnb was also only a couple blocks from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It's gorgeous from the outside, and supposedly even more beautiful on the inside. I didn't get a good picture on Saturday because there was a funeral going on when we went by and I didn't feel like taking pictures was appropriate. It was grayer on Sunday, but the building is still very impressive.

We got one final selfie (courtesy of a tree branch) near Madison Square.

Thanks!!!

• Doug and Kristina for doing some scouting for us on your trip. Sorry we couldn't re-create your amazing GoPro videos.
• Debbie for giving Nicole the lowdown on good places to go.
• Moira for providing such a warm and wonderful spot for us to call home for our brief stay in Savannah! Link to her listing again. Seriously, if you're in Savannah, you should stay here!

Paris?

For months - since February, to be exact - I had hinted to Nicole that we were going to spend a day or so somewhere. I was intentionally vague. Enough so that she could have interpreted it as just being a night at a nice hotel in London all the way to a trip to another country. I did specify that there would be a nice dinner and a decent amount of walking - more on that later.

To the train!

We woke up a bit later and took our time getting ready. We needed to re-pack our stuff into one bag and such. We decided to walk towards the Elephant & Castle underground station and get breakfast on the way.

More flowers along the way! Nicole loved how almost all the ground-level patios had well taken care of gardens. Interestingly, the majority of the plants were potted. Not sure if that was due to the soil or that most of these were rentals.

We pulled out Yelp a little too late and before we knew it we were right in the center of the Elephant & Castle shopping area. Lots of shops, but nothing that stood out for breakfast. We decided to try a little chain called Pret a Manger. I think Panera is probably the closest comparison. It was pretty good. The breakfast pastries in London and Paris were amazing no matter where we went.

We hopped on the tube and headed to Kings Cross station.

Yes, Potterheads, that Kings Cross.

Beautiful St Pancras International

The architecture in most large public buildings is not taken for granted.

It was not until we go to the ticket desk that Nicole found out where we were going. She had mentioned several times the past couple days how crazy it was to be in a different country and how she was so glad at least everything was in English. I was a bit nervous how she would react but I'd say she was cautiously optimistic. Well, enough so to smile for a selfie.

Finally in our seats and headed to Paris!! The trip to Paris was mostly uneventful. The train is pretty darn fast and amazingly smooth! We discovered that they love their wind farms in the French countryside!

Paris!

Immediately in Paris, we felt like it was very different - not in a significantly good or bad way, just different. It felt older with more distinct (perhaps gothic) architecture.

And wow, were there a ton of mopeds/bicycles/motorcycles. We thought there were a lot in London, but they seemed to outnumber cars and trucks in Paris. Crazy how they can go around all the cars and zigzag through stopped traffic in Europe - efficient, but crazy!

More two-wheel transportation devices.. and trees!

The Hotel!

After a decent (short in terms of what was to come) walk, we arrived at our hotel. I spent entirely too much time deciding on a hotel, but came up with the Hotel Design Secret de Paris. It was amazing! After checking in, the front desk attendant told us the secret was that they let you sleep in these famous Parisian landmarks. It was a bit silly, but the room was great. We stayed in the Eiffel Tower Room. The room even had mood lighting which was.. interesting.

Dual windows - I think to keep the noise out (or in?!) - overlooked a couple bistros.

Square toilet because I have no filter.. and it was weird.

An evening stroll

So after another ton of research, I found the perfect little restaurant for dinner. It was close to other things we wanted to see, and only a three-mile walk away! My thought process was that we would meander through beautiful Parisian neighborhoods on our way to dinner.

We probably walked closest to the 4.8 km path.

First of all, Paris is beautiful. The streets aren't like anything you see in the States. They do seem to blend together though.. after a mile or two. Also, in terms of prepping my lovely wife for this trip, I was more focused on us fitting in with Europeans, rather than being comfortable. What you cannot see from the map above is that most of those streets are busy and loud with tons of people.

Super cute alley with restaurants and shops.

We did find some hidden gems along the way, but we were unfortunately pressed for time so we had to keep up a good pace.

We were close to the restaurant by now, so Nicole is doing a good job hiding her anger.

More people hanging out, this time at the park in the middle of Place des Vosges.

A (belated) anniversary dinner

After a lot of digging and asking around, I decided on this great little bistro (née, bistrot) called Le Gorille Blanc. Nicole loves a good duck. My mission was to find the best duck confit in Paris and I was damn determined to do it. I also didn't want to spend $300 on dinner, so it required a bit more digging. A co-worker (thanks Cam!) mentioned his friends who live in Paris took him to this place and said it was the best duck in Paris. I was even able to make reservation online (for 7pm - of course they had openings).

We arrived right at 7pm, which turns out to be early for dinner in Paris. I was vaguely aware of this, but we had more to do after dinner, so this is how it had to work. The owner (I think?) was expecting us but still had to turn on the lights and music after we got there.

On the left is the special appetizer. It was sort of a quiche, though a bit less dense. On the right is bread.. of course there was bread!

Nicole's duck confit. Look at the skin!

I got the lambchop. I don't think I've ever had a lambchop cut like this. It was cooked to perfection, of course.

We weren't originally going to get dessert because we were stuffed. They convinced us to look at the dessert menu (without much resistance) and we saw panna cotta. We first had panna cotta at FIG here in Charleston and were blown away at how rich and light it was. It sounds like an oxymoron, but that is the best way I can describe it. This version was quite different, but every bit as good!

Seine and a tower

After dinner, the plan was to do a river tour by boat (thanks Nat!) and then maybe make it to the Eiffel Tower for the light display. Nicole had temporarily forgiven me for the walking, so we headed down to the Seine. This was the thing that blew us away the most about the whole trip. Thousands of people were hanging out along the river. Sure, there were some semi-permanent bistros set up, but the vast majority of these people were there on their own.

Here is a small sampling. Groups of two to maybe 20 gathered with as little as a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses, all the way up to picnic blankets and baskets with full dinners. It was the coolest thing! Also, I'm totally not that guy but no one was playing on their phone - it was amazing!

One of the many tour boats.

On a bridge (to Pont Neuf, I believe).

We ended up on the 9:45 tour, which was later than what I was originally planning, but turned out to be perfect. The boat departs from Pont Neuf, goes all the past the Eiffel Tower, and then back down around behind Notre Dame before ending back at Pont Neuf. It was perfect!

We're on a boat!

Close-up selfie!

Gorgeous sky! Did I mention we had amazing weather?!

Our first clear view of the Eiffel Tower.

The tour guide was kind enough to take our picture. Yes, of course they sell wine to-go before you get on the boat.

Notre Dame!

I'm too lazy to look this up, but basically a French king had all these politicians' faces put on this bridge because he was sure it would fail. Apparently it didn't.

We got off the boat at 10:45. This is important because the light show at the Eiffel Tower is every hour on the hour, for five minutes. We decided that if we didn't catch the 11:00 show, we just wouldn't see it - that's the negative of having just one night in Paris. To walk from Pont Neuf to the Eiffel Tower would have been 20-25 minutes. We decided to give Uber a try. We had a great driver who spoke slightly more English than we spoke French (which is basically none). He was a bit nervous about getting us there in time at first, but ended up dropping us off right as the show started, right in front!

OMG so close!

After the light show, we decided (or Nicole made the executive decision) to take the Metro back to the hotel. It was a hell of a day!

Day Two in London!

Longer days are great

As someone who has lived in the southern US my whole life, I am accustomed to the longer days of Summer and all that jazz. I knew that the days were even longer the farther north you got, but I don't think I was quite ready for this. England being England, not many flats (or places in general) have central A/C. This itself isn't a huge deal. The weather was amazing for our entire trip - blue skies and low/mid 70s. The problem was having open windows combined with sunrise before 5 AM. This resulted in a very confused Nicole and Jeff the first couple days.

English breakfast

I've had a couple experiences with a proper English - err, maybe Irish - breakfast in the States thanks to our United supporters club local hangout McCann's Irish Pub. I still wanted to experience it in England. We did a bit of searching on Yelp and found Kennington Lane Cafe within walking distance from Luis and Monica's flat.

My Set Breakfast was different, and pretty yummy. I'm not a huge fan of beans - the texture gets me, don't judge! - but the ham (is it Canadian bacon?), sausage, egg, and weirdly dense toast were great! The toast was almost like a soft crouton. Nicole got 2 Eggs on 2 Toasts and her bread was more normal. In keeping with what we found to be the common theme of our trip, our whole breakfast - 2 meals and 2 coffees - was super reasonable at only £11 (about $14), including taxes and service charge (tip).

Tesco and a walk

We've heard Tesco mentioned all over the place in our reading about the UK, so we figured we would check it out. The most surprising thing about grocery shopping in another country is how different everything is. I mean, it wasn't a different language but it was still so different that is was kind of shocking. Some of the disconnect is just different words for different things (ground beef vs. mince), but some is just different items for dishes made in Europe, but not common in the US.

The funny thing about cereals was that the store brands seemed to have beaten the cereal companies to the trademark office, or maybe trademarking is just different in the UK. If you notice here, Frosted Flakes is the Tesco brand while Frosties is the Kellogg's offering. Others, like Cheerios, would have the proper name on the General Mills cereal, but lose the familiar-to-US bee to Tesco's Honey Hoops. More on our shopping challenges later.

On our walk, we saw these huge cylindrical structures that of course I assumed to be proper British Quidditch fields (pitches?).

Quidditch fields with Tesco in the foreground.

I asked Luis and Monica what these giant structures were later. I got some great feedback that I ask as many questions as a three-year old. What can I say? I'm a curious dude! Apparently, these are just gas holders that haven't been used in decades. There is a nice BBC article about the future of the structures if you like useless information as much as I do. While I do love useless information, no, I have not done any searching to see if JK Rowling was inspired by these structures in any way.

We noticed some cute architecture on the way as well, along with tons of flower boxes.

Lessons in public transit

Nicole had read that a good way to see London was to take a specific bus line. On our way to the bus stop, we found a lovely little pub with a gin terrace.

They make great gin drinks. We went back later in the week and the gin drinks were still great - other drinks were, well, not.

Nicole got a great picture with a bus in the background. That bus is going the correct direction for what we were trying to do.

Most of the bus routes are more end-to-end than circular. We found that out the hard way as we rode the right bus the wrong way and ended up about as far south in London as you can go while still being in London. It was a good learning opportunity.

We did get a pretty pictures of a street of houses going down a hill. Pretty sure this was while we were walking back up the street to get on a bus going the correct way. It was about this time that we realized it was going to take about 90 minutes to get from where we were, to up near Oxford Circus. Luckily, London public transportation is awesome and we just grabbed the tube.

Forget the gap, mind your head!

Buckingham and cupcakes

We got off the tube one stop before Oxford Circus and ended up right at Green Park. This is a beautiful park with at least one allée not dissimilar from some made with live oaks in Charleston.

This also put us really close to Buckingham Palace. I am by no means a monarchy geek, but it was still pretty amazing to be so close to something of such significance.

Our real mission at this point was to find this Insta-famous cupcake shop.

On our way, we found an iconic red phone booth! I'm not sure if Nicole was more excited for herself, or to show Nate.

Nicole is a sucker for pretty flowers. Put them in a flowerbox and she's in heaven! These were all over the place!

They have these historical markers placed on buildings where famous people lived. This one marks where Ian Fleming lived from 1908 - 1964 - pretty cool!

We made it! This is the aforementioned, Insta-famous Peggy Porschen cupcake place. They have regular cakes, other goodies, and coffee/tea, but we were here for the cupcakes.

Payment for our stay

As mentioned before, Luis and Monica are from Portugal. Since London is quite a tourist destination and relatively close to Portugal, they get lots of visitors. Their rule for payment is one home-cooked meal. We knew this in advance and had tried to brainstorm a bit before we got there. We took for granted how easy it is to find ingredients for American dishes in America. Our first thought was to make chicken and yellow rice. This seemed pretty straight forward, until we got to the store.

Yellow rice is not a simple staple. It's more like white rice with lots of seasoning. First of all, they don't have yellow rice. Both grocery stores we went to were infatuated with Uncle Ben. All manners - except yellow - of rice were available in the Uncle Ben variety. We needed to call an audible. We decided on sloppy joes and mac 'n cheese. Easy, right? Wrong!

How do most people make sloppy joes? Get some ground beef and a packet of sloppy joe seasoning. First of all, as mentioned before, ground beef in labeled mince in the UK, so that was a bit of a learning experience, though easily conquered - like Britain in 1066! I kid, I kid! Do you think they have sloppy joe seasoning packets? Of course not! We had to look up some recipes and then find the ingredients one by one. The main things were brown sugar, steak seasoning, and onions. I will admit, I am building this up a great deal, mainly so you, my dear reader, are prepared for the bit of culinary excellence in the picture below.

There. You're glad I prepared you with all that build up now, aren't you?

Monica has a, some would say unhealthy, obsession with s'mores since we got her hooked on their Thanksgiving trip a couple years ago. We figured it would be a good idea to keep her addiction nice and strong.

Nicole found (and executed) this recipe. It's basically a base of a graham cracker batter that you melt broken up chocolate pieces over. Then you add the marshmallows - totally different.. more dense than in the US - and throw under the broiler for a bit. It was amazing!

After dinner, we took a walk around a couple of the local parks in Kennington. We definitely needed to walk off some calories.

On the next post, surprise (to Nicole) trip to Paris!

FINALLY!

I can't even. Okay, let's not get too teenager. I have wanted to go to Europe for as long as I can remember. First it was for the history and all the sites. Then, with help of the early middle ages of the interwebs, it was the different cultures and languages. Finally, in my early thirties, it was the food - oh my.. the food!

Editors note: This is going to be my first attempt at a real blog. If you're just here for the pictures, feel free to scroll on down. If you would rather enjoy the ramblings of a mad man, continue at your own risk.

How did this happen?

So, to get this whole thing started, we have to travel back to my last job in Tampa. Whilst there, we hired a lovely Portuguese fellow named Luis. Luis is a bit of a world traveler who somehow ended up in Tampa for unknown reasons. Early in 2015, we invited Luis and his wife, Monica, to Thanksgiving dinner. They had never been to a traditional American (MURICA!) Thanksgiving and, for some reason, thought our house would be a good place to experience that.

In mid-2015, I got a job offer in lovely Charleston. Luis and Monica came to our going away party in Tampa. We kept in touch via Skype and such, but figured the Thanksgiving thing wasn't going to happen. Lo and behold, in October I get a message that says, "Hey.. is Thanksgiving still on??" Well heck yes it is! If you are willing to load up in your car and drive seven hours to see us, you better believe we're rolling out the red carpet (or we'll have food for you, at least).

Thanksgiving 2016 turns into quite a large affair. It's our first in Charleston and we end up with 15 people or so - family, plus Luis and Monica. Thanksgiving dinner does turn out to be quite traditional and then Monica insists on making a traditional Portuguese dish (read: cod) as a night cap. There's a whole s'mores story in here too, but I'll save that for another time. On this trip, we discover that Luis and Monica are moving to London. They make the offer of, "if you guys are ever in London, you can stay with us!" The rest, as they say, is history!

What do we do with the kids?

We love our kids.. honestly! But, they are just not old enough to really appreciate.. stuff. They want to do fun things, which is totally understandable. So, is it worth it to spend at least double the money, three times the stress, and subtract 100% the romance to take them with us? I think not! Luckily, these kids usually end up with quite the summer itinerary. For this trip, we thought about how we could knock out one of their annual summer trips along with us maybe getting cheaper tickets to London. Boston - and my dear sister Jacque - seemed to be the ideal solution. We made the necessary arrangements, bought our tickets, and were on our way!

Boston - or more accurately, Rockport

Now that the kids are older, traveling is much easier. They both have devices to keep them occupied.

Someone has to keep watch of the bags

Pretty strawberry moonrise with lighthouse up the coast.

We decided, hey, if we are staying right on the beach, we have got to see the sunrise. Great idea, right? Well, when you get as far north and east as Boston, sunrise is a bit earlier. By bit earlier, I mean 5:04 AM! Luckily (but perhaps not smartly) for us, waking up at 4:30 Eastern meant the same as waking up at 9:30 GMT. That should put us on a good schedule!

First of many selfies - this one just before sunrise.

Sun peaking out from behind the rocks.

Long Beach in Rockport is a pretty neat beach. Growing up with just the white sand beaches of the gulf, anything with added geological character is pretty neat in my book.

Dear sister Jacque also took us into the historic shopping district of Rockport. It was super cute. Pretty much the definition of a New England beach town. I guess it just was not cute enough for me to take any pictures.

The flight from Boston to London is just under six hours. One of the reasons we booked with Norwegian was the opportunity to fly on one of the new 787-9 Dreamliners. I have never been on a wide-body before, and the only thing I could geek out over more might be the double-decker 747 or A380. This plane was set up in a 3-3-3 configuration. After consulting http://www.seatguru.com, I knew I wanted to be in the first row of regular seating so I could have the extra leg room. Unfortunately, this meant we ended up sitting across the aisle from each other, but it ended up working out well enough.

London!

We got there.. now what?

So Luis and Monica don't happen to live at Gatwick, or in the absolute center of London. What does that mean? Well, for us southerners, it means we get to ride some trains! You see, in the south, we don't ride trains. They're dirty and stuff (hopefully your sarcasm detector is on). To get to our final destination, we had to take a train from Gatwick into London - in this case, Southern Lines into Victoria station. Luckily, London has made things a bit easier by allowing you to purchase an Oyster card that works for transit in London (tube and buses) and the trains going to the airport. It was Sunday morning when we got in, so while it was a bit crowded, it was not bad at all by London's standards. We then hopped onto the tube! We had to take Northern Line Southbound - don't get me started! - down to Kennington. Once to our Kennington stop, we had a short walk to the flat. This might be the romantic in me talking, but it's pretty damn cool to be given a spot on a map over 3,000 miles away and end up at that spot, eventually.

No sleep till.. nighttime!

Our strategy for this trip was to try to immediately align ourselves with local time. This meant sleeping on the plane (whoops) and then making the most out of our first day in town. Since it was Sunday, Luis and Monica were off. Monica made us some amazing eggs and smoked salmon so we scarfed that down and took off through the city. They are big fans of the markets, so we first hit up Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill. Part of this was so we could see beautiful Notting Hill and part of this was so they could search for new records.

I love the black cabs in London. They're super pricey - compared to other transportation options - so we never took them, but they look so.. British!

Looking down the road at the shopfronts.

After Portobello Road, we meandered through several other markets and all I could do was take a picture of this tasty looking paella stand.

After the markets, we set out to find a proper English Pub. Luis really wanted to show us Dirty Dicks..

.. but we didn't get anything there - go figure. We ended up at a place near Monica's office called The Crown and the Shuttle. When you walk in, it just looks like your typical pub. Order a drink at the bar (since that's the only way to get a drink) and head to the back.

Out the back door is the beer garden. Brits take their beer gardens seriously. Maybe we just don't in the states and everyone else does? The great weather meant it was packed!

From there, we headed to Monica's office. It is in a four-story building with roof access. We went up to the roof to check out the view.

It was getting close to dinner time - FOOD - so we decided to head to an Indian place they like. London has its share (and then some) of great restaurants, but it really isn't known for any particular cuisine. Indian food is probably the exception. This place was kind of off the main drag and was BYOB. We picked up a bottle of wine and headed to Meraz Cafe.

Little market and mural across from restaurant

I had this pretty girl sitting across from me.

We got an amazing spread for less than £60!

We decided to see if we could go check out the view from The Shard - the tallest building in London. But, how to get there? We hadn't yet experienced the iconic double-decker bus, so now was the time!

Front row on the top, baby! It was pretty frightening how close everything was to the front of the bus. On more than one occasion, we were sure the bus had squished a moped.

So we show up at The Shard and find that there are multiple entrances - one for the hotel and one for the restaurant and bar. The bar we wanted to go to is on the 31st floor. Apparently, we didn't meet the dress code for the bar - thanks Luis! We started to walk away a bit defeated when the hotel manager walked over and let us know that though the bar had a pretty strict dress code, he could let us check out the lounge area.. on the 34th floor! We thanked him immensely as he led us into the lobby and onto the elevator. The view was amazing! Sorry in advance for the window glare.

Here you can see the Walkie Talkie building across the Thames along with London Bridge on the left and Tower of London and Tower Bridge on the right.

With that, we headed back to the flat to finally go to sleep!

On the next post - day two in London!

I am Jeff. I try.

I am.. thirty-something and spent all those years in Florida until deciding it was time for a new adventure.

I have a lovely wife of fifteen (!) years, two children, and one dog.

I love most sports, technology, and a maybe eclectic mix of music.

A quick note

I may be the brains behind the content and such, but none of this would be possible without the technical guidance of my good friend Jody.