We did it! This afternoon, we officially booked our trip to London and I am soo excited! I've never been, and I just can't wait to see all of the things I want to see. Granted, with 4 days and 1 1/2 being Shabbos, we probably won't be able to see too much of London, but I'm just so excited that we're going! I want to go see Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the Tate Modern Museaum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Harrods, the changing of guard and Soho! Plus, the weather should be nice and crisp and hopefully not too rainy, so that should be a treat. I'm looking forward to wearing a jacket again! Once the laundry is done, I'm hoping to go to Emek to the Steimatzky and look for a travel book on London. This way, we can really plan what we want to do to maximize our short trip.
Shabbos was really nice and much busier than normal. We went to the Yael shul on Friday night and it was packed. The davening was really nice too, I especially liked the little boy who davened Kabalat Shabbos. He had a very sweet voice. We got back to the apartment and my culinary guniea pig went to work on the broccoli soup (delicious!) and curry chicken (also very good) with spicy asian string beans. We went to sleep fairly early and, for some reason, I got up at 2:00 and couldn't fall back to sleep so I read my book until 4:00. I think I was just really hot and it took about 2 hours for me to relax again.
We didn't make it to shul so Buggy davened at home and we made kiddush here and had something quick to eat. We then walked to his folks for lunch and this time, we made the mistake of walking up Marcus. That hill is absolutely evil! It is super, super steep and at one point I just couldn't catch my breath. Buggy throught it was cute that I was sweating, but I was not happy that I'm so out of shape. People must be able to walk up those hills without breaking a sweat, and Buggy himself didn't have too much of a hard time. Anyway, by the time we got to his parents house I looked like a wet dog and I immediately went to the bathroom to try to mop up. It was gross.
Lunch was very nice, Buggy's Aunts, Uncles and cousins were there too so it was a very lively meal. We walked home and it was gorgeous, the weather was nice and cool and who doesn't like walking downhill? We got home and went to sleep, even though shabbos ended in 1 1/2 hours.
We got up 5 minutes before Shabbos was out and I was already going through all the things I needed to do that evening. Buggy's BFF's were coming for dinner and a movie and I had to cook and make things presentable. Fortunately, Buggy was super man and totally pitched in. First, I washed all the dishes from Shabbos and put them away, then we set the table and swept. I shipped Buggy out with the trash and accumulated newspapers, and then I got to work on dinner. I was making tuna croques, whole wheat spaghetti with pasta sauce and a purple cabbage salad. We both also had to shower, and they were coming at 7:30! So, I went into high gear and enlisted Buggy's help on the salad. He hated peeling so I let the patties fry and peeled the 2 cucumbers for him. I also set up the snack table for the movie, with some apple muffins I baked before Shabbos, pretzels, grapes and some popcorn. With Buggy working so meticulously next to me, we were moving along at a steady pace. That is, until I caught my elbow in the salad bowl and tipped the whole thing over on the counter and my foot and the floor. I kept waiting for Buggy to yell at me for ruining everything he worked so hard on for the past 30 minutes, but he was Mr. calm. So, I decided to yell at myself since that's the response I'm used to, and Buggy thought I was a bit crazy. We managed to salvage about half the bowl of salad, so all wasn't completely wasted, and Buggy cleaned up the floor while I ran into the shower.
We had a fantastic time with his friends, who announced to us that they're having another baby in April! Their oldest will be 1 on February 4th, and she is adorable. They put her to sleep in on bed and Buggy was nesting, and kept going in to check on her to make sure she was okay. She was so sweet, and fell asleep right away. Unfortunately, the movie we rented wasn't as good, eventhough I absolutely loved the book The Bridge to Terebithia as a child. Buggy's friends thought it was the most depressing movie they had seen, but since the food was good and so was the pineapple I broke out for dessert, they forgave us and promised to come back and visit.
Today, we got a late start on the day and I'm basically being a domesticated woman all day. I've got two loads of laundry up and have been cleaning and washing dishes. We're going to watch another movie soon, and then I'm going to get out of the house to run a quick errand. Tomorrow, I'm going to Ikea in Netanya with Buggy's Mom, so I'm really excited about that! We definitely need some stuff in the apartment, and hopefully we'll be successful.
Before I forget, Happy Birthday Galit! Welcome to the wonderful world of 3! We hope your princess party today is a big hit and can't wait to see the pictures!
1 comment:
I was in London, York, and Scotland in July and you can see dozens of my blog entries and pictures on my blog.
Some free advice:
- Skip London. Sorry to tell you this, but it's really not all that interesting. My impression of London was that it looked basically like Queens, NY.
- York was 5 times nicer than London - the people, the scenery, the prices, and everything else.
- Scotland was 5 times nicer than York. Skip England altogether and just go straight to Scotland. You really won't regret it.
- OK, you're determined to go to London. England is expensive. Now, you may be thinking you know what expensive is, but trust me, you have no idea how expensive it is. A kosher eggroll costs 60 NIS. A burger costs 100 NIS. The 2 hour train ride to York and back was 1000 NIS.
Want to see a play? 400 NIS for cheap seats. Simple subway ride? 40 NIS.
You're up against nearly a 10 to 1 conversion rate of pounds to shekels.
- There is only one way to make England even partly manageable: buy every damn thing that you can online before you go. All tickets to shows are half to one third the price online. Transportation, including subways, is half price online or less. Reserving hotels is half price or less online. Reserve everything online.
- Everything in London closes at 4:00. Well, most things, anyway.
- Bring lots of food. There are kosher places, but needless to say, nearly everything is too expensive.
- Buy a cheap discount calling card at a corner store. Do not use public phones, even with the calling card. If you have an unlocked cellphone, you can buy a throwaway chip from Orange in London.
- So what is there really to do in London?
# Portobello Market is nice for a few hours. Lots of used record and book stores, all too expensive to actually buy from, but browsing is nice.
# The Thames river and all of the famous buildings: parliament, westminster abbey, and so on are not at all impressive. They look better in pictures. A boat ride up and down the river wasn't too bad.
# the London Eye is a two hour wait on line for a 125 NIS per person 30 minute ride once around. A total waste of time and money.
# The National Gallery is free and excellent.
# The Tate Modern is free (4/6 levels) but really stupid, unless you absolutely love modern art. E.g. the latest exhibition is a crack in the floor.
# The changing of the guard is another several hour affair, with little visibility and extremely dull. See it on film; in person is a waste of time in a big crowd.
- It will rain. Period.
- Londoners are polite but not particularly friendly. If you ask one for help, he will immediately offer assistance and then look away from you hoping you will forget that he offered. If you remind him, he will apologize, offer assistance and then look away again hoping you will forget again. This is repeated until you give up.
In York, they actually made an effort to help you after the offer assistance. In Scotland, they will pick you up and drive 30 miles out of their way to help you and hten check on you the next day to ensure that you're still well.
- Go to Scotland.
Yehuda
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