Karen Rubin's Ramblings

This is the 16th and last post in this series which has detailed everything you ever wanted to (and didn't want to) know about the two weeks Jared and I spent in Ireland and London. To start at the very beginning, go here

Day 16 – Time to go home

This morning was the most hectic day of our trip. We realized after we got up that we still needed to pay, and our hotel charged a 5% fee to use the credit card. I ran out to get cash and after 4 ATMs rejected me, I gave up and accepted the fee.

We then got to the Tube to go to the airport and I realized I had completely forgotten my Kindle under my pillow at the hotel. I ran back and got it.

Then we get into the Tube station and our Oyster Cards (tube tickets, like the Charlie Card in Boston) was 20 cents short of getting there. You can only put more than 5 pound on the card with a credit card, and the machines won’t give change for our 10 pound note, so I ran to the street, bought a banana and we added money to the card.

Then we get to the tube line we want to take, and they are saying they aren’t making any stops at Paddington station – the station we want to go to. We have no idea how to get to Heathrow without going through Paddington. We get on the tube and just hope they make announcements telling us what to do.

The train DOES stop at Paddington (our first break) and we find out we missed the train to the airport and have to wait 45 minutes for the next one. Fine, we get our ticket, some breakfast and sit down to wait.

Things went pretty smoothly from there, but the Heathrow airport is crazy. It has two times as many passport and security checks as any other airport we have gone through, we were both overwhelmed and exhausted by the time we got to our gate.

We made the flight, and as of writing this are on our way home to two lonely kitties and work tomorrow. You go away so you can remember how good your life is, and we are both excited to be coming home.

This is the 15th post in what will eventually be a 16 post series detailing everything you ever wanted to (and didn't want to) know about the two weeks Jared and I spent in Ireland and London. To start at the very beginning, go here. 

Day 15 – London

On our last day of vacation, I woke up and took a long run in Hyde Park. If there was one thing I wanted to do more of in London, it was spend time in the parks.  I was lucky enough to run every morning and thoroughly explore Hyde Park and it was some of the best running I’ve had. The park is HUGE, no loops required, and a fabulous mixture of wild woods and fields and manicured lawns and lakes. I loved getting myself lost and watching the Brits in their wellies with their dogs tramping through the long grass.

From there we did some packing, headed out for breakfast (a new place, I had delicious Huervos Ranchers and Jared had the best egg sandwich yet) and then to the post office to exchange some Irish Pounds. As silly as it is, North Ireland uses Irish Pounds and England uses British Pounds, they are a 1 to 1 conversion and yet you can’t use the other in either place.  We had a terrible time trying to convert the Irish Pounds into British Pounds. Euros no problem, the banks exchanged Euros with little or no fee, but they wouldn’t touch the Irish Pounds. Jared ran all over trying to figure it out, until someone told us the post office would do it. So there we went and we were told that they SHOULD accept them anywhere, but no one does. So silly.

Around 12 we hopped on the Tube and headed out to Emirates stadium for our very first Premier League football match. We were meeting up with Dee, a gentleman we met through Craig’s List, to get tickets. He had been wonderful over email and made us feel very good about the whole transaction (never mind that the tickets were half the price of buying from a broker.)  We met at one of the pubs around the stadium and the place was packed, red jerseys everywhere.

We had a fun time talking with Dee and his friends, they had been out until 9AM that morning celebrating his birthday so they were a bit worse for the wear, before heading to the stadium.  We got to the stadium, purchased some beers and food and went to go to our seats to find out you can’t bring beer in the “view of the pitch!” We gobbled it all down, and headed out to our seats.

In my experience, it is completely jaw dropping when you want into a stadium for the first time. Especially when it is for a sport you have never seen. It was much the same for my first baseball game at Fenway as it was at Emirates. The music was pumping, energy was rolling through the place, and the seats were starting to fill. Our seats were amazing, 17 rows back right near one of the goals. We took photos and just starred around in awe until the players came onto the field and we were blown away by how close they were!

Professional football (which from here on out means soccer players. When in Rome...) looks so clean on TV. The players always have incredible amounts of space between them, they always trap the ball perfectly, it looks like perfect football. Everything I was ever told to do by my high school coach. From the sideline you can see that they still get bunched and not every touch is perfect. The players are so very very young and so amazingly athletic. It was a fabulous sport to watch in person. No commercial breaks, constant action, instant replays of the goals on the big screen. Totally worth it.

After the game we were pretty pooped. We headed back to the Tube with the crowd and went to Covent Garden where we were meeting Jeremy (Jared’s high school buddy) for dinner at 7. We killed an hour in a restaurant and a coffee shop, reading and relaxing.

We went to a lovely Indian restaurant with Jeremy and his friend Emma. Jared and I had a great time so much time together on our vacation, but this was the first time in 2 weeks we had someone we knew well to talk to. It was great! The cocktails were great, the food was Indian tappas and was so much less filling than normal Indian food. We headed home around 10:30, packed up and went to bed. 

This is the 14th post in what will eventually be a 16 post series detailing everything you ever wanted to (and didn't want to) know about the two weeks Jared and I spent in Ireland and London. To start at the very beginning, go here. 

Day 14 – London

Since our first day in London was all touristy stuff, the second was about getting away from that (as much as a bunch of tourists can.) We started by having a lovely breakfast at the French café on the corner. The gorgonzola sandwich (minus the bacon, plus a fried egg) was amazing with butter, mayo, mustard, gorgonzola cheese an egg, spinach and tomatoes – how could it not be?

From there we headed up to Notting Hill to the Portobello Road market. We wandered through the antiques, food and clothing enjoying the immensity of the market, so different than our markets. We stopped at a lovely second floor café with a deck over looking the street and had a snack, some tea and watched the people.

Then we then picked up some bread and two kinds of cheese (oh the decadence) and were back on the tube to Regents Park.

We loved Regents Park. It was the perfect combination of formal gardens, playing fields and open grassy areas. We had a picnic that could have only been better with a glass of wine or pint of cider (we can’t quite get used to the idea that drinking in public is ok) and took a nap on the grass after battling for our position against some over aggressive squirrels (don’t people realize feeding squirrels is a bad idea!)

From there was wandered across the park to the café and had tea and a scone with jam and cream. I felt so British and loved it! We came home, again on the Tube, had a pint at the local pub, and took a rest before heading out to a lovely Thai dinner right near our hotel. The plan was to hit the pub again, since they were jumping, but we both ate too much and instead came home for Alka-seltzer. We are such old farts. 

This is the 13th post in what will eventually be a 16 post series detailing everything you ever wanted to (and didn't want to) know about the two weeks Jared and I spent in Ireland and London. To start at the very beginning, go here. 

Day 13 – London

I wasn’t excited to come to London, it’s a big city and in the past I have enjoyed the countryside more. As soon as I got here, I realized there are so many things to do in London! For our first day, we did one of the hop-on hop-off bus tours.

We jumped off at Trafalgar Square first and picked up some tickets at TKTS  for Avenue Q.  Then we swung into the Portrait Gallery and saw the finalists for the 2010 portrait competition. They were amazing. We didn’t bother with the old portraits since it was a lovely day, we didn’t want to spend all our time inside.

We then headed to St. Pauls Cathedral to walk to the top and get a view of the city. The Cathedral was amazing, a beautiful example of simplicity and Victorian opulence.  We headed up to the top, stopped in the Whispering Gallery (you can hear someone whisper all the way across the dome, 32 meters away. We tested it, it works.)  Then got views at two levels of the city. It was a fun way to over look London and get a feel for the place.

From there we walked across the river (over the bridge that the death eaters destroy in the most recent Harry Potter movie) to the Tate Modern and ducked inside just as the skies opened up. We spent some time sitting and giving our feet a rest, then wandered through the Dreams section and looked at all the surrealism masters.

Again the Tate is HUGE and we could have spent all day there, but we snuck out nice and quick and headed to the Borough Street Market, which was a wonderful find. Stalls of fruits and vegetables, cheeses and sweets, curries and baguettes where everywhere. We picked up some black current jam and truffle oil to bring home and a piping hot plate of curry to eat for lunch. I could have spent the afternoon there. I wish I had a kitchen in London to cook in!

From there we hopped back on the bus, finished the tour round the city with the best guide of the day, and ended up again at Trafalgar Square. We were hoping to take the bus back to Victoria Station, but the rush hour traffic was too much, and I was worried about not having time for dinner before the show, so we hopped in a cab.

We cleaned ourselves up, hopped on the Tube and headed up town to SoHo. We walked down through SoHo until we found a lovely café with seats right in the front window across the way from a hopping gay bar. We enjoyed an excellent dinner (with the best mojito I have ever had) while people watching. It was excellent and made me miss NYC for the first time in a while.

From there we walked over to the theater and laughed ourselves silly at Avenue Q. Half the fun was that Jared’s parents recommended the show, and we couldn’t imagine them watching it! It was outrageous and per a review “pants wettingly funny.” I forgot how much I love the theater. 

This is the 12th post in what will eventually be a 16 post series detailing everything you ever wanted to (and didn't want to) know about the two weeks Jared and I spent in Ireland and London. To start at the very beginning, go here. 

Day 12 – Drogheda and London

We woke early with plans to pack up the car, add more money to the meter and then have a nice last Irish breakfast at the café we had spotted in town the day before. All went well until we got to the café and found out it didn’t open until 10 (it was 8.) No harm done, there was also a B&B that would serve us an Irish breakfast for 5 pounds because we were staying at the hostel. So we walked there, not a soul in sight.

By this point, I was pretty hungry, used to my Irish fry at 8AM. Jared knew he needed to act fast, so we found the one place in town that was open – Insomnia – the Starbucks like coffee shop that distinguishes themselves by putting 2 shots of espresso in every cup of joe. We sat there for 2 hours, reading and stealing wifi until 10 when (according to my second guide book) the local and brand new art gallery opened. We wandered up there, only to find out it didn’t open until 10:30…..

Then I decided it was time to go, and we headed out of town to Monasterboice. Monasterboice was an abbey in 900AD. Not much is known about the abbey, except there are two church ruins, two of the oldest examples of Celtic crosses (9 and 12 meters tall) and a perfectly round tower. It was a very quiet cemetery, with crows cawing, adding to the atmosphere. The crosses were cool and we had the place to ourselves. It was another example of another way of living, long ago, in someone’s backyard in Ireland.

We then drove over to Mellifont, an abbey from around 1000 AD, which was the ultimate demise of Monasterboice. More ruins, these ones a little more defined, with a visitors center and other people. We got to the parking lot and decided we didn’t want to pay the entrance fee enough, and headed to Dublin. One thing I learned on vacation was that when Jared and I have a travel day, we travel. We don't do much else, we want to get it over and done with. So off to London we went. 

It took us significantly less time to get to London than it took me to finally write this blog post! Getting downtown and from the airport was easy as pie. Our hotel was right near Victoria Station, close to everything, and the room was smaller than our bedroom in NYC, the bathroom too. I did some organization and we are very used to, and comfortable with, small spaces. It was actually quite nice.

We had dinner at a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant (you don’t come to London for the British food!) and then spent the evening walking around. We saw Westminster, the Parliament, the London Eye and took our first London cab ride. It was an excellent way to get to know the city.