London pt 1

We had the great idea of going to London over the weekend, of course we picked a weekend in which they were working on the train routes, so a 1 hr trip turned into a 2 hr trip. We felt rather disoriented the whole time, we didn't know where to wait for the train, where to get off, where to go after that, which bus to get on, which subway to get on, where to get off or why...... We managed though, since everybody was going to London, so really, we just had to follow the crowd. We had very vague plans once we got there, we just walked around at first, with a certain level of disappointment, I must admit... it just didn't feel like London... it was all empty streets, forgettable architecture.... But there was still those phonebooths and taxis from 'the movies' so we were motivated to explore. A nice couple from a vegan meeting recommended that we go to the Museum of Childhood for Sophie to explore and they mentioned there was a vegetarian cafe across the street from it. So that was our first stop.

We made our way there, by the time we got there, we were too hungry, so we decided to go to the cafe first. It was friendly and very vegan friendly (believe us....there is vegetarian cafes that are NOT vegan-friendly). Sophie devoured her pasta, while Chuy and I shared an british breakfast and a roast. It was good. We have noticed that restaurants here use less salt that we are used to, I feel like Brenda (she puts salt on salted chips!!) putting salt on everything. Maybe I should get used to less salt, it would probably do me well. We finished off our meal by sharing a chocolate chip blondie, which was amazing. Yum. We walked over to the Children's Museum and Sophie had lots of fun. So much fun that it was a crying fest when we left. She wanted to keep playing with the horses and the lights.... We promised her a lollipop and after some negotiation, she agreed, haha.

Then we made our looong way to the hotel. It was such a long way, well it was about 5 miles, but with a small child, that takes forever when you are walking there. On the way, we saw a main street filled with street vendors selling anything, clothes, trinkets, jewelry, DVDs and so on... We found a gorgeous park, Victoria Park, with a lake and all, it was quite nice. We stayed for a while and enjoyed the scenery, while Sophie was throwing rocks in the water or so she said. We also found a Korean store that had sriracha...this was a major accomplishment or so it felt. We have had difficulty finding hot sauces here, and sriracha has been a favorite of ours. Unfortunately, we must have bought the mild kind...and well, I'm not a mild hot sauce kind of person. Our way to the hotel also featured us getting lost for a few miles thanks to google maps. Advice: always, always check google maps so it takes you through main streets in an unknown area. This is kind of what google maps told us: go right on x street, go left to stay of x street, go right to stay on x street, slight right to stay on x street....and so on.........well that x street was going in all directions, it crossed itself and it did ridiculous things. It didn't help that they don't really believe in clear visible street signs around there. We even asked some locals and they didn't even know which street they were on, and the directions they gave us to get back on track, where along the lines of: well go straight, then turn slight left, then on the next main road turn right, then on the next road turn left......and so on.....we were like, right....so we had to backtrack and follow only main roads. By the time we got to the hotel, we were pretty exhausted and hungry. Unfortunately, we were stuck in an area that didn't seem vegan friendly at all. We had stopped along the way to see menus of Chinese restaurants and so forth, and the menus were not inviting at all. So Chuy went on an adventure to find some food, while Sophie and I devoured some cookies we had. Chuy came back with not so promising looking food, but it was food and it was vegan, so it was eaten.

The main reason we went to London for that particular weekend is because an alternative vegan festival was occurring. But they kept changing the venue and were being super secretive about it. For example, we had to text them to get the address...weird. But anyway, we finally had the address and we looked it up and it was a bar. We really didn't feel like dragging Sophie to a bar that was far away from the area we had to leave from. So instead we decided to go to downtown London and explore a bit. We had two new loose goals, go to the art museum and find a vegan restaurant. This time instead of walking, we decided to take the tube (subway). We got to an area that had many restaurants that we could eat at, unfortunately we did not know where any of them were and we were pretty hungry. So we went around walking, looking at millions of menus, we even split our search party to find something faster. And we finally did, we found an all-vegan buffet of chinese/thai food. We were pretty ecstatic, but we had to wait half an hour for them to open.... Sophie was not pleased, she could see the food and couldn't understand why she couldn't have it. We tried to distract her by walking around and came upon the Chinatown of London. It was cool, so we poked around the stores a bit, looked around, wondered what the weird fruits they were selling tasted like, and then it was time to eat. Finally. Needless to say, we all stuffed our faces. We pretty much tried everything on the buffet, all kinds of assorted seitan, noodles, curries, stir fries, and so on.

After quieting our hunger, we started to noticed our surroundings better. Now, this was we were expecting of London. A vibrant city, with amazing looking buildings. People buzzing every way. Literally, everywhere we went, with no directions of any kind, we were in some kind of landmark. We walked into a carnival, with all sorts of rides. Sophie and Chuy got on the carousel. Sophie loved it and wanted to stay there all day, but at 2 pounds a ride per person, it wasn't happening. We walked more, walking in and out of interesting shops, enjoying the city. And we found ourselves in Trafalgar's Square, which had a pretty impressive fountain and it was surrounded by awesome buildings. Then Chuy saw a pointy building that was golden and we decided to track it down. It turns out that it was the clock tower/Big Ben, which is next to the Houses of Parliament, which is a really impressive sight. The detail that these buildings have is quite amazing. There was also all kinds of protesters there, but it was kind of cold and slightly rainy so they were all camping there. They were protesting the war amongst other things. It's nice to see people doing their civic duty. On our way to the museum, we saw the Wheel of London/London Eye.

And then we finally got to the museum, our legs were starting to complain quite a bit, so it was a relief to find our destination. At the museum, we started by observing an sculpture that took the whole room, it was clay formed into sunflower seeds and there was thousands of them. The dedication it must of taken, wow. I am not a super fan of these kinds of sculptures, but I can appreciate the hard work that went into it. Then we started walking into the galleries, we knew there was paintings by Dali and Picasso around. The originals. And they were right there, somewhere among the galleries we were walking in. And these were the 'free of admission' galleries. We couldn't believe it. But right there in front of us, was a Dali painting, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, an original. It was smaller than I imagined. I had stared at a poster of this painting for quite some time, since I had it in my room when I was back in El Paso. But seeing the original was mind blowing. The detail, the colors, the strokes, just wow. I never even considered that I could end up seeing originals by artists that I admire. And without even trying, I had found myself there in front of them. It was a great experience. We saw three paintings by Dali, two by Picasso and some of his sketches too. By the time we had finished touring the galleries, we were really exhausted, found a bench and recollected our thoughts. We had limited amount of time until we had to take the tube again to take our train on time. So we decided to give another vegan restaurant a try and called it a day.

By the time we got out of the museum, it was dark out. And London is quite beautiful by night. So we really enjoyed our walk to the restaurant, Saf. Sophie wanted her favorite, which is a tofu and avocado sandwich. They obviously didn't have that on the menu, but they made it for her. Chuy and I shared a raw pad thai and a thai green curry. The raw pad thai felt more like a salad than anything, and it was good, really good, but in a cold night, it didn't seem as satisfying as it should have. The thai green curry was spectacular, it had deep complex flavors, that came together in a perfect way. MMmm. By the time we had finished eating, we were a bit worried about the time, so we ran back to the station. We got there with plenty of time, and headed home. Sophie made a friend on the tube. She fell asleep on the train. And then on the bus again. And then we were home. This concludes part one of London, we expect to visit it again, there is so much to see still!