london: week three

Week three was full of visits from California friends plus our son who came for the entire week from San Francisco. I wish I could say that we are fully acclimated to the UK time zone but we still have days where we are up past midnight for no reason and then wake up after 10 am in the morning. Once again, we packed in a ton of outings into our week but finally did wear ourselves out.

* We started the week by visiting Primrose Hill (super cute), Camden Market (crazy busy – like Venice Beach on steroids), and Marylebone (aspirational London neighborhood if we were to ever live here.)

* We ate with our friends Robert and Victoria (Bay Area residents) and experienced the most frequently recommended restaurant by everyone who provided input – Dishoom. We went on a Sunday night at 9 pm to the Carnaby St location and still had to wait to be seated. The hype is real. It is excellent Indian food. Robert, who is English, gave us some good background on Guy Fawkes Night – the annual UK holiday on November 5 that includes bonfires and fireworks.

* We spent most of Monday and Tuesday with our friends Alison and Rob (Bay Area residents). They spent a year living in London and were the source for our current living situation. We enjoyed having them introduce us to their favorite cocktail bar – Duke’s in Mayfair. Rob also took the guys to James J. Fox, a cigar store in Mayfair, and they appreciated an afternoon Cuban.

* I did a second round of shopping in Chelsea with my English friend Sharon (Bay Area resident). She offered me a lot of insight into the English clothing brands, which stores are cheaper in the UK vs the US and strongly encouraged me to lower my expectations about retail service while shopping in London.

* We did three audio tours in London while our son was with us: Parliament, The Globe Theater and The Silk Road Exhibition at The British Museum. We definitely recommend the first two but were a bit disappointed about the third.

* Last weekend, my husband took off for a wedding celebration in New York so my son and I took the train to Edinburgh, a city neither of us had previously visited. We took audio tours of the castle and palace, enjoyed both, but decided that we had to be done with audio tours for the foreseeable future. We walked the Royal Mile, took a hike up Calton Hill and ran into someone my son knows from Los Altos, CA. Thank you to Crystal for excellent notes ahead of our trip.

* We attended our first pub “quiz night” where my intimate knowledge of George Michael and Wham were essential to finishing very middle of the pack on the 60 question test. We may be contenders for a future win if we can find one or two additional teammates who know basic UK geography, regional British celebrities and the rules of cricket.

* On the train home from Edinburgh, we sat with a very nice couple from Durham who gave us a lot of information about northern England and some insights on the various English, Irish and Scottish accents. I had already been thinking about using YouTube to try to improve my ability to distinguish between English, Irish and Scottish but it turns out there are somewhere between 17 and 20 dialects so I may be in over my head. For the entire time we were in Edinburgh, I could not stop saying to myself, “If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!!”

* As the days get shorter, I started to wonder what the time change protocol is in the UK. It turns out that while we are here, we will get to roll back the clocks one hour a week ahead of the US on October 27 and then again when we get home on November 2. What a huge bonus! Falling back an hour in the fall is really just a license to lay around in bed for an extra hour and I am so here for it.

* Because I am five hours ahead of my daughter who is living in New York, she is struggling to fill the time when she normally sits on the phone with me. Throughout college and continuing now as she acclimates to her new life living and working in NYC, she finds comfort in being on Facetime with me while laying in her bed, getting ready to go out and walking from A to B. She has reached out to my bestie CJ and instructed her that she needs her to be available between 3 pm and 10 pm eastern time until I return to the states in early November. CJ is happy to fill in and more than capable of taking on this role but she does have a full time job. If you have the ability to work one of these shifts, please let me know.

* Since early 2024, my husband has been calling his wardrobe focus “the year of neutrals.” In his words, this means he is wearing “gray, khaki, stone, beige, cream” from head to toe. This translates to both of his modes of dress: athleisure (Vuori from head to toe) as well as sporty casual (jeans, fashion sneakers, short sleeve polo with the collar peeking out of a round neck sweater or sweatshirt.) All over London, we are seeing menswear that is ultra neutral and he wants the world to know (through this blog) that he was way ahead of this trend and may even have been the worldwide inspiration. Here are a few examples of these offerings in case you want to follow in his footsteps: Vuori, Alo Yoga, Todd Snyder, and Theory.

* So far, the fashion trend that stands out in London is leopard print pants. In the last week, I have seen no less than ten women wearing them. In the fashion blog I subscribe to, the latest topic was “A veritable pageant of leopard prints” so it is clearly a hot trend in the US as well. Coming off the validation related to neutrals, my husband has weighed in and remarked skeptically that “those aren’t doing what you think they are.”

Next week looks to be slightly slower paced as we rebound from traveling over the weekend. I will likely have time to catch up on all of my shows via a VPN. We are currently watching “Monsters” and “Nobody Wants This” on Netflix – both of which deserve blog posts of their own as they are LA stories. I have a lot to say about both the Menendez Brothers (e.g. in a twist of fate, my husband lived in the same college dorm as Lyle during his freshman year) and the likelihood of dating a marginally cool, “hot rabbi.”