First, I owe everyone an apology. I've fallen behind a bit on my posts and have gone almost 3 weeks without posting. Shame on me.
But, I am back on it now and will be updating this at least once per week from here on out. Here we go!
A lot of our posts here are about the big trips we take and the amazing experiences we are having. But, for us, one of the most enjoyable things of all is when we get to see our friends. Luckily, London is an easy place to visit and we're had a fairly steady stream of family and friends stop by. A couple weeks ago, it was our friends Sadia and Meleata. Now, this wasn't a planned trip. Sadia was coming for work and to visit some friends here, and Meleata was passing through on her way to Barcelona for a conference. It was just good luck that they would be here at the same time. Likelihood of shenanigans was quite high.
Since Meleata hadn't been to London before, we spent part of the trip bouncing around to the typical London sights.
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| Riding the tube |
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| The Borough Market |
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| Walking along the River Thames |
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| The Tower of London and the Tower Bridge |
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| Big Ben, Parliament, & Westminster Abbey |
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| The London Eye |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Kensington Palace |
All of London at once! That's how you do it.
Also, since we had multiple Fuquans in town, we HAD to have our own version of Fuqua Friday! So we got Sadia & Meleata (both class of 2011), our new neighbors Erica Gellerman (class of 2012) & her husband Jordan (Cross Continent Class of 2013), Matt Diffey (class of 2013) & his wife Teddy (sorry about the spelling!), and we all headed over to the Troubador Cafe for a drink or 10. If you're ever in London, check out the Troubador. It's a cool little cafe/restaurant/bar, with live music in the basement. Apparently lots of big name acts play here (Adele, Rolling Stones, etc). But I digress.... we had a blast at the bar, and then of course we took the party back to our place to watch some FuquaVision (where we were joined by Albert Hammond - Class of 2011).
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| The FV viewing crew |
It was a great night, and it was so much fun reliving a bit of Fuqua with our friends.
Despite the whirlwind of sightseeing and shenanigans, there was still one thing we neglected: football. Proper British football. You see, Meleata and her family are fans of "the beautiful game" (as her husband Hassan likes to say), so we had to go see something related to the Premiership. As it turns out, we were able to visit both Stamford Bridge (home to Chelsea FC) and Emirates Stadium (home to Arsenal FC) on the same day.
Not only that, it was game day so there were people all over the town!
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| The crowd walking to Emirates Stadium |
It was pretty interesting to see the differences in the atmosphere and crowds for the two teams. At Chelsea, it felt very posh. There are Audi's on display outside the stadium and it's basically what you'd expect in a higher end neighborhood like Chelsea. On the other hand, Arsenal felt rugged, blue collar, and I got the impression these were proper British football fans. The kind who would gladly have a pint with you if you support their team, or punch you in the face if you don't. Ok maybe that last part is an exaggeration, but it definitely had a rowdier feel to it and it was fun to see.
It was a great few days with our friends in town, and we are already looking forward to our next visitors. Come one, come all!
St. Patrick's Day
March Madness (we're just gonna pretend Mercer never happened)
The Ides of March
my birthday
.....big stuff. But, all of that is dwarfed by the most important event of all: Gloria's birthday.
This year, we turned it into a multi-event spectacle. First stop, dinner on her actual birthday. I surprised her with reservations at Medlar, which is a Michelin star restaurant in Chelsea.
The food was fantastic, as you'd expect. But the real attraction was the people at the other end of the restaurant. Since we were the only other people there, they were nice enough to yell their conversation to make sure we could hear every word. Our server kindly apologized and told us they had been there for about 5 hours and MIGHT have had a drink or ten.
We just laughed it off and enjoyed our meal. Which was lovely.
Yep, we went to Book of Mormon. It is amazing and totally lived up to the hype. It is hilariously funny, really well performed, and is definitely one of the best shows we've ever seen. We highly recommend it (with the caveat that it does include a fair amount of coarse language and you must be able to laugh at yourself and not be easily offended).
It's a speakeasy style bar and it is a really fun place. They do a great job of creating a real speakeasy type atmosphere (you know, from my vast experience frequenting 1920's speakeasies). Without giving away the secrets, I'll just say that when you enter, you discuss your "case" with the detective, and once they're satisfied you are led through a secret door into the bar. It's definitely a neat experience.
