First night here: After our flooded fiasco (see leaky faucet post below), we got dressed and went out to dinner. Mel's bf Will got her this awesome London for Under $25 book so we found this amazing restaurant called Ping Pong which was in Westbourne Grove, a street/neighborhood one block away from our hotel. It reminds me a little bit of Greenwich Village, kind of quiet.
We got plate after plate of unbelievable dim sum and some delicious cocktails to boot. After dinner we went back to the hotel, turned on a movie and fell asleep about 15 minutes into it. We woke up the next day at 3pm. I guess that's jet lag for ya!
Since we got a late start to say the least, we left the hotel around 4 and took the tube to Piccadilly Circus which is basically the Times Sq of London. Coming out of the tube station to street level was really cool because we hadn't seen this side of London yet. It was the big, built-up, touristy area so it was fun to be in that kind of bustling environment. Sidenote: the weather was great too, sun and blue skies the whole time so far! Here are a few shots from the afternoon...
Sidenote: The bus in the first picture nearly killed Mel when she walked into the street and looked the wrong way for oncoming traffic. The three of us got a few stares as she screamed bloody murder and ran back to the curb. Thank god she was ok!!
From Piccadilly, we walked over to Leicester Square, which was a small park in the center of the city (like Washington Sq) and went to this mexican restaurant called Chiquito right on the park. We got nachos and a pitcher of margaritas as our late afternoon tie-over. Around 8, we left that area and tubed it back to Bayswater to make dinner back at the hotel. Rebs and I ran some errands while Mel prepared this amazing cheese and cracker spread and pasta dish with spinach and mixed veggies that was ready when we got back. We ate while watching some Chris Rock comedy special. They love their Comedy Central over here. We also stocked the fridge in the room since we'll be here for a bit.
After we cleaned up dinner last night, we went to the front desk again with the intention of having a fun night out on the town. We asked the concierge if there is a good nightclub that he would recommend for us, seeing as we were new to the area. He said that we "had" to go to Tiger Tiger back in Piccadilly. He said we would love it and we would fit right in. We said "ok, anywhere else we should know about?" and he responded by basically saying "no, go to Tiger Tiger". We went back to the room and we googled Tiger Tiger to see how to get there and to get a sense of the place before we went out. Literally, the first review that we stumbled upon, I have copy and pasted for your viewing pleasure:
"This big brash Piccadilly meat market is perennially packed with desperate tourists who obviously got turned away at all other nightclubs and other young drunk things of all ethnicities picking each other up"
Thanks asshole.
Needless to say, we did NOT go to Tiger Tiger, but we were all dressed up and wanted to go somewhere. We decided to walk back to Westbourne Grove and do drinks at Ping Pong again, but they closed at midnight so we found this bar next door called Harlem. From the outside, it looked like a typical sports bar and nothing else seemed to be open so we walked past the bouncers and actually went downstairs (which we didn't know about) to this really eclectic clubby environment (very similar to Andalu).
We got a few drinks, claimed a small leather hideaway right under the DJ booth, and mingled with the locals until about 2am. It was so much fun because we were the only Americans in the place. I talked to this one guy and his girlfriend who looked like they were in their late 20s who were so fascinated that we were from the States. He told me his ex went to Yale and he met her when she was studying over here as well. The girlfriend looked like a hot vamped up version of VBeckam and didn't really love that last comment of his. Mel and Rebs talked to the bartenders who gave us some names of other places to hang out. We were such obvious Americans though.. Mel brought a small notepad to the bar and Rebs spilled her entire Long Island Iced Tea on the guy haha. She was good about it and tipped him for the refill. We stayed a little longer, the girls danced, I got buzzed, and we bounced.
We got back to the hotel, made grilled cheese and went to bed. Can't wait to explore a little bit more tomorrow!
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