Around the World in 365 Days: Atlantic City to London

Day 77, Jan. 2^nd: We drove to New York City! Well, Long Island, by way of Staten Island to visit friends before heading overseas. The Garden State Parkway was clear, at least until we got close to the city. The Verrazano Bridge

traffic was heavy but moving. Traveling over the bridge offers some nice views of the skyline, though my pictures could not capture it well due to the movement. Tom and Maureen, friends of John’s since the 70’s, took us to a waterfront restaurant on Staten Island called Cole’s Dockside Seaside Restaurant.  The linguini with clam sauce is a must try, but the real don’t miss is the chocolate crepe with mousse filling for dessert. We had to rush back to try to get through traffic before the worst of rush hour. We spent with Tom and Carol, also long-standing friends. They are especially good friends, since not only did they put us up for the night, but they agreed to let us leave our car in their garage for the next 6+months. We had dinner at a local Italian place, another fine meal for the trip. We chatted through the evening, but despite world events, we all had to head to bed, especially Carol who had to work in the morning.

Day 78, Jan. 3^rd: John had been craving White Castle since we left San Antonio, so after a morning of re-organizing our bags and running some errands, we made it there for lunch. They have both a regular vegetarian slider and Impossible sliders – I had one of each and John got his 6-pack sack of the traditional. The Impossible tasted more like meat, but the regular vegetarian had more overall flavor, though not a top five veggie burger. The initial attempts to carry all luggage was not pretty, we got everything to the airport, but there was no way we were going to get everything from baggage collection to the train and then another 4-5 blocks from the train station to the hotel. The flight itself was pleasantly uneventful, and I watched “Avengers: End Game” along the way before getting in about an hour of sleep.

Day 79, Jan. 4^th: Welcome to London! Customs was quick, and we made the Express from Gatwick to Victoria Station in better than expected time. John had written down the directions from Victoria to the hotel, and asked one of the workers to confirm the road. Unfortunately, the exit the directions were for was not the exit we went out, so we dragged our reconfigured luggage about 5 blocks the wrong way. Luckily a very friendly barista checked Google Maps on his phone and got us going the right way (our data was not working). We got to the hotel at about 10AM, so we dropped off the luggage and got some breakfast at a chain common in London – Pret a Manger – (which is French for “ready to eat”). We couldn’t check into our rooms until after 1PM, so we bought 2 passes for the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and did the red line tour around the city. The trials of travel were setting in, and we decided to stay on all the way around rather than hopping on and off. I got some pretty good pictures through the windows.

The temp was in the mid 40’s, cloudy and windy, typical for London in January, though it seemed pretty crowded. The other reminder is how far north London is, by 2:30 the sun was getting close to setting. The bus had wi-if, so we checked online for plays and rode by the half-price ticket booths in Piccadilly Circus. We completed the 2 hour and 20-minute circuit around the main city, returning to our room for a nap. My comment on the room – “truth in advertising”.

After our nap, we explored the city. We walked down and over the Vauxhall Bridge, along the Albert Embankment, finding “The Rose” – a community pub that sold local brews and good food. I enjoyed the chicken and mushroom pie with a glass of sauvignon blanc. John went for the fish and chips. My dinner was excellent, John’s was fish and chips. We walked back over the Lambeth Bridge, offering views of Parliament

and The Eye. We ended the evening at The Marquis – a pub about a block from our hotel.

Day 80, Jan. 5^th: Happy Epiphany! We slept well, then got up for a jog. We took a fortuitous wrong turn  by the Victoria Coach Station – so now we knew where we needed to go Monday morning. We jogged outside the grounds of the Chelsea Pensioners home and hospital and then along the Chelsea Embankment before making our way back to the hotel. Our bus passes were good through 11:20 AM so we made it to the Blue line hop-on-hop-off bus to take us around Hyde Park and see more of the city. We walked to Piccadilly Circus and got tickets to “A Comedy About a Bank Robbery” at the Criterium Theater (not quite 50% off, but close). We snacked at a coffee shop and walked down to the Thames for some better views of Westminster.

Before the show we had an early dinner at Cyprus Mangal on Warwick Ave for Cyprus/ Turkish style Mediterranean cuisine – I especially enjoyed the beyaz peynir – a tasty mild white cheese made from sheep’s milk. We walked to the Criterium, cutting through Buckingham/ St. James Park (with their last day of Christmas decorations in front of the Palace)

and arrived at the theater very early.

We detoured to the Empire Casino a few blocks away. Signing up for the player’s club gets you a free drink, and they were showing the NFL playoff games! We chugged our drinks and made it back to the play with several minutes to spare. The play itself wasn’t as good as “The Play Where Everything Goes Wrong” which we saw last year.

It was farcical, and started well, but descended too much to sometimes racist stereotypes and tropes. After the play we returned to the Empire to watch the Seahawks/ Eagles game and gamble a little. The gambling was not kind to either of us. Uber was still available in London, at least for now, so we availed ourselves of that back to the hotel.