England. Days 4 and 5. We Can Go the Distance.
Sunday morning we got up—not bright and early, thankfully.
We had stayed up late the night before finishing season three of The White Lotus. It was just such a painful season, I’m so glad it’s over, and honestly, I’m glad everyone who died, died.
We got up slowly and went to breakfast, which we didn’t reach until about 10:45.
After a leisurely breakfast, we took a cab to the London Eye. Fourteen years ago, Tzvi and I came to London and did the Eye, and now we were doing it again. We got lucky this time: it was sunny, and we could see all of London. Everyone really enjoyed it—it was fun—but the kids got a little cranky as we came off. Of course we paid the extra 5 pounds for the mini binoculars, so that occupied the kids, until they started fighting over them.
Once we were back on the ground we met Inbar and tried to take some nice pictures in front of Big Ben. I think we got a couple, but had to bribe the girls in the process.
Next, we walked to the Uber Boat, basically a boat taxi on the River Thames. The boat was actually very nice (nicer than most Uber X you get in NYC) except, like everything else in London, there was no air conditioning (or air con as they call it, which makes it sound like a negative thing, which is maybe why they don’t have it). We rode it to the London Bridge stop, though we didn’t go to the bridge itself.
Instead, we walked to Borough Market, a famous food market, and sampled a ton of things. First, we tried a vegan pie—my favorite dish of the day—an Indian-style curry with chickpeas. Delicious. We also got a huge German pretzel and a bagel with cream cheese for Hallie (she’s such an adventurous eater!). Tzvi sampled cheese at a cheese stand, and then was like, ‘this is good, but what am I going to do, walk around with a big block of cheese?’ Well, everyone (including the man trying to sell him cheese) thought that was an excellent idea. He actually ended up buying three blocks of cheese, which everyone other than me and Hallie enjoyed. They also got a sourdough baguette that they could stick their cheese on. Of course we also got the famous chocolate-covered strawberries. Very good, though probably no better than other chocolate strawberries you could get elsewhere. We probably should’ve stopped there, but we walked further into the market and got an apple crumble from Humble Crumble topped with vanilla whipped cream—it had a huge line, but was worth it. While I waited on line the rest of the group found an Israeli stand and got drinks: a Spring mango drink, water, and an iced café that was actually passable for an Israeli slushy iced coffee. Somehow, we spent a lot of time at the market. We’d considered the Tower of London for the afternoon, but we didn’t leave the market until around 3:45, so there was no time.
Instead, we decided it was the perfect moment for a double-decker bus ride, which the girls had been excited about. We rode the bus to a stop near the Twinings Tea store. It was fun, but also no air conditioning. At Twinings we picked up some tea and then walked back to the hotel.
As soon as we walked in the hotel, we had a series of realizations all within the span of a few seconds. The first thing we realized was that there was music blasting in the lobby, which was unusual because the lobby has generally been quiet. Then we realized it wasn’t coming from the lobby, it was coming from the event space downstairs. And then we realized what the music was. Im Eshkacheich. It was the most bizarre thing walking into our hotel and hearing Hebrew music blaring, but we quickly realized there was a Jewish wedding taking place. We couldn’t see much at first, but could hear them break the glass, everyone sang, and servers walked around with hors d’oeuvres. After that the lobby suddenly filled up with men in kippas.
We went up to the room to drop our stuff and change, and then headed out to dinner. As we were waiting for the taxi the wedding party was taking pictures in the courtyard. They were still passing around hors devours and even offered them to us. It was meat and had to be kosher so we almost said yes. Inbar remarked she’d never seen so many Jews in one place in London. It was really cute and very fun to witness.
Once in the cab we headed to Camden Market. No, we weren’t exploring another food market. We had planned to go to the kosher restaurant in Camden Market for dinner, and found that there is an arcade called Babylon Park, so we figured we’d spend some time there before dinner. What we didn’t realize until later in the night is that Babylon Park is actually owned by an Israeli company and there are a dozen of them across Israel, including one in Tel Aviv that we went to several years ago. It was an indoor arcade with a couple of small rides. The kids loved it: an indoor roller coaster that we rode multiple times, bumper cars, a tiny Ferris wheel that Madeleine rode solo (like she was the only person on the whole thing), air hockey, and a few other things. It was fun and definitely worth it.
After the arcade, we walked to dinner at Mazal, a kosher Israeli restaurant in Camden Market. We ordered everything: schnitzel, cauliflower, chicken, pita, shawarma, humus, the “spicy plate”, and more. It was very good.
After dinner, Inbar went home, and we took a cab back. Shir also left to visit her parents, who had just flown in.
A good day overall.
Monday
Monday morning, we woke up bright and early.
We had to be at the Natural History Museum by 10:00 a.m. for our special David Attenborough exhibit. The four of us (Shir went off to spend the day with her parents and sister) arrived at the museum and found a massive line, which thankfully we didn’t need to wait on as we checked in and were led directly into the museum. I’m not exactly sure how we found this exhibit [Tzvi: it’s in every ‘Here’s what to do in London this summer’ Instragram reel], but basically, it was a fully immersive screen exhibit about the history of the universe. You’re in a big room and all four walls are screens. It starts from space and the big bang and goes all the way to the present day, focusing on the Earth and the planet. At times it felt like the whole room was moving (it wasn’t). The exhibit emphasized the importance of taking care of our planet, though I couldn’t help thinking that disasters will always happen and Earth will eventually reset itself and kill off all of humanity in the process. The message, I guess, is that we should do our best until that happens. Yeah, an uplifting start to the day.
I forgot to mention that the kids were so tired because they’d stayed up late. Madeleine woke up at 5:00 a.m. and then woke Hallie, so neither of them got much extra sleep. As the exhibit started, Madeleine fell asleep and basically slept through the entire morning.
After the 45–50 minute movie portion, we walked around the museum a bit. We saw dinosaur skeletons and skeletons of prehistoric men. Hallie was, as usual, enamored with the naked skeletons—it was pretty funny. Hallie made one of those pressed pennies, but she lost it in the exhibit. Don’t even ask. She had stuck it against the side of a glass box, and it fell into a tiny crevice. She was so upset, and Tzvi went on and on about how she doesn’t understand the value of things, that it was almost her full week’s allowance (the penny was 2 pounds, which is like $2.70), and that she really needed to learn to care about stuff. He was lecturing her for, like, 20 minutes. No surprise, before we left, he made her a new penny. Feel free to message us for parenting tips.
After the museum, we walked about 10 minutes to a restaurant called Mayfair Chippy. Madeleine was still sleeping at this point, so I sat in the front with her for a few extra minutes while we waited for Inbar to join us. Lunch was way better than I expected [Tzvi: for the record, I expected it to be great]. Tzvi, Hallie and Inbar got fish and chips. Madeleine and I got a fried tofu dish that was meant to mimic fried fish, and it was surprisingly good—Madeleine even ate it. The fish and chips also came with mushy peas and some kind of curry. Really enjoyable lunch.
From there we walked to Harrods, which was close by. I picked up chocolate-covered dates from a company based in (I think) Qatar. One was white chocolate mango and the other was milk chocolate raspberry. Delicious, though I did feel a little bad about possibly indirectly funding H*m*s. Though I guess that pales in comparison to going to college in the United States nowadays. We walked around Harrods, including the gift shop. I did not buy a Harrods bag like I did 14 years ago, but I did get some dishtowels.
After Harrods, we took a cab to Buckingham Palace. We couldn’t go to England and not see it, and the girls were excited, though tired—it was the hottest day so far. At this point, Tzvi had to be on a work call, so he spent the end of the Harrods visit, the Buckingham palace visit and the next half hour walking around on a zoom call (no video). We left the palace area and walked a few blocks to some souvenir shops, including a candy shop where the girls picked out candy, and I got them ice cream. I hadn’t noticed that when we walked away from Buckingham Palace Tzvi was still standing there talking on his call; he said he couldn’t follow because it was windy and he was speaking. We ended up several blocks away by the time anyone realized, so I sent him my location and he spent fifteen minutes wandering around trying to find us.
Tzvi finished his call and then we split up. I walked with Inbar about 15 minutes to find Poilâne, my favorite French bakery from Paris that also has a location in London (but nothing in the U.S.). We eventually found it in a lovely neighborhood and bought a few slices of bread and some scones. Then we took a cab back to the hotel.
Shir also returned to the hotel with her family, giving us the opportunity to meet her parents and sister. Shir and her (older) sister are basically twins—it was really nice, and I’m looking forward to visiting their farm and riding a tractor when we go to Israel in April.
We changed and headed out to dinner at 5:30 p.m. at The Ivy. The restaurant was beautiful, and we had a lovely corner table. I think it’s a famous old restaurant that’s been there for over 100 years. Our waiter was fabulous (which he also told us), but the service was… chaotic. Drinks never came, and the food took forever. We needed to be at the theater ten minutes away for a 7:30 show. By 6:20, we still hadn’t received our food. Eventually, they brought appetizers and food all at once. Tzvi and Inbar shared a cheese souffle, which looked gross to me but they said was good, and we all shared a basket of fried zucchini. I had a vegetable curry and Tzvi had a vegetable risotto. The food itself was actually very good, but we couldn’t get dessert because we had to leave. The waiter apologized, saying they were chaotic that night. Oh well.
On the way to the theater, we passed a Marc Jacobs perfume pop-up and grabbed some samples. I mention that only because Madeleine proceeded to spray the sample on everything – herself, her dolls, her shoes. The scent is still with us.
We finally arrived at the Drury Lane Theater to see Hercules: The Musical, which I had been excited about ever since seeing the Hercules musical on the Disney Magic Cruise in 2000. This version opened just a few months ago, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t part of the reason we chose to have our holiday in London. Inside, I bought a tote bag and we took our seats. The girls did really well—Madeleine was a little antsy, but overall fantastic. The show was fun; you just have to disconnect it from the movie version because it’s so completely different, but it was very well done.
Afterward, we walked back to the hotel—about 10 minutes—Madeleine was on Tzvi’s shoulders but Hallie complained the entire way. Back at the hotel, we got the kids to sleep and packed up, while Tzvi took another work call. Then Tzvi and I went to the lobby bar, Scarfes, which is named after a cartoonist and is ranked one of the top 50 bars in the world. We got seats at the bar and each ordered a cocktail. There was live music, and we stayed for about 30–40 minutes until they stopped serving at midnight. Our bartender was Italian and told us he had recently visited New York. He was naming all of the bars he went to. He also told us how they get a limited number of free nights to use at other Rosewoods. Maybe I should work for Rosewood. Very interesting and a nice end to the day.
Tomorrow we check out and move on to the next leg of our trip!