Day 1: Arrive, nap, shop, eat
Our awesome apartment overlooking Hyde Park! We're the window on the 4th floor above the bay window. Sorry I should have put an arrow. We loved this place, and I would definitely recommend renting a flat vs. staying in a hotel for young couples on a city vacation. It was the perfect hub for us, near to transport, not too touristy since it's a residential neighborhood, which also means there were lots of conveniences nearby including a supermarket. We don't mind cooking a few meals here and there to save money and time on vacation, and we don't full breakfasts every day anyways (but I'm now addicted to croissants!) Oh and by cooking, I mean heating up our leftovers and microwave dinners or ramen. It's still a vacation after all.
Since our flight landed early in the AM on Saturday as soon as we got to the apartment we napped. Even I, who can never nap, fell asleep in the middle of the day. It helped that it felt like 3 AM, I was running on maybe 4 hours of sleep and there were blackout shades on the windows. However, even with this refreshing nap my brain was apparently still fried and I plugged my blow dryer into the adapter. To do this I even had to peel off a sticker with a big picture of a blow dryer with an X through it! Duhhhhhh.
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| Ready to set off on our first adventure! |
So began our first excursion of the day, shopping for either a replacement fuse or a new adapter (it was the latter). Luckily we were staying on Oxford St, the biggest shopping street in London - can you tell I planned our location well?!? Took me weeks to find the perfect spot and I will definitely say this. was. it. So we looked at a map, I knew Tottenham Court Rd had lots of electronics stores, we were bound to find something there and we could definitely pound out the 1.5 mile walk in no time and find some dinner along the way.
Well, we took the long route to the electronics store - through the Disney store, Urban Outfitters, an odd sort of store called Desigual I think, a store that sold only tights, any place that looked interesting really. It was the best! When we reached our destination we were told nope, no fuses, you gotta just suck it up and buy a new adapter. Dejected at the thought of shelling out the cash for an adapter twice, we decided to drown our sorrows in a delicious meal. Right across the street was a neat looking place called Garfunkel's. Turns out it's like the TGI Friday's of the UK, they're everywhere!!! The food was good though and I started off with a cold glass of Stella - I was pretty worried I would only be served warm beer.
Finally, on the way back we stumbled on a Japanese traveler supply store. They had everything you could ever need to organize your belongings in a simple and aesthetically pleasing way while on the go, plus some creature comforts as well. I wish I had gotten a picture but we were kind of burnt out at this point so we made our trip quick. I really could have lingered over all the different cosmetic bags, drawstring pouches, empty jars for toiletries, comfy looking slippers, even a mini folding hair dryer! But once we found the adapter and decided it was the best price we'd seen yet, we were back on our route home. I did get a picture in the Disney store - my thoughts exactly!
