At around 5pm on Sunday May 18, we found ourselves in the parking lot of a Harley Davidson dealership in Virginia, about 80 miles southwest of Roanoke. There were four emotionally exhausted people, three motorcycles, an unimaginable amount of dirt, and we had just tracked mud all over the floor of the dealership. Alex and Sean rode away two-up on Alex’s motorcycle, and Jordan and I were left to figure out dinner.

You may be wondering how we got there, why I knew that we were 80 miles southwest of Roanoke, and what happened after.

Hang tight, we’ll get there.

Friday May 16, 5:00 am

Elmira, NY -> Harrisburg, PA

Total miles: 170 | BDR miles: 0

We pulled out of the driveway at the crack of dawn with three motorcycles in the trailer, one in the truck bed, four sets of off-road motorcycle luggage, and a party-sized bag of Nerds clusters. Our destination: a random commuter lot in Elmira, New York, six hours away. Did we know for certain that we would be allowed to park two trucks and a trailer there for ten nights? Absolutely not.

The random commuter lot in Elmira, New York is near the northern terminus of the Mid-Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Route (MA BDR), a route designed by the nonprofit Backcountry Discovery Routes (BDR) for motorcycle adventure touring, a niche sport also known as ADV (add this to the list of weird sports I’ve done: Ultimate, backcountry ski touring, cyclocross, and now moto adventure touring).

The route begins in Damascus, Virginia and heads north through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania on roads that are a mix of pavement, gravel, dirt roads, class IV/unmaintained roads, and trail.

BDR has routes all over the United States, and many of them link together. Along all the routes, there are recommended stops, camping, food, and stores, and the routes are broken up into sections that are intended to be about a day each. The gps files are available for anyone to use (donations recommended!); the nonprofit does host and plan some group trips, but most people do them with their own groups on their own time. We chose the MABDR for a two reasons: first, it’s nearby, with no need to fly or rent motorcycles (although that doesn’t mean the logistics are easy, as you will see). Second, it’s moderate in terms of skill level; two members of our group (including me!) were relatively new to adventure touring.

Here is an overview of our plan: drive to Elmira and park the vehicles. Unload the motorcycles, load up luggage, and drive 600 miles south on I-81 over two days, stopping at a hotel in the middle. Stay overnight again in Damascus, collect our other friend that was going to be on the ride who would meet us in Damascus, then turn around and head north again on the BDR route, driving 1,100 miles over eight days. We hoped to have some fun riding our motorcycles, and see parts of the east coast that we hadn’t seen before. We definitely did that, and I learned a whole lot more too.

Back to the trip. Around noon, we found a nice town to stop for lunch. I do not remember the name, but there was a little food truck festival happening. At this point in the trip, nerves were running the show for me. I only learned to ride motorcycles in the fall of 2023; January 2024 was when I started to ride around town alone. My first-ever dirt road was in late spring of 2024, and my first trail ride was in the summer of 2024. Which means at the time of this 10-day mostly off-road motorcycle trip, I had been riding motorcycles for a total of a year and a half, and riding off-road for about a year. Suffice it to say, I managed to eat lunch, but barely.

We made it to the random commuter lot, which actually turned out to be enormous. We managed to pay online for 10 nights of parking, and we crossed our fingers that our cars would still be there when we arrived back at that spot, 1700 miles later. The parking lot was roasting, I was being consumed by nerves, and not looking forward to 600 miles of highway on a 300cc motorcycle with no windshield. Even though I was nervous, I was quite relieved when we actually started moving.

I don’t remember many details from the first day of our trip; most of what I do remember is just fragments of highway misery. My motorcycle was the smallest and least powerful in the whole group, so I struggled to maintain 75mph on the highway. The worst was passing 18-wheelers; the best way to do it is to pass on an uphill, because they slow down, but my motorcycle couldn’t really do more than 70 going uphill so I kept getting left behind. My neck hurt from the wind blowing it around and my wrist hurt from holding the throttle; I was riding laying on the gas tank to get out of the wind, but my mirror kept coming loose and banging into the side of my helmet. Because of the wind, my helmet was moving my earplugs around so my ears were getting bruised. My lips were chapped and my body hurt from being frozen in the same position for five hours. Alex and I hardly ever use our coms to talk to each other, but I remember connecting to Alex’s Sena com unit at one point when I couldn’t take another second of highway and shrieking into his helmet, “I NEED A BREAK!!!!”. I had made a few playlists to get me through the ride, but even All Time Low wasn’t doing it for me at this point.

We stopped for lunch at a barbecue restaurant called Rack Em Smack Em Ribs. The food was fine, not excellent, and the whole time we thought our server basically hated us. She did not smile at all, and we thought, well obviously it’s because we’re loud and dirty and made a huge scene coming in and out with our squeaky boots and whatnot. On our way out, we apologized for being so loud and disruptive and she said (still without smiling), “Oh don’t worry honey, yall were fine. You’re nothin compared to the church ladies.”

As we were approaching our hotel, it started to rain, but I wasn’t even mad because at that point we had gotten off the highway, which had made me very happy. My energy was restored by not hearing wind howling in my ears, not getting my head blown around, not being passed by 18 wheelers going 90mph, and getting to stop and put my legs down and change my body position at red lights.

The hotel kindly let us park our bikes on the sidewalk underneath their awning to keep them dry overnight, so we all drove our bikes up over the curb (Alex spotted me, although afterward I wished I had given it a try by myself). The hotel had a restaurant right next door (The Squeaky Rail Diner) so that’s of course where we went for dinner.

Saturday May 17

Harrisburg, PA -> Damascus, VA

Total miles: 585 | BDR miles: 0

We ate breakfast at the hotel, fielding questions from other people staying at the hotel about what exactly we were doing. The actual BDR route was nearby as well (as opposed to our crazy I-81 cannonball route) so some of them had heard of it or knew people who had done it. We had to explain multiple times that we weren’t on the BDR yet, but would be on our way back. We received what I thought was an appropriate amount of bewilderment. I also feel bewilderment when I think about what exactly we are doing.

We packed ourselves up, which felt like a race. I am not the fastest at getting ready, and I was super self-conscious about not being the one to hold everyone up, so I was packing and buckling and cinching and putting boots on as fast as I possibly could. But hopefully not so fast that I forgot the important things. I have two little sayings that I use to make sure I’ve done everything when I get on a motorcycle, and in the correct order. The first is “Kill – kickstand – keys” which ensures I don’t ride away with my kickstand down. The second is “Earplugs – helmet straps – mirrors – gas”. I have a habit of getting my helmet on and realizing afterward that I don’t have earplugs in, and having to take everything off and then put it all on again. (Please note that checking on the mirrors was actually totally pointless at this point in the trip, because my left mirror was broken).

We rode miles and miles and miles on the highway. We rode until I had bracelets made of sunburn on my wrists between my jacket and my gloves. We did have some joy that came in the form of Sheetz. If you do not know about Sheetz, it’s the best gas station ever. They are huge, always super clean, and they have the best food. Well, it’s not the best. But when I have been riding on I-81 on a motorcycle for four hours and have five hours still to go, a biscuit egg sandwich, soda, and candy is basically the only thing I want.

We stopped every two hours or so for gas and food and water. You’re supposed to stop every hour to stretch and eat and hydrate, but every stop means extra time. We tried to keep a balance of making sure we were taking care of ourselves and not adding tons and tons of time to an already very long day.

You probably can imagine the mental challenges of riding a motorcycle on the highway. Constant alertness and making sure you are in a position that protects you as much as possible, keeping up consistent spacing in a group, countering all the buffeting from the 18-wheelers, not losing concentration or zoning out. But for the physical aspect, you’d think that since motorcycles have…well, a motor, that it’s physically not difficult. And yeah, it’s not like running a marathon or anything. But there are definitely physical challenges. Your hips and legs and knees start to hurt because you’re tense and frozen in one position. If anything is itchy or hurts, or you get thirsty or hungry or get a headache or you feel like you’re getting sunburned, you can’t do anything about it until you stop. Ideally, you take care of your own needs (hence me screeching “I NEED A BREAK!!!!!!!” hysterically into Alex’s helmet the day before), but when you’re in a group you don’t really want to stop everyone more than necessary. So most things you just suck up and deal with until the next time you stop.

We were on the home stretch with about a hundred miles to go when we stopped for gas for the last time, and right when we parked, Alex’s shifter fell off. This was insane for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that it did not happen while we were actually riding. He was able to put it back on while we all stared at each other in horror at the idea of a shifter falling off on the highway.

At dinnertime we pulled into the hotel. I felt at this point like everyone else was holding up a lot better than I was, which worried me a little bit for the rest of the trip. To be fair, I was on the smallest motorcycle, which is proportionally harder on your body. But still, I was worried about my ability to get through the rest of the ride. Thankfully, a hotel room and food took my mind off of that thought for a bit. We went Moon Dog Brick Oven for pizza and beer (their own beer!), and notably, Jordan dropped an olive into his Croc and then ate it. Honestly, I’d have done it too. Never waste a good olive. We also went to the McDonald’s next door for ice cream and fries, and (spoiler alert) I got my only injury of the whole trip by banging my leg into a piece of wood jutting out from the wall inside McDonald’s, somehow so hard that I had a bruise the size of a grapefruit.

Sunday May 18

Damascus, VA -> Pembroke, VA

Total miles: 730 | BDR miles: 155

The day started with breakfast at the hotel again, and then the same frantic packing scenario. Our first short ride was to pick up our friend Sean, who was already in Damascus meeting some friends at Trail Days, the Appalachian Trail thru hiker celebration. We had a good time telling all of them about our two days of I-81 madness, and it was kind of exciting too because we were starting to see all the groups of ADV riders that were heading to the start or finishing their BDR (you can tell who is starting or finishing based on the amount of mud on them). The second mishap of the trip (the first being the shifter) was that Sean had forgotten his motorcycle jacket. Hopefully the weather would stay nice! (Narrator: it wouldn’t.)

After two entire days, we were finally on our actual trip, the one we had come here for. The route turned to dirt almost immediately, and the first challenge of the day (and honestly, in retrospect the least of our worries) was that Sean’s luggage repeatedly tried to eject off his bike. I spent the morning riding behind him and beeping my horn whenever a strap came loose, and then we’d stop and try to fix it.

The second challenge was a big blowdown. At first some of the group tried riding over it, which didn’t go that well.

After that, we started to try to clear some of the branches. We teamed up to break off the bigger ones. Finally, we got it to a point where we all could ride over.

Most of the rest of the day was winding dirt roads. I was learning my limits on this sort of terrain; I did have an incident where I panicked, didn’t want to brake while turning, and instead jammed on the brakes while driving straight ahead into a soft dirt embankment. Thankfully, I stayed upright, the bike stayed upright, and I had managed to brake enough that nothing bad happened. But I went way slower after that. We also encountered an obstacle that stressed me out at first, but ended up being very fun: a construction zone with accumulated water in the middle. We had to ride through the water, past some construction equipment, and up a man-made embankment. It had video game vibes.

At this point, what happened between here and lunch is erased from my head. Just simply gone. And here is why. We were cruising along after lunch on dirt roads and fire roads; nothing too technical. The order of riders had sorted itself out to be Alex (my Alex) leading on his GS, followed by Sean on his Husqvarna 701, then other Alex on his Tenere; after a small gap, Jordan on his Tenere and bringing up the rear, me and Baby GS (so named because it’s the smaller version of Alex’s GS, aka Big GS).

We were riding on a fire road with two tire ruts on either side, which is very common for fire roads. Jordan was right in front of me, and not too far ahead I could see Alex and Sean. My Alex was much farther ahead, out of sight of everyone. Everyone in front of me disappeared around a corner, and when I rounded the corner, disaster had struck. I’m not going to get into too much detail here. Alex was on the ground with his feet and ankles underneath his motorcycle, yelling for help. Sean and Jordan were in the process of stopping; all three of us basically dropped our motorcycles on the ground and started running. I actually fell down like a toddler because I literally hit the ground running and my legs weren’t prepared to run. By the time I got to the rest of the group, I had emergency services on the phone. My Alex, who was far ahead, turned around when he didn’t see any of us and related to us later that his first impression of the scene was “motorcycles everywhere.”

Long story short, Alex broke his ankle in a few places. Everything above his ankle was fine (no head, neck, or spinal cord injury). An ambulance was able to find us, and determined an airlift would be needed because of how far away a major hospital was. The EMTs were amazing, and Alex managed to keep his spirits up and keep us all laughing somehow. He described the sensation in his ankle as “a ziploc bag full of water and rocks” which made us all gag and laugh at the same time.

Once the ambulance left, we were left with the problem of 5 motorcycles and 4 people. Jordan found a Harley dealership that could store the Tenere and all of Alex’s luggage for $30 a day. Sean hid his dirtbike in the woods, along with all of his luggage (and we crossed our fingers that a bear wouldn’t find his food bag) and rode the slightly broken Tenere to the dealership, along with the rest of us on our own motorcycles. The people at the dealership were incredibly understanding and helpful, since we were all completely shocked and also tracking mud all over the place (which is ironic because Harley owners are notorious for never allowing their bikes to get dirty). Major shoutout to Black Bear Harley-Davidson.

Sean and Alex rode away two-up on Big GS to go retrieve Sean’s dirtbike, and Jordan and I were tasked with Finding Dinner. In this type of situation, you kind of have to just solve one problem at a time. We found a restaurant called Pit Stop Italian Restaurant which was pretty much the Only Dinner Option in the direction that we needed to go. I pulled up directions, sent them over to Alex and Sean, and led the way over. If I remember correctly, Jordan and I did some birdwatching in the parking lot while we waited.

It was the quietest dinner on the whole trip, but we had some decisions to make – whether to try to go visit Alex in the hospital, and what to do after dinner. Related decisions, I guess. He had been taken to Roanoke, which we determined was about a two hour trip from where we were. Basically, it would be almost an entire day. He had communicated to us that his dad was on already on his way down from Massachusetts, and he had also made us promise multiple times (sort of deliriously while he was laying on the ground getting buckled into a stretcher) that we would continue the trip. We also had no idea when or if he’d be going into surgery or being transported somewhere, or be accepting visitors. So, we decided that we would not try to go visit him. It was a tough decision and I definitely doubted it multiple times over the next few days. Following from that, we also decided to just straight-shot it to the campground on normal roads without trying to do the rest of our actual route for the day. We were all in a weird head space and it was pretty late already (around 6pm). The best decision to make was the one that required the least amount of risk management.

The campground was called Eggleston Springs, and it was really delightful. Our campsite was right on the river, there was a bathroom nearby and there was a nice concrete pad nearby to put our stuff on. We all started unpacking, and Jordan had an unpleasant discovery that he had forgotten his rain fly. We rigged up a solution and he decided to buy a tarp the next day. While I was unpacking, I decided I really needed to get better at the getting ready/unpacking/packing game because I had a total bag-splosion trying to find everything I needed to camp.

We finished the evening with some candy and boxed wine (which apparently Sean had been carrying for the whole day, which mean it hit the ground a few times. The best way to aerate boxed wine is apparently to carry it in luggage that repeatedly flies off your motorcycle).

Monday May 19

Pembroke, VA -> Mt. Solon, VA

Total miles: 932 | BDR miles: 357

We made our breakfasts and coffee and packed up to go. We were starting to feel a little better about things. Before the trip, I had prepared a large bag of granola with craisins, white chocolate and milk chocolate chips, and some protein powder added. I had that with dried milk and hot water and it tasted really good, especially on a chilly morning. Sometimes I have a hard time eating in the morning, especially camping, but today was ok thankfully. I was grateful for that because we had a long day ahead of us with one projected challenge section, Hite Hollow Road in Deerfield, VA. Challenge sections (marked “ALT Harder” on the BDR maps, meaning it’s an alternate route that’s harder than the main route).

The whole day until the challenge section felt like twisty, unstable, sandy roads. I am learning that I really don’t like riding on dirt roads, which is not a great realization two days into an 8-day gravel ride. I probably just have more to learn, but they feel unstable, sketchy, and I’m always way behind everyone else. And there is nothing to look at except trees.

We had lunch at a really delightful location, Paint Bank General Store. It was fully decorated for Christmas, and there was a rope bridge inside it.

After lunch was more of the same. I was getting really tired of finding myself completely alone on a twisty dirt road and feeling like I was going to ride off the road every 30 seconds. It felt like everyone else could just go faster on that type of road than me. I was trying to tell myself that it’s ok, my tires are by far the worst in the group and I’m just new at this, and I’ll get faster over time, but it wasn’t really working. I was in a horrible mood by the time we hit the challenge section and I was not feeling up to it.

I was still alone, and nervous, and slowly the dirt road went up and up and got narrower and narrower and turned into rocky switchbacks almost like a mountain bike trail. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, I was having fun! I almost got the feeling that my motorcycle had turned into a mountain bike, and the riding felt familiar and easy. I even caught the group and was able to stay with Sean and Jordan for the rest of the way up, and then down the other side. There was a fun set of rock ledges and as I was climbing up them, I thought it was cool that I didn’t have to pedal. (Note from the future: this would become a theme for me for the entire rest of the trip. The harder the terrain, the more I was able to stay with everyone, and the more fun I was having).

We rode down the other side, and I still felt like my motorcycle was a mountain bike. We hit some fast, straight, not-sketchy dirt roads and it was actually fun. There were water bars that we were all trying to jump over. The only annoying part is that our eyeballs were being blasted with sand, because the roads were really dry. I dug out my eye drops and kept them in my handlebar bag for the rest of the trip. Even the goggle-wearing members of our group had eyeballs full of sand.

We pulled into Stokesville Campground around 6pm, and went through our unpacking routines. I was still feeling like I was not very methodical about it; it took me forever to get to the point where everywhere is unpacked and where it’s supposed to be. You have to dig out your camp clothes, change, deal with any damp or wet clothing, unpack camp stuff and set up a tent, unpack bathroom stuff, and put everything somewhat back together so it’s not a complete bag-splosion all over the campground. Luckily at this time, the weather was dry so we were able to hang our clothes to dry and we didn’t have to worry about leaving some stuff out overnight.

Sean helped me fix my mirror, which I had completely forgotten about in all the chaos of the previous day. So finally I wasn’t having to screw it back in every time I stopped. We had a nice night eating our dehydrated camp meals and we even made some roasted marshmallows skewered on our camp spoons. I think I might have gotten my secret stash of bourbon out too.

The only metaphorical fly in the ointment is that we started to hear a whip-poor-will after dinner. As soon as I heard it, I resigned myself to a night of poor sleep. If you don’t know this already, whip-poor-wills are nocturnal and have a very loud call, which they use ALL NIGHT LONG. It felt like it was right above our tent. Actually, this was the second night of bad sleep; I forgot to mention that there was a freight train track near the Eggleston Springs Campground, and we woke up to a train horn multiple times during the night. Combine the train, the whip-poor-will, and Alex snoring, and I was getting pretty bad sleep.

Tuesday May 20

Mt. Solon, VA -> Romney, WV

Total miles: | BDR miles:

Today we crossed into West Virginia, and it was a day filled with water crossings! And more dirt in our eyes.

There were three large water crossings in the morning, and at least three or four smaller ones in the afternoon. I got thoroughly dunked on the first one (second clip in the video). After that, I thought I’d better improve asap because I didn’t want to get dunked again. The second crossing was better; I only put my feet in at the end. I got through the third crossing without stopping. Thank goodness it was warm! The rest of the crew got through the crossings just fine, and Sean demonstrated why he earned the nickname “Rocket Man”. Instead of describing all of this in detail, I will just let you see it happen in this video.

We ate lunch at another small general store; the only things on the menu were burgers and dogs. We all had chili dogs, and took our boots off to let them dry. Jordan and I were the most damp out of the group since I straight-up fell into a river, and he put his feet down a few times. There was some road riding around lunchtime, and I opened up all my vents and wrist zips to let things dry out as much as possible. Although it was beautiful outside at the time, we were already starting to talk about the weather; there was some rain coming at night and more the next day, possibly in the form of a nor’easter.

After lunch, it was more dusty switchbacks and small water crossings. The terrain was a little more technical than yesterday, which meant that I was marginally happier and less far behind the rest. At one of our gas stops, we ran into two riders on enormous, fully loaded BMWs doing the route in the opposite direction. We filled each other in on what was coming, and discovered that we all had been keeping eye drops in our handlebar bags.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, as far as I remember. My clothes dried out eventually. We pulled into our next campground, Middle Ridge Campground, and it was already starting to feel like rain was coming. Despite that, and despite the fact that it was barely 60 degrees, we still jumped into the (unheated) pool, which had just opened for the season. I went for a real swim, and the rest of the crew waded. I think the camp staff thought we were a little crazy. Afterwards, we all took hot showers in the camp bathroom. What a treat!

I was starting to feel a little more in control of the unpacking situation by this point; I felt like I knew what I was supposed to do and it didn’t take me forever to get everything set up. This night was also when I stopped caring about finding a place to hide to change my clothes. The boys would all just announce “I’M CHANGING!!!!!” and then turn around and change, instead of going into the bathroom. So screw it, I’m doing that too.

Also, our campsite was much neater tonight than it had been the nights before, because we were preparing for rain. We all made sure our drybags were closed and nothing was left out that couldn’t get wet. I earned the reputation for tripping over everyone’s tent stakes by doing it like 10 or 15 times in a row, even when I knew they were there. We had time for some games after dinner; Jordan brought a game called Kluster, which involves placing magnets strategically to keep them from attracting the other magnets. When we felt the first raindrops, we all dove into our tents and went to sleep.

Wednesday May 21

Romney, WV -> Harpers Ferry, WV

Total miles: | BDR miles:

I woke up pretty exhausted after yet another night of interrupted sleep. It had rained overnight as expected, and Alex had been snoring and had also gotten up multiple times to go to the bathroom. I’m a super light sleeper, so I woke up every time. One thing that kept me from despair was the fact that today, we were riding to a hotel! We’d be able to wash our stuff, hopefully in an actual laundromat, sleep in a hotel room (with a nice loud air conditioner to drown out the snoring), and maybe even get a dip in the pool.

We woke up miraculously in a dry weather window. We decided, instead of eating breakfast and having coffee as usual, we’d pack up as fast as we could while it was dry and hit up a diner for breakfast. We had been doing pretty well eating the food we brought (except lunches), so we thought we deserved a treat. We went to a diner nearby, and it started raining as we arrived. The place was full when we got there, and we were definitely getting eyed by the locals. Not in a suspicious way, more in a “Weird way to spend a rainy day, but you do you” way.

Today’s route mostly kept us in West Virginia by going northeast, popping into Maryland, and then looping back southeast. It was damp all day, but not pouring rain. We had a lot of scenic overlooks, which made up for the endless damp dirt roads.

This trip was with our friends Katy and Mehdi. Katy and I went to Mexico City in 2015, and we wanted to recreate the trip (well, just have a new one and maybe visit some old favorites) with our husbands. The photos from this trip will be interspersed with photos from our 2015 trip.

This was before I was in the habit of making blog posts when I travel, so it will be formatted as collections of photos with captions and some context. It is not really organized by day because I can’t remember what happened when.

This is my first blog post. It will be formatted like a journal, because it is more or less copied from my iPhone notes that I wrote each night. It is paired with photos of things that are mentioned. I will try to add some summary details as well at the top.

What we booked before going: hotels, flights, 3 proms shows, dinner at St John, and a few days before leaving I planned and booked activities for the first two days since we’d be tired and disoriented

What’s the point of this trip? What’s the vibe? BBC Proms! And just being normal tourists for once. No crazy athletic activities or itineraries. And setting as few morning alarms as possible.

Stats!

Pubs: 4 – The Victoria (Paddington), The Flask (Hampstead), Ye Olde Rose and Crown (Greenwich), Zetland Arms (Kensington)

Money spent on transportation: $110 – $80 on public transit and $30 for a day taking the Uber boat

Miles walked: at least 40

Saturday 8/29

The flight to London was a little weird because we left at 7:30pm eastern, and landed at 6:30am GMT, which would be 1:30am eastern time. We basically ate dinner in the lounge, ate dinner again 2 hours later, ate breakfast at 12am, and then landed an hour later and it was somehow morning. And somehow, we were absolutely starving. I had preplanned our first two days to make things easier on our brains, so the first stop was Station Cafe in Hounslow. Hounslow is a town between Heathrow and London and I would describe it as a more working-class or normal-people town than London. It was grey and raining, which I was actually happy about, because as we flew in I noticed that everything was brown. I googled it and apparently London is in a severe drought; it has just started raining again but everything is still really dry.

The streets in Hounslow were pretty empty; the people that we saw were just living their lives and trying to get places. We each got big breakfasts at Station Cafe: beans, toast, sausage, ham, very delicious mushrooms, eggs, and an extremely hot latte each. No one was in there, probably because it was a Saturday, but during our meal a friend of one of the staff walked in and they talked for a bit about his stolen scooter (sad).

We then took a bus to Brentford, stashed bags at a weird budget hotel using the Stasher app, and walked to London Museum of Water and Steam. I really wasn’t sure about the Stasher app but the hotel staff seemed to know what was going on. We needed to kill about 3 hours, because we guessed we probably couldn’t check in until around 2pm, and we were deciding between the museum and Kew Gardens. In the end, our desire to be indoors won and we chose the museum. It turned out to be a great choice for reasons you will soon see.

The Museum of Water and Steam chronicles the history of water management in London, and it is geared towards kids. Guess who is a lot like a kid? Two adults that just got off a redeye whose bodies still think it’s the middle of the night. We were delighted to watch the engineers start up 3 enormous steam pumps in the pump room. We accidentally took a nap on a bench, two different times. We took a ride on their steam train (again, meant for kids). Museums are really nice places to be if you’re exhausted and can’t be anywhere else; there was water, bathrooms, food, and benches.

When we decided we had used up enough time that our rooms would probably be ready by the time we got to London, we walked back to the weird hotel and while we were there we watched someone get kicked out of his room for smoking. He tried to lie to the woman at the front desk and say he didn’t, but she was not taking any crap from him. We took another bus to South Ealing and ended up at a Gail’s for lunch. Gail’s is a lot like Tatte or Le Pain Quotidien. But in the moment, it was exactly what we needed. I had my first cream tea (tea with a scone with clotted cream and jam, not tea with cream in it as I originally assumed). And then we finally, finally made it to our hotel beds. Past Val had generously scheduled a nap for us at 3pm with nothing to do until dinner, so Present Val and Alex were able to sleep for about two hours.

After our alarm went off around 5pm, we showered and then ventured to South Kensington, the place in Kensington where all the museums are (the V & A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum) as well as Royal Albert Hall. I felt a lot more like a human but I wasn’t feeling very hungry, even though I should have been. I guess the meal times weren’t when I’m used to eating (although I eat at all hours normally so I don’t know). We ate at Comptoir Lebanaise on Exhibition Road, it was very fresh and tasty. We weren’t that hungry so we got the grilled halloumi, za’atar flatbread, sundried tomato dip, and a delicious fattoush salad.

And then finally – finally!!! – we went to Royal Albert Hall for the first of three concerts. For this concert I chose seats in the choir section, basically behind the orchestra. Past Val would be fun, and it was! Thanks Past Val. I think that the unusual seat location helped us stay awake a little bit. I got to say hi to the Oslo Philharmonic percussion section and I even took their photo for them. I wish I could find the photo, but I don’t know where they posted it. Coincidentally, the king of Norway had just died the day before. So, the Oslo Philharmonic first played the national anthem followed by a moment of silence. The hall was packed, so that’s almost 6000 people, completely silent.

The concert program was Forest Morning by Øyvind Torvund, Stravinsky’s violin concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet (actually a mashup of Suite 1 and 2 I think), conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla! Female conductor, female concerto soloist! The first piece was contemporary, a genre that Alex has become very good at recognizing because “it sounds weird”. I liked it though, it had birdsong and the percussion had pieces of metal that they whipped back and forth, maybe to sound like…frogs…? The violin concerto is not one that I’m familiar with, and I’m not well informed about Stravinsky in general but the soloist really did an amazing job. I looked her up after and she is described as “shaking the dust off the classics”. She is animated and turned up onstage for her curtain calls and encore without her shoes on. She also played off of sheet music, which you don’t see very often with professional concertos and it made me like her a lot. Her encore was a duet with the first concertmaster. I pointed out to Alex how much more animated the orchestra was once they started playing Prokofiev. Concertos are fun to accompany because the soloists are amazing, and modern pieces can be fun, but you can always tell which piece the orchestra is having the most fun with, and in this case it was Romeo and Juliet.

We ended our day with gelato from Venchi, a chain which is apparently all over the place and in Boston too, but I’ve never seen it before. They do that thing where they make the gelato all goopy and then plop in on the cone like a hat, which looks fun but is a real pain to eat.

Sunday 8/29

Before we went to bed, I had told Alex, We won’t need an alarm! Ha ha ha! What a silly idea! And then I proceeded to sleep for 10 hours and only wake up when our alarm went off at 8:30.

We decided to mostly have breakfasts at our hotel, because they are free. London is an expensive city! Our first hotel was in the Paddington area, near Edgware Road on the Circle Line. (Side note: I’ve noticed that British English tends to not have vowels where American English does – because I keep wanting to put an E between the G and W in Edgware, but there isn’t one there!). The hotel had all kinds of food, including congee. I was feeling a little bit weird about eating and I wasn’t in the mood for congee until a few days later, so I was mostly eating sweet food for breakfast. Sometimes I get lots of food aversions during breakfast and the only thing that looks good is sweet stuff, but sometimes I can eat anything I want including dinner leftovers!

I knew that we’d be slightly delirious so I had scheduled an easy morning at the Twist Museum (again, mostly for kids); it is a museum of optical illusions (and the science behind them).

We took the train there – we are really enjoying the access to public transit here. Everything is incredibly easy even if the amount of trains and lines was overwhelming at first. There’s the underground, which is like the subway. The overground, which is like the commuter rail. Buses, which are obviously…buses. The Elizabeth Line is more like a local railway line, not an underground line. The National Rail is like Amtrak or something. There’s also boats, the Tram, and the Docklands Light Rail (DLR).

We had about an hour to get to the Corinthia for tea, so we took our time walking to the hotel through Soho, Picadilly circus, and Trafalgar. We popped into Hamley’s to satisfy alex’s curiosity, since he had been there as a child. It was an overwhelming amount of toys; I think a store like that would have stressed me out as a child (note from the future: we would later decide that children were better behaved in Hamley’s than in the natural history museum!

We finally arrived for our *official* *fancy* Afternoon Tea at the Corinthia London. There are literally hundreds of places you can have afternoon tea in London, and they are all expensive. So I decided I wanted to do a really traditional and fancy one. We had to bring a change of clothes because our walking clothes weren’t nice enough. I had 2 pots of tea, one black tea (TWG Darjeeling Princess, one of my favorite teas that I have ever drank) and one red tea. Alex had iced coffee and iced tea. We had 5 different types of sandwiches, and got seconds of some of them! We had scones with cream, jam, and lemon curd. There are two different ways of loading scones up with cream and jam; we decided we liked putting the cream first on the scone then the jam (narrator: Val will later change her mind on this). We could not finish the cakes and took them with us (Future Val will unexpectedly appreciate this). We also learned that the chandelier at the Corinthia is a Baccarat chandelier with a red crystal bubble in the middle representing the Heart of the Hotel. Truly, this is a slice of life I do not visit often.

We picked several landmarks that we only really wanted to see while walking by (rather than actually booking a tour or going in or anything) – Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, and Buckingham Palace.

From the Corinthia, we walked along the river to see Big Ben, and then to St James Park, where we saw what looked like giant bird statues on a rock in the pond. But when we got closer, we realized they were actual giant birds, pelicans! They were brought to London as a gift to someone? Maybe the king? And they have been there ever since. We also saw some very funny gray goose-looking things.

We continued on to Buckingham Palace, and then walked around the outside and into Hyde Park. Alex was making me laugh by wearing his backpack as far up as it would go.

We walked through Hyde Park and saw lots of people roller blading and roller skate dancing. nd then went to the “lake” (it’s a lake like the duck pond on the Boston Common is a lake). There were people pedal-boating on it but it was totally full of blue-green algae (London is in a drought). We had just decided to go to a pub in Notting Hill for dinner when my mom texted that my grandma needed a lot of care and they wanted to cancel a trip that I had been planning. I was very sad about this and crying and venting to Alex and it was at this point that a child with a folded umbrella casually over his shoulder walked right between us and said “sorry!” as he did so, and this made me laugh a lot because we were the only two people in the whole vicinity. And while I was laughing his mum came up and apologized for him and I told her it was a much needed laugh for me, so no worries.

We decided we’d go back to the hotel and regroup, because I also had to call my mom now. After this, we went out again to find a pub in Paddington called The Heron, but when we arrived we found out they didn’t have food, only a Thai restaurant in the basement. We did that thing where we went and sat down, but the whole time we didn’t really want to be doing that. But my brain was not interested in making decisions, so I told Alex that it was up to him if we left or stayed. So we left. Alex found another pub right around the corner called The Victoria, and all of this seemed to work out perfectly because it was Sunday – so we got a Sunday roast! Pork (beef for Alex), potatoes, carrots, gravy, and Yorkshire pudding. What a treat. And a cask ale! I love how every pub here has at least something on cask. Also, we learned the hard way that you don’t wait to be seated at pubs. You just find a seat and order at the bar. We really looked like fools waiting for a while at the door while everyone ignored us. But ah well, you have to learn somehow!

Given that we had no solid plans for Monday yet (the first day that I hadn’t pre-planned), we made some plans over our Sunday roasts (which we demolished, I guess we were hungry even with a big, late lunch!). We decided to go to Brigadiers, an Indian BBQ restaurant in. I made reservations on my phone. We didn’t make any other decisions though, we just let dinner plans be our guide for where we would explore during the day. This is my favorite way to travel in cities – book whatever you absolutely need to (fancy dinners, plane tickets, accommodations, and shows) and then play everything else by ear once you learn your way around.

Monday 8/30

We are still requiring alarms to wake up by 8:30! Our room is so dark and we are so tired! I tried to make a reservation for the Natural History Museum during breakfast, but they didn’t have space and we didn’t want to wait in a giant long line. Instead, we decided to head straight to Spitalfields market for an early lunch. We decided to spend the day in the borough called the City of London (some people I guess call it The Square Mile?). It’s basically what I would call downtown. Spitalfields is this huge market with “traders” (what I would call vendors) with food, drinks, candy, jewelry, toys, art, blankets, keychains, anything you can think of. We were on a food mission, and I found jollof rice and roasted plantain from a stall called 2 Nigerian Boys almost immediately, and housed it even though it was burning my mouth. (Narrator: Val would have a burned mouth for almost this entire trip from repeatedly eating food that is too hot).

Alex had a coffee and eventually decided on chicken katsu. I also had a cardamom chai! I can’t believe there’s entire stalls here that sell just chai. We decided while eating to try to get into Sky Garden (it’s free but you need a ticket, they were sold out for the day but I had heard via the reddit rumor mill that they reserve walk-in tickets each day). It wasn’t too far away so we walked there and crossed our fingers. We managed to get walk-in tickets! It had also gotten really windy so it was nice to be inside for a bit. There was a giant long queue to get in and the spritzes were $22, no thank you. I think you can buy an entire bottle of Aperol for $22. But going up was totally worth it because but the view and the plants were amazing. It also gave us a nice idea of where we actually were and how London is laid out.

From there we walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral. On the way we saw this insane building that looked like it had been turned inside out and it made me uncomfortable.

While we were at the Sky Garden, we spotted a pedestrian bridge in the distance. We decided to make that our next destination; it is called the Millennium Bridge. As we were walking across, we saw in the distance a building with giant letters, as big as an IKEA sign, that said TATE MODERN and FREE. Don’t tempt me with a good time! We went right in.

…and then we walked even more. Alex’s watch recorded over 9 miles of walking for the day, but he hadn’t even had tracking on for some of it! Alex saw something called the Ferryman’s Seat on Google Maps, so we made that our last destination before dinner.

Brigadiers would become one of my favorite meals for the whole trip. Indian food is just a really different ballgame in London than it is in New England. We came to the conclusion that while you can find Indian restaurants that are just as good in New England, they are few and far between. In London, great Indian food seems to sort of just be the baseline. Our server asked what we as Americans though, and we said as much to her and she said pretty much everyone says the same thing. She said she thinks she should just go to Boston and open an Indian restaurant and we said, please do!!! We will go.

Brigadiers is a restaurant/sports bar styled after Indian military mess halls. The paneer lettuce cups were the surprise standout of the meal, but everything was just so good. We also had goat curry and chicken kebabs. Another thing I’ve noticed is that meat is not overcooked and dry here. Probably it’s not 100% the case, but in general it seems like most restaurants are better at cooking meat than in the Northeast. (of America)

Tuesday 9/1

I slept really badly – I woke up every 2 hours, Alex was snoring which is unusual these days (thank goodness!), and I couldn’t get back to sleep after waking up early. Because of this, and because we were running out of clean clothes (we like to pack light so both of us brought only a carryon-size suitcase and a smaller second bag each) we decided to do some chores in the morning before going to the Natural History Museum.

There was a laundromat nearby and also near a tesco! The laundromat was cashless – everything is cashless here! So far we hadn’t taken out any cash, and we thought the laundromat would finally force us to do so. But nope, it was tap to pay. So w started our laundry and then went over to get peanut butter, jelly, bread, and sandwich bags to pack some lunches. I was getting a little tired of paying for and eating restaurant meals three times a day. Around 11, we made PB&Js and packed apples that I took from breakfast, and took the Circle Line over to the Natural History Museum.

I found it extremely hard to navigate. I had no idea where we were or where we were trying to go most of the time, and there were massive amounts of really crazy children. I realized afterward that the navigation issues might have been because the main escalator in the entrance hall was out of order, and I think what you’re supposed to do is immediately take the escalator up and then walk down through the floors rather than wandering aimlessly going through random doors. The escalator leads into a huge molten-looking artistic model of earth, and on the other side is the volcanoes and earthquakes exhibit, which we loved but actually ended up finding last instead of first.

I actually was kind of in a bad mood the whole time, and it made me a little snappy, which I felt a little bad about. I did really enjoy eating lunch – we had a picnic outside in the garden with our sandwiches and apples, and there were really nice children nearby with their grandma. It felt really nice to have a light lunch not in a restaurant setting.

Afterwards, we were a little hungry again but didn’t want to eat a lot because we had our dinner at St. John in the evening. We walked over to Molly Rose from the museum because I wanted a cream tea. The scone was just ok but the green tea was excellent! The preponderance of tea here is great. You can just assume literally everywhere you go is that there will be tea available. After lunch we had a nice break in the hotel. I finished the three hearts quest in silksong and beat the watcher at the edge. And then it was time for St JOHN!!!

Actually first we went to the Barbican. We got totally lost trying to get inside but made it eventually. It is an a performing arts center with a huge courtyard in the middle with restaurants and water and places to sit. We got visited by a very bold duck who evidently thought we had food.

Alex found the London Wall on Google Maps, which is apparently a Roman ruin from A.D. 200 that sticks out of the ground here and there.

After our many detours, we finally made it to St. John. The first thing we saw when we walked in was an enormous wolfhound, chewing on a bone next to someone’s table. When we checked in for our table, we mentioned how we love the giant dog and apparently the staff was also completely distracted by saying hi to him. Anyway, the meal was a total revelation. I’ve never been to a Michelin-starred restaurant with paper tablecloths before (and you really need them too! It’s messy food). I’ve also never been to a fancy restaurant where my hands got food all over them, or where they give you a bottle of Lea & Perrins with your food! Here is what we ate: smoked eel with horseradish and beets, Welsh rarebit (that’s what the Worcestershire was for), St. John’s famous marrow toast, crispy pork cheek with fennel, and two different desserts which we were too full to finish! The marrow toast was the source of the mess. You have to dig it out of the bones with a lobster pick. I sent my dad a picture of the Lea & Perrins because one of my favorite handwritten recipes by him (for meat loaf aka “beef boaf”) has the word “Worcestershire” written a bunch of different times with different incorrect spellings, all crossed out, and then it just says “Lea & Perrins” at the end.

When we walked back, two notable things happened. First, we saw an 18-wheeler truck entirely full of entire cow carcasses (it turns out Smithfield is actually a meat market). And we also went the total wrong way to the train station and ended up walking through a construction zone, which was extremely creepy.

Wednesday 9/2

Today’s first task was to switch hotels. London is really expensive, so Alex was maximizing AmEx discounts by having us switch hotels in the middle of the trip. We packed up and I ate the last 2 cakes from tea, I didn’t eat much for breakfast because I wasn’t hungry yet but then I was very hungry again after packing! I thought I’d eat a couple bites and then finished both of them! The move went better than expected because our room was actually ready. Also, our new hotel was in Kensington (old hotel was in Paddington) and we have been to Kensington a lot, so we pretty much already knew where we were going.

We headed over to the Tower of London and ate our sandwiches outside on a bench, leaving the apples for later as a snack.

The Tower of London is famous for the Yeoman Warder tours. They had closed them down for the morning because of the rain, but they started doing them again right when we got there. Our tour guide was Welsh so I could hardly understand anything he was saying for the first 10 minutes. He made some very bad jokes but gave us lots of interesting information! A few things I remember in particular:

• Although most people think of the Tower today as a prison, it was originally a castle!
• The moat was filled in during the 1800s when it started to smell bad, which is actually a lot earlier than I thought. I assumed it was filled in more recently than that.
• The moat went right out to the Thames, and people were brought in on boats
• The fuzzy hat of the royal guard is called a bearskin, NOT a busby. A busby is a hat that you see in a marching band
• The Yeoman Warders live on site with their families, and have ever since Henry VIII

The tower ravens were my favorite part! According to legends, there have always been at least six ravens at the Tower and if they leave, the Tower will fall. Legends and omens aside, they are very funny, a lot bigger than I expected and their toys are all over the place. The one I photographed most was named Harris.

Right after our tour, there was no line for the crown jewels so we rushed right in. They are quite surreal. The exhibit with the modern crown jewels has people movers on either side, to keep you from bunching up I guess? After the crown jewels we walked into the White Tower. It’s the castle keep but all I can think of is Lord of the Rings. It’s the main museum-y area of the Tower of London with all the weapons, horses, armor, and notably the Norman toilets. It’s an old style of toilet that just led right to the outside. You basically pooped down the walls of the castle. No wonder those don’t exist anymore.

After the Tower, our plan was to go to Borough Market for an early dinner/late lunch. We went there via the Tower Bridge, which is actually a drawbridge. Apparently it’s not used as much anymore so you need to give 24 hours notice if you want the bridge to open for your ship.

When we got to the Market, we only had an hour until closing so we ran around the market super fast trying to find things to eat. I smelled a delicious smell and saw paella with these huge shrimp and a line of people that wasn’t too long, and overheard a man saying that he’s been there four times already. All of this sounded good so I got the paella, and found out after we sat down that it’s a big influencer dish to get at Borough Market. It’s called Bomba Paella and it’s from Furness Food Hut, which is a weird name.

The shrimps were overcooked, but I would imagine it’s hard to not overcook shrimp in a giant pot so I’ll forgive it. The flavor was quite delicious and there was so much meat in it! But I will say, it was one of the messiest things I’ve ever eaten. Before I started eating I realized I’d need to wash my hands first because of how much I was going to have to use my hands. And then had to wash them again after, multiple times actually. Alex got risotto with mushrooms. And we finished everything off with goat milk ice cream! I grew up on goat milk (thanks Cara) and haven’t had it in a long time.

We made it back to the hotel and relaxed for a while. We had an absolute meltdown laughing because Alex was trying to throw Swedish fish into my mouth. I can’t remember if we succeeded but I suspect not. I was pretty comfy in bed, but Alex got hungry so we went out and he got a burger and I got boba. I was slightly annoyed because I didn’t want to leave the bed. I was already in my pajamas drinking tea. The boba was good, and I think it was at this point that I actually started thinking about making this blog and started taking notes on my phone notes. Another good think that came out of this night is that we discovered Supernova, a smash burger place that is apparently really popular in London right now. I will admit, even though I was resentful of the burger because it made me get out of bed, it looked really delicious (note from the future: Val would end up getting one the very next day).

Thursday 9/3

The past night was our first night in the new hotel. it’s actually fancier than the other, except there is one weird thing. Our room is on the first floor and the window looks out into the tea room, not to the outside, and the lights in the tea room were on all night for some reason. The blackout curtain wasn’t enough of a blackout, so I sort of just felt like it was daytime all night, which felt weird. I decided to fix it in the evening, because we had a big day planned. We actually set an alarm this morning!

The first thing we did was pack a backpack with supplies for 1) being out all day, and 2) swimming! Alex went to the gym and grabbed two gym towels, and we packed bathing suits, water, and snacks. Our plan for the day was: tour of Highgate Cemetery, lunch in Hampstead, swimming at Hampstead Heath, and then back to Kensington for our second BBC Proms show (Berlin Philharmonic!!!!!!).

There was a switch problem on the northern line so we had to take a bus, it was a double decker and we sat on top and it was pretty fun! The top big has windows everywhere so it was almost like a tour bus. We stopped in the bathroom at Waterlow Park, and I realized how common public bathrooms are here. In fact, this whole trip has been a tourism dream. No cash, bathrooms and water are commonly available, public transit is easy. Really the only problem is the cost!

Also in Waterlow Park was a very fun kids’ playground. It had no kids in it, which I thought was a great opportunity to play.

We checked in for our Highgate Cemetery tour only to realize that I had made the reservations actually for tomorrow! The lovely person at the desk, Marion, fit us in anyway while I apologized repeatedly. We also filled our bottles and used the bathrooms (again, bathrooms and water everywhere!)

Our tour guide was named Martin, he is a volunteer and he told us that nearly everyone here is a volunteer! Hee did a really amazing job with the tour; it was so dramatic and engaging. I really thought we were going to just be shown the famous graves, but no, we learned all about Victorian symbolism for life and death, Victorian ideals, what the principles of a Victorian cemetery are (it should look like the paths have no ending!) the different ways people were buried, and how women lost their identities in marriage and death. We also learned how the cemetery has changed since it’s conception until now (there are a lot more trees now, and they are destroying the graves). We went in the catacombs and an annoying lady (thankfully British not American) almost got locked in the catacombs because she took too long and Martin didn’t notice that she was far behind me and I had to stop him from closing the door! She also was very annoying, asking questions then interrupting him while he was answering. I think that both the tour guide and I were secretly entertained that she almost got locked in.

I asked whether there were cemetery cats and he said no, there’s foxes! And then immediately after that we started seeing them. Apparently there is a fox lady who gets them veterinary care.

Martin had a great way of delivering information that both conveyed the mindset of the Victorian times, as well as exactly what he thought of that mindset, and it was particularly apparent while talking about the lost girls. The lost girls of Highgate Cemetery were ten women (the youngest only fourteen) who had died while in a penitentiary for “fallen women”. They had been lured to London with the promise of a better life, and had to turn to sex work and other occupations like that just to make ends meet and stay alive. They were allowed in the cemetery but with no markers, because of their sins, and only recently had been found. He also went on a slightly angry tangent about the anti-vaccination movement, although it wasn’t that much of a tangent because his point was that so many people in the cemetery had died of diseases that we can prevent today! Except there are people choosing not to.

After our tour, we went over to the east side, the “new” side, to find Anna Mahler, Karl Marx, and Douglas Adams (Mahler and Adams are pictured below; even without the words on the graves, you probably don’t need me to tell you which is which). Side note: I don’t know what the morals are for taking photographs of graves, but the only gravesite in Highgate that you’re technically not allowed to take photos of is George Martin. Until recently, they weren’t even allowed to say where it is because his family forbade it. Honestly I can see why.

A slightly agitated woman asked me at Adams’ grave why her husband kept saying the meaning of life is 42. And he for some reason was refusing to explain it, and asked me to instead. So I explained that whole thing to her, and she said she would read the books. I recommended just reading the first one unless she wanted to feel very sad

After that we rented lime bikes and immediately rode the wrong way on a one-way and got (very politely) corrected by a driver. We turned round the right way and rode through Hampstead Heath to Hampstead High Street. I was terrified the entire time, I felt like I had completely wrong instincts because everything was on the wrong side including my bicycle brakes and I had no idea which way to look for cars.

We walked up the high street in Hampstead. It’s a nice walk, but we weren’t in the mood to shop. Luckily we happened upon a pub that our tour guide has mentioned, The Flask! We had delicious pork sausage sandwiches and beers. I’ve had lots of cask ale this trip!

During lunch, we saw a woman riding an ebike with her elderly mother in law riding on the back! We also saw many people driving up this super tight, super steep street in various sized vehicles, all manual transmission, all the drivers seeming to have no trouble with anything at all.

After lunch we walked to Highgate Mixed Pond for a swim! I have been looking forward to it and had picked today for Hampstead and Highgate because it was warm and sunny. The whole trip, I had been crossing my fingers for a nice warm day and it was here! It cost five pounds for a swim, and usually you’re limited to an hour but because it was so late in the summer and it wasn’t crowded, there were no time limits.

The pond is completely natural, very deep, very cold, brownish like the Thames and there is no beach, you have to get in off a dock. It was full of locals having a swim with their friends, I loved it!

After we rinsed off and changed, and bundled our wet stuff inside our gym towels, we walked to the Hampstead Heath overground stop and took the overground back to Kensington. I was happy to have time to take a nice long shower. I washed out our beach towels, shaved, and did my hair. Something I am learning about myself is that I do not like to rush. I think that some people like to be as efficient as possible, and sometimes I need to do that too (sometimes I need to, and do…sometimes I need to, and don’t). But I much prefer to take my time whenever possible.

We walked back to the museums and started thinking about food again. Alex wanted a sausage from the sausage cart, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted until I spotted the smash burger place that Alex had last night (Supernova) and that sounded great. They’re not that big, and I wasn’t that hungry so it was perfect. It actually rivalled In-N-Out I’d say. Very juicy, perfect balance of meat and bun, not too big but not small either.

We went in a different entrance to RAH this time, and discovered the massive Prince Albert Memorial. I don’t have a photo, but it is an enormous (176-foot-tall) throne situation with a roof over it, with a fully golden Prince Albert sitting on the throne. I thought for a while that Prince Albert was naming all this stuff after himself, but no, Victoria named everything after him after he died.

Berlin played Beethoven’s violin concerto with Augustin Hadelich, and it was a real treat. It was immediately apparent how much better Berlin is than anyone else. They play like a single entity and I did not hear a single thing that didn’t sound perfect. It was also an extra treat because the two horn players were – of course- Stefan Dohr and Sarah Willis. Hadelich is a very understated performer compared to some of the classical superstars (Ray Chen and Yuja Wang come to mind, I love them too though!) – for him, it’s all about the music. Again, I love the performers that bring pizzazz and lots of life to their performances too. But it was just an incredible experience watching Hadelich play. He played a slow, quiet encore and the entire audience was barely breathing.

When the orchestra came onstage before the first half (Berlin all comes out at once instead of trickling, except the basses) I pointed out Sarah Willis to Alex and said how much I love her. And then – I got to meet her at intermission!!!!! I saw that she was onstage after the first half saying hi to the Prommers, and I ran down to the railing really just hoping to wave hi and say how much I enjoyed it. People in the audience that hadn’t quite left their seats yet saw exactly what I was doing and moved to let me by, it was really nice. Sarah was heading offstage when I got there, but when I waved, she stopped and had a whole conversation with me! I said I was a horn player and she immediately showed me her new mute and said how hard it was to play quietly enough in the muted section in Beethoven!!!! She was like “How did it sound” and I was like…it sounded amazing. DUH. And she asked who my teacher was, and said to say hi to Hazel and then she said we should do a selfie!!! So I got a photo with Sarah Willis and she is the NICEST! I think this is the most exclamation points I have used so far!!!

The second half was Scriabin 3, and I did not know at the time that it is 4 parts played without breaks, so I really thought we were listening to a half-hour-long first movement. I was thinking how I may not make it through, I was so tired! But then it ended spectacularly and the audience made Kirill Petrenko come back out at least 4 times for more bows. The audiences here are really different than in the US. I read that in the late 1800s, an impresario named Robert Newman wanted to make the English public into consumers of classical music. So he started with these outdoor concerts called Mr Robert Newman’s Promenade Concerts, which introduced the public to classical music in an informal setting where they could walk (promenade), eat, drink, and socialize instead of sitting in rows of seats. And gradually over time, the Proms moved inside and became what they are today, and London did indeed become a classical-music-loving city. I’m sure it’s not 100% of people of course, but it felt so different from America where people appreciate classical music sort of in the same way they appreciate classical art – from a distance and politely. Proms audiences aren’t polite in the same sense (although they do know not to cough in the quiet sections or clap between movements) – during the applause, they scream and stamp and yell for encores.

At the end, we were delight but also absolutely roasting, so we were happy to go outside and cool off. When we got back, we wedged my raincoat and a shirt into the window to make the room darker, which worked out great.

Friday 9/4

Today we slept in after our alarm yesterday, except I had a sore throat all night which was weird and annoying, and my back was hurting which was also weird. I got a pot of tea at breakfast because I felt like I was maybe getting sick. Not that a pot of tea helps with a virus for anything other than hydration. It just made me feel better! What didn’t make me feel better was an older white American couple that waved to our server and just said “more coffee”. Ugh.

I sneakily made some saltwater at breakfast to rinse my throat with; my throat was hurting a little yesterday after I dove into the pond and got water in my nose so I was wondering if maybe something in the water that my body isn’t used to was bothering my throat (note from the future: no, I was just getting sick).

Our plan for the day was to explore Greenwich via a day on the Uber boats. We walked through Chelsea after breakfast and it is posh. We saw more Rolls Royces and also super niche shops such as one that just sold hand-embroidered and hand-painted wallpaper. I thought to myself for the thousandth time, this is a slice of life I do not visit very often.

We took an Uber boat to Greenwich pier and it was fun but long! We had nice seats and it was fun to watch a little girl and her abuela interacting and pointing at stuff.

We were really hungry when we arrived, and it was almost noon, so we went in search of food and found a gay pub, Ye Old Rose and Crown. The food was nothing out of this world, but it was hot and tasty. We had steak pies, mash and mushy peas. The bartender was super chatty; he had recently been to Seattle and we talked about all the differences we’ve found between the US and London (both expensive!) and the things we thought were just in movies (for us, it was “mind the gap” and for him, it was the steam coming out of the sewer covers!). He also told us that his pet theory is that he thinks covid was real, but put in the population intentionally to reduce the population. I was like…if that’s true it didn’t really made a dent, also Donald Trump is not capable of working with people in that collaborative fashion.

His friend that came in for a visit told us about a pedestrian tunnel under the Thames! We decided to use it to get to the other side of the river after the Maritime Museum.

The Maritime Museum is free like many other museums here. There was an AMAZING exhibit on loan from the Windrush Museum about the Windrush generation, the people from the Caribbean who came to England on the HMT Windrush. England “welcomed” them to help rebuild after the war (a lot of them had received British schooling before they came because the isles were colonialized so they felt English in a way), but they faced a lot of hardship, racism, institutionalized racism, and unjust policing. The exhibit was about the food they brought to England, but also about the Windrush generation as a whole. I LOVED it, I looked at every single thing in the exhibit. Alex was definitely ready to go by the time I was finally finished.

After the museum, we found coffee. I was getting very tired and worn out by then but I didn’t want anything to drink. We successfully found the pedestrian tunnel afterwards and walked under the Thames to the other side of the river. I thought it was a touristy thing but it’s not, it was mostly just people getting from one side of the Thames to the other after work. It is damp and a little creepy but clearly used frequently by normal people. There were tons of signs everywhere saying not to ride bikes, and also plenty of people riding bikes right through the tunnel.

On the other side we sat on a bench because I was so tired! I definitely have not been at my normal energy level for this trip, which has worked out well because we aren’t ever really doing anything strenuous. While sitting, I decided to finally figure out why the Thames is so brown! It’s called a “muddy river” because it’s not polluted, it’s just…muddy. The bottom is silt, and it’s a tidal river, and the flow is pretty fast so there’s just a lot of dirt in the water and there always will be, no matter how much they clean it up.

After sitting for a bit, we walked up through Mudchute Park intending to walk to Canary Wharf to get an Uber Boat over to dinner, but I saw a sheep through the trees and decided we needed to investigate. One sheep turned into a few, a few sheep turned into a LOT of sheep, and then we were right in the middle of a huge urban farm! It’s called Mudchute Park and Farm, it is 32 acres, and there are sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses, chickens, ducks, llamas and I’m sure a lot of other animals.

We missed the Uber boat we were aiming for, but we got the next one instead went over to Blackfriar and Holborn to The Fryer’s Delight, a delightful old chippy. It was so delicious and like any proper chippy (apparently) they fry their fish in beef fat. We had cod and chips, 7up, and a sausage in batter. You share tables with strangers and the guy frying the fish was whistling the whole time. And you don’t even have to ask for malt vinegar, it’s already on every table. After eating I felt much better; I didn’t realize how hangry I had gotten. Alex knew because of how fast I was walking!

-We took the train back to Kensington and got a gelato for the walk back to the hotel. 

Saturday 9/5

I slept a lot better and actually woke up before the alarm today. I still woke up a lot and I felt like I was snoring, but I got enough sleep to feel a little more alive.

We got coffee with breakfast and I discovered that the lattes we’d been ordering with breakfast were not included in breakfast and I was upset because I had thought our breakfasts were free, but it turned out we’d been ordering 10 pounds’ worth of coffees every morning. But then Alex reminded me that we had hotel credits so I guess it’s ok. Money stress never really leaves my mind for long, even though we make more money now than we used to.

I tried really hard to get Promming tickets for the BBC proms Saturday show with Martha Argerich and Munich Philharmonic, but they were gone by the time I got through the queue :-(. There were 2500 people in front of me, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. We took the tube over to Picadilly Circus, which looks and feels a lot like a toned-down Times Square. Our mission was gifts for Sam and my coworkers at TWG, a very fancy, very expensive tea place which supplies Corinthia London with their teas for afternoon tea! We got Sam some chamomile in teabags and a small package of loose rooibos, and I got some tea bears for work (basically fancy gummies in a tea flavor).

-Next mission was coffee! We went to WatchHouse, a very bougie coffee chain, although it’s surprisingly not overly expensive. They give you a little card saying the source and character of your espresso. We also walked through Chinatown on our way to the train, because I like to visit Chinatowns.

For lunch and the afternoon, we schlepped down to Brixton, a borough I’d been wanting to visit ever since the Windrush exhibit. We first found a bathroom in a lively market, and I saw people drinking out of coconuts but sadly could not find the source of the coconuts. We walked to Maureen’s Brixton Kitchen for lunch, a Caribbean grill operated out of the patio of an apartment in Brixton.

The vibes were amazing, we were so excited but we waited for SO long and eventually discovered they lost our order. We got food after about an hour. By that time, we were famous in the queue as the people who hadn’t gotten their food yet. The food was so good though and thankfully it was hot – it wasn’t like they packed our order and then it sat there. I had curry goat and Alex had jerk chicken. And we had homemade tropical drinks that were also really good. It was really bizarre because it was over 80 degrees, we were at a Caribbean grill, and there were also palm trees everywhere because London weirdly has palm trees. I couldn’t believe we were in London.

After lunch, we had another one of our afternoons where we walk for miles. We first walked through Brockwell Park, a huge park with open space, trees, a splash pad, trails, a community garden, a pool, ponds, and a BMX track where there was a BMX birthday party happening, complete with coaching. There were a lot of girls and boys, but only one of the girls was actually riding on the BMX track. I wanted to encourage the other girls to join but I did not because that would be weird. The whole park was really lively and friendly and I’d recommend it to anyone with kids who comes to London and wants to get out of the city a bit.

When we got out of the park on the other side, we walked to the Tulse Hill National Rail stop and took trains back up to Battersea Park. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but Battersea Park was not what I expected. The first thing we encountered was a completely packed outdoor bar playing super loud music on the banks of this shallow pond with ducks and paddleboats. Picture really loud club music next to the duck pond on the Boston Common. The next thing we encountered was an absolutely massive live Grease singalong. It sounded like a thousand people. The whole park was just slightly unhinged.

We decided to walk back to the hotel from there and take a break before dinner. I was worn out and tired of big meals so I decided to find a pastry and tea on the way back. I was despairing though, because it was 5:30 and lots of tea places were already closed. Thankfully a French bakery right around the corner had tea and delicious little cream and meringue specialties called merveilleux. I got two different flavors and a pot of lemon ginger tea.

While we were relaxing back at our hotel, Alex found the BBC radio broadcast of the Proms show that we wanted to see! We started it out loud in the hotel room, and then Alex decided he wanted dinner at the pub, so we went to Zetland Arms with one Airpod each to keep listening to the show. I had a scotch egg and a half pour of one of their cask ales, and Alex had sausage and mash and a half pour of another beer not on cask.

While we ate, we listened to Martha Argerich finish Beethoven’s second piano concerto and come back onstage at least six times, including an encore that was a piano duet with her and the conductor of Munich Philharmonic, Lahav Shani. She’s 85! The audience was going absolutely nuts. Audiences here don’t just clap out of politeness, they really get a kick out of performers coming back on stage. Also, I noticed that standing ovations still seem to mean something here. In the US people stand basically at the end of every performance. Martha Argerich got a standing ovation but I haven’t seen one at either of the shows we went to.

After our pub dinner we went back to the hotel and saw some very rowdy teenagers (I think?!) apparently coming out of a club at 8pm??? Honestly the 8pm thing was weirder than the fact that they looked about 13. Who goes to the club before 8pm??

After we got back, I finished my notes while eating a pb&j listening to the broadcast of Brahms 4. Unfortunately the horns aren’t having the best night, but the rest of it sounds great.

Sunday 9/6

Today is our last day 😦 I am pretty sad to be leaving, to be honest. Normally I’m looking forward to getting back to normal life, but we have been having a great time. It also helps that this whole trip was my idea. We got up a little early in order to meet Maridel Fredericksen and her family at the Museum of Science! I had been hoping to meet up with them, and it turned out that they needed to get some official stuff completed for their visas so they had to make a trip to London anyway. Luckily for us, they were able to fit it in while we’re here!

We walked to the museum and met up with Maridel, Georg, Basti (3) and Felix (4 months!). The science museum (especially first thing in the morning) was a really nice place for a visit with young kids. We went straight down to The Garden, a play area for kids age 3 and up and Basti immediately went for the water play table. He is very confident; he was comfortable playing there by himself while we all chatted off to the side.

Basti is really into transportation, so we next went to see die Flugzeuge (airplanes). Basti speaks German at home and English at school and it is funny because I can actually understand him…because he is 3. I think I should listen to kids programming. We also went to see Space, but we ended up spending most of the time in another kids’ exhibit with lots of interactive exhibits. At this point we were pretty hungry, so we walked to get takeout burgers from Supernova and then walked to Kensington gardens. It was pretty funny that we were guiding them around even though they live in England and we don’t. We had just been in the same place walking around for long enough that we knew where we were going and what to eat. We lucked out because there was a nice table right there for us to use! I didn’t take that many pictures today because I wanted to be present and actually have conversations, and also I didn’t want to take too many photos of the kids.

The first thing that happened after we ate is that I got us slightly turned around because I didn’t realize we were in a tennis court area with no exits except the one we came in. I felt extra bad because we had a baby, a toddler, and a stroller with us, so with every wrong turn I had to turn everybody around. I also kept having to interrupt the conversation to be like, sorry, we gotta go the other way everyone. Eventually we found our way out and came across ice cream and a playground! Being a tourist with kids is kind of nice because you don’t feel as pressured to get very far.

At the playground, Basti and Georg found the swings and Maridel fed Felix and we had a nice chat about working out and building muscle. We also have been talking about adult ADHD because Maridel got a diagnoses recently (sort of). I have been thinking about investigating that for myself. After the park, we went back to the ice cream stand. I went into the bathroom and by the time I got out, Alex and Georg were in line for beers and Felix was having another snack. So, we hung out there for a while. Around 4:30, we finally walked back and said bye at South Kensington. I was really sad to see them go; we had such a nice day!

It was after 5 by this time, so Alex and I had to hustle back, shower, and have dinner. We got free dinner at the hotel restaurant because we had credits left and it actually turned out the coffee was included in breakfast after all! So, all’s well that ends well in the free-breakfast department. For dinner, I had burrata that unfortunately was in a bed of entirely roasted red pepper, and also grapefruit for some reason. The burrata was good and I ate the grapefruit, but separately. Honestly the whole combination was a swing and a miss. I also had octopus, which was not a swing and a miss! Surprisingly delicious and quite tender. Alex had fish that was good, accompanied by a truly enormous pile of not-great creamed spinach. Vegetables are sometimes a bit of an afterthought here. I remember in the Windrush exhibit, they were showing video interviews of people who had come over on the Windrush and one of the people was saying something like, “All the vegetables here are versions of potatoes. Chipped potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes. Where are all the other foods??” And I do agree. Although the food has generally been really good.

We walked into RAH through yet another entrance, and I went exploring up to the top level. The concerto tonight was a triple concerto commissioned for the 3 winners of the BBC young musician contest – Jess Gillam on soprano saxophone, Ben Goldschneider on horn, and Shaku Kanneh-Mason on cello. So they were going to be video recording the concert for TV, and I think because of this they had filled the hall with smoke from a smoke machine.

The concert started out strong with Britten’s Young Person’s Guide. BBC radio symphony played it really well and it was super exciting! The next piece was the triple concerto, and it was quite long and contemporary so I think it was a little hard to absorb for a lot of the audience, me included. I was explaining to Alex how contemporary music is tough because we aren’t sure yet which pieces will endure. People like knowing what they should like or not. Mahler wasn’t universally loved in his day either. However, it wasn’t hard to tell that the musicianship and stamina of the soloists was incredible, and how well they worked together was super impressive. They seemed to really enjoy the whole experience, coming on and offstage together. Alex was impressed by the soloists in the first half but felt similarly as me. The pianist had a really nice cadenza in the middle that we liked. I felt that the piece was really well suited to Gillam’s soprano sax. The second half was Dvorak 9; I was happy to hear one of the classics and from the sound of the chatter as we left, the rest of the audience was too!

Sadly, when we got back, we had to pack when we got back and set alarms to get up at 6!

Monday 9/7 

-on a plane 😦

-I took a nap 🙂

-we got 2 meals 🙂

-we had candy left to snack on 🙂

-I am still sick 😦

-we got back at 12pm and we were unpacked by 3! 🙂

And that is the summary of our day, in smiley faces.

I hope you enjoyed this, and I hope to add more posts soon!