But really, I loved London and not just because I could get a Cadbury Egg McFlurry (which may or may not be mankind’s most genius invention).
I knew that I would have withdrawals of Cadbury so I snagged an extra free mini Cadbury Egg from the people who were handing them out in the airport. My Copenhagen Easter was actually wonderful. I managed to have enough self control to save my Cadbury Egg until Easter afternoon and then went on a run in the not so freezing weather (upper 30s hallelujah!).
The sun was shining in Copenhagen and I decided to try a new route. I was so happy to find this little piece of art outside of a busy cafe. It says “We want to live together” in many different languages. How appropriate on the Easter after so much traveling!
Now back to London! First of all my lips got so chapped from the London wind that I thought they might just peel off. I dropped a couple pounds and bought this Vaseline Lip Therapy. Best decision of the whole trip. Honestly I could barely eat all the delicious food because my lips were so chapped. Lip and life saver.
On Wednesday we were visited by a partner at Schillings which is a law firm specializing in cases involving privacy. A few of their clients are Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Lance Armstrong, Taylor Swift, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, well you get the idea of whose privacy their protecting. It was fascinating to learn about how they approach privacy cases and the British media. One thing about Britain that is very different than the US is that they hold the right to privacy equal to the right of freedom of speech. This means that free speech cannot totally violate privacy so their cases get very interesting as to deciding which is more important in deciding the outcome of the case. It was also interesting learning about the lack of fact checking in British media which obviously can lead to cases involving slander and such. The way their law and media works is so different from ours and yet so similar. Many of the celebrities are actually Americans and yet they choose to work with Schillings because they are so good at what they do.
After Schillings we headed over to BBC to learn about their program Panorama. While Panorama was interesting, especially because we talked a bit about the Jimmy Savile case, I would have rather toured the headquarters and discussed how they tie in their wide array of programming. I guess hard hitting undercover stories are more interesting than Sherlock Holmes going undercover.
After BBC we went to Chesterfield Mayfair for a spot of afternoon tea. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go back to Copenhagen (physically or mentally) after all we ate.
The most scrumptious scones I’d ever tasted with homemade jam took up the entire top tier. Then came a bit of fruit cake, orange cupcake, eclair, raspberry and chocolate macaroon, strawberry cheesecake and a fruit tart. The last tier was left to finger sandwiches including chicken, cucumber, smoked salmon, the works. Everything was perfect, but I’d have to say my favorite were the scones. Oh and the fact that the waiter pulled my chair out for me and made us feel like royalty.
As my mother would say in her horrible British accent, “A spot of tea?” Let’s just say I had more than a spot… maybe a couple cup fulls.
After tea we explored more of London. We headed over to Buckingham Palace to mess with the guards. The palace was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of our palaces back in Copenhagen, just with a lot more gold.
We were quite upset to find out that not only could we not reach the guards, but they were dressed in grey. They looked just like our Copenhagen guards! What a rip off!
From Buckingham Palace we walked through a park (I want to say Hyde Park) on our way to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. It was apparently a wildlife reserve and there were animals everywhere. The squirrels weren’t afraid of anything and would run right up to you. Luckily I was wearing gloves and this little guy wasn’t too mad when he found out I didn’t have any food. I felt like a real life Snow White.
Here’s Big Ben hanging out in Elizabeth Tower with their next door neighbor The London Eye. Livin the life.
The next day we had a morning workshop on social media. It was interesting at first, but there is only so much a 50 year old man can teach a room full of 20 year olds about social media. That afternoon we were sent out on our own to do a social media project on a local business. We found a small sports store that we used as a model for a communications campaign focusing on social media. We also managed to find Harrods and a Whole Foods. So project aside, it was a pretty successful afternoon.
I took a picture of these black and white meringues at Whole Foods for my dad. They are giant meringues (his one love in life) and black and white (just like his other love for black and white cookies). I almost bought one but remembered I’m not going home until May 16th.
By that night it was About Thyme for some dinner. But really, that was the name of the restaurant, sorry for the bad pun. I got a bowl of french onion soup, “Chicken Princess” and a crumble. Absolutely fantastic. It was such a great dinner to be with our whole class. We all got so close on this trip and it was so nice to be with everyone with such a great meal. 
On Friday morning we went to The Tate Modern to see some modern art. We took a bit of a detour and walked past St. Paul’s to get there. It was such a gorgeous blue day. If it hadn’t been so cold outside and we hadn’t been so pressed for time I definitely would have climbed up the dome.
This is the view across the Millenium Bridge from The Tate Modern looking over to St. Paul’s.
This actually looks like a page out of my art history text book. Looks like the class actually did come in handy considering all the art I’ve been seeing the past few months at The Met, The Louvre, D’Orsay, Pompidou and now Tate Modern.
The Tate Modern is right next to The Globe so we got to walk by. The Shakespeare nerd in me was freaking out (shout out to Duke TIP and my wonderful roomie Leanne for not caring how nerdy we were). I would have gone in but the line was long and there was delicious food waiting for us.
Since our reservation at The Tate Modern Cafe fell through we went to The Swan instead which is this pub right next to The Globe. At first I was skeptical. I wasn’t in the mood for a pub on a Friday afternoon right after looking at modern art all morning. And yet again I learned my lesson of questioning DIS and their food choices. Due to the reservation mix up DIS bought us all a round of drinks. Most people got beers, but considering it was barely noon and I’m not a big beer fan I stuck with cider. Turns out it was a giant cider, but it was quite delicious. The perfect compliment to my salad and mac and cheese with bits of bacon. I have been craving mac and cheese since January 12th now so this was quite a blessing. Then we finished off lunch with an apple crumble and ice cream. Delicious!
After such a yummy lunch, Lulu, Derick and I went to the one place we should probably have not gone and didn’t regret it one bit. We went to Borough Market which essentially smelled like heaven. It was a huge food market with the best smells imaginable. Unfortunately we were so full that we couldn’t even eat a free cheese sample.
After overloading our noses and teasing our mouths we headed towards the Tower Bridge to walk over to the nearest metro stop. It was very cool to walk over the Tower Bridge and see all of London from the ground as opposed to The Eye.
On our way to our tube stop we found a bit of the Roman Wall. It brought back many memories of Mr. Howell’s high school freshman history class with one of my still best friends Lauren. How I do not miss that class, but the memories that Lauren and I had suppressed came back so I actually remembered a bit about the Romans and that guy named Caesar. Okay, I remembered quite a bit, thanks Mr. Howell.
Our tube ride took awhile so we didn’t have time to wait in line to have our picture taken at platform 9 3/4, but we at least got to see it. Plus we made it back early to the hotel which turned out to be a great decision because for our last London treat DIS got coffees for those of us who got there early enough. Naturally I ordered a hot chocolate. Will, we have to add the Holiday Inn King’s Cross hot chocolate to our worldwide rankings we have. Still didn’t beat Angelina’s. The hot chocolate was just what I needed after exploring the Borough Markets in the cold.
Then it was time to pack up the bus and say goodbye to London and hello to Heathrow. Just before we got on our flight I snagged some “Tube” socks as a tacky/punny/perfect souvenir.
Goodbye London. I will miss you and the many tubular experiences we enjoyed together.
EMN in CPH 