London: War Bunkers and Cheese Toasties

We woke up at 5am to catch the sunrise flight to London's city airport.  We hopped on a 50 seater prop plane for the one-hour flight across the pond.  Upon arriving, the British customs agent became visibly upset while reviewing our passports.  "Luxembourg is THE most boring country in the world with THE most boring people in the world," he seethed.

Without even dropping off our bags, we headed straight to Borough Market, on a mission to find the world renowned Kappacasein grilled cheese.  We anxiously looped around the market in an effort to find it and once we did, the effort (and days of fasting) were worth it.

After thoroughly enjoying the cheese toasties, we selected specialty items from other vendors to assemble a picnic for the evening - baguettes, brie, wild boar sausage, cookies and english muffins.

Cinephiles will recognise the corner apartment from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - Guy Ritchie's 1998 film about mostly incompetent gangsters.

Pleasantly surprised by the clement weather compared to Lux, we strolled along the Thames past Shakespeare's globe theatre and the Tate modern, across Waterloo bridge to our hotel to crash.

Before daylight ran out, we soaked in London's architecture and energy by hoofing it through Covent Garden, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square and Parliament.  

​We ambled along the river through Leicester Square and Soho as the sun went down and picked up some wine to go along with our picnic treats.

We started the next day off by descending into a subterranean bunker to explore Churchill's War Room.  We were perplexed as to how Churchill was able to command a war with such feeble technology in the stuffy, claustrophobic underground.  Erin especially connected with one of Churchill's quotes, "I'm easily satisfied...I like the best."

Relieved to return to the surface, we continued our jaunt through St. James Park past pelicans, geese and swans to Buckingham Palace.  We pushed past the crowds and cut through Hyde park, Mayfair and Bond street to Chinatown for lunch at Far East.

After lunch we toured the British museum to scope out Egyptian relics and smugly disagree with the mainstream timelines.  We fit in a power yoga class at Yotopia in order to earn our grand thali plates at Masala Zone (a throwback to our first ever Indian food exposure) along with Ben's Best cookies for dessert.

We spent the next couple days as real London professionals, taking meetings and running in business attire from Hoxton to Holborn to Islington.  We enjoyed navigating the city as one tiny ant amongst many, but we're also relieved to return to Lux, our home base.

Can't wait to come back for another grilled cheese!