London & Wimbledon

Last weekend Dan and I took a trip to London for a few days. We were very excited to take another mini vacation, and Dan has never been to London so I was excited to show him the city. When I was in middle school, I spent a spring break in London and remember loving my time there. They city seemed so exciting and filled with things to do and see.

Our trip last weekend felt quite similar. The city was buzzing with Olympic excitement, Wimbledon action and general love for the city. We also had the added excitement of seeing friends from the States for the first time in 10 or so months. Cate and Anthony, our friends from college, were in town on vacation and we had plans to see the city with them over the weekend. Also, our backyard neighbor from North Carolina is working in London this year, and we had such a great time catching up over dinner and hearing all about our neighborhood updates and Memphis updates- she and I are both, coincidentally from Memphis.

Below are a bunch of pictures of our weekend. Some highlights include seeing the Olympic rings on the Tower Bridge, the Borough Market, and Wimbledon. Today we are purely British cheering on Andy Murray in the Wimbledon Finals!

Amazing burger at Byron

Milkshake love

Clearly London

Kensington Palace

America Sculpture at the Albert Memorial

Dan and Nicole

Breakfast heaven at Elliot's Cafe in Borough Market

Strawberries and Ice cream for Cate

Dan & the Bartolacci's at the Market

Butter Croissants

Brownie Tower

Paella at the Market

The boys at Roast in the Borough Market

And the girls

So the Borough Market was a great place to start our Saturday. We had breakfast and coffee before wandering around all of the tables to see the products. The market is very similar to the market I went to in Toronto except it was mostly veggies, fruits, high end items like specialty cheeses and jams, bakery goods, and food to go from upscale eateries. The market in Toronto had more of the everyday items like butchers and spices by the spoonful. Either way I am a sucker for a market...and this one was incredible!

The London Bridge

On the London Bridge with the Tower Bridge & Rings behind

The Tower Bridge and Olympic Rings

In front of the Tower of London

Group Picture

The Globe Theatre

The London Eye

Big Ben

Parliament House

Westminster Abbey

Dan in front of the Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Heading to Buckingham Palace

The Royal Balcony at the Palace

Guards

Fish & Chips...with mushy peas

Group picture at the Grenadier Pub

Amazing hidden pub in the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" book

Street Party

Harrods

On Portobello Road in Notting Hill

Notting Hill

At the Smithfield Market where William Wallace was hung

Princess Louise Pub with Samu'l Smith beers

Swedish National basketball team in Nike Town + Anthony

On Monday, Dan and I went to Wimbledon. They have grounds tickets available for so many people and you have to wait in a line to see if you get in. Well when we arrive there Monday morning there was no queue so we made it in! We were so excited to see tennis and actually be inside of Wimbledon. I kind of felt like at any moment they were going to realize we weren't fancy enough to be there! Such a cool experience. We saw some great tennis matches and had an amazing day. It is definitely something we want to plan to do again in a few years and get tickets to a centre court match to see the big names.

Excited for Wimbledon

And we're in...

Strawberries and Cream

On the hill

Serena Williams

Maria Kirilenko defeated S. Peng

Bryan and Kohlschreiber

 Before our train left Monday night, Dan and I went out to Kings Cross Station where they filmed Harry Potter scenes. They have set up a place to take pictures so naturally we did. It was probably one of the best moments of the trip....

Dan headed for Hogwarts

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Shockingly there was no big celebration over here ;) I just made some burgers, homemade potato salad and strawberry shortcakes. We are looking forward to being in the States for our next vacation in August. Nothing much planned until the end of the month when I leave to head home for a few weeks before Dan.