London | Day N° 19 | Eli and Zab Reunited in London!

At the Dorchester for high tea!

Zabelieth is together at last! Since our spring semester ended in May, Eli has been interning in New Haven, Connecticut, while I spent half my summer in Chicago and the most recent half in London, studying at the London School of Economics. Eli is starting graduate school in Uppsala in two weeks, and since I'm still in London, we knew this was our perfect opportunity to visit Europe together!

We are spending three full days in the UK, two in London and one in Oxford, and then crossing the Channel to visit Versailles, Paris, and Nice. After that we each fly off to our respective destinations: Eli to Uppsala, and I am heading back home to Virginia to start my last semester of college. Though we only have a week together in Europe, we are going to cram each minute full of new experiences! Between travel, sightseeing, dining, and leisure (beaches on the French Riviera.....), this coming week is destined to be absolutely incredible for both of us.

Eli arrived at Heathrow early Thursday morning, and I hopped on the tube to go meet her there. It was so good to see a friendly face after being without my usual friends or family for a month! I think she was just as shocked as I was to realise that we are finally in the UK together. We have been dreaming of traveling here for more years than we can count, and it's surreal for those dreams to finally come true.

Though we arrived back at High Holborn relatively early in the morning, I had class shortly thereafter, so Eli decided to be a trooper and walk down Drury Lane to see Aldwych and the LSE campus with me. We had a quick pot of tea at the Delaunay Counter, and were still speechless at the fact that we were there together. Since we were little, both of us have held British culture and literature in very high esteem, mainly because of our great love for the classics. My family ingrained in me great respect and love for British culture: for Winston Churchill and GK Chesterton, Adam Smith, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, James Herriot, Doctor Who, and British things in general (teatime! horsemanship! dog-loving!). Through high school, Eli and I shared our love for this country and its traditions, especially in colonial times, and together we adoringly researched things like the East India Company. We worshipped writers like JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, and since then have only wanted to learn more and more about the UK. We've made teatime a tradition when no one else has, we've baked scones together, watched British films hundreds of time, and debated novels like Lady Chatterly's Lover. We've also done all these things over again more recently with French culture, but I'll get to that in a couple of days!

Anyway, upon arriving in London, jet-lagged Eli and I had tea at the Delaunay Counter, and after my class, we trekked down the Strand to the Mall and did a walking tour of the River Thames, Victoria Embankment Gardens, Buckingham Palace, St James, Westminster Abbey, and Fortnum & Mason, and Eli was so excited to find a Laduree branch on Piccadilly (where I got some delicious Marie-Antoinette-inspired tea!). We hadn't seen each other in months and were catching up, so it was a quick, casual tour of some of London's most famous sights.

The Promenade at the Dorchester

I had my final exam at LSE the following day, so after doing a quick tour, we settled down at Le Pain Quotidien on High Holborn so I could do some studying before teatime. Several weeks before, I had made a reservation for afternoon tea at the Promenade at the Dorchester, one of the renowned afternoon tea venues in London (along with the Delaunay, the Ritz, the Waldorf, etc.). Eli and I have been having afternoon tea for years, and threw a beautiful, elaborate tea party for our closest friends while we were in high school. But this is the first time that we've had the opportunity to enjoy a true British afternoon tea together!

It was wonderful. The Promenade at the Dorchester is completely stunning, with gold pillars, exotic tatues, bright walls, and tons of greenery. The teacups and teapots were exquisite, and we enjoyed many courses: tea sandwiches (cucumber, smoked salmon, egg, mozzarella and basil, herbed chicken), a Middle Eastern sampler plate, little miniature ice cream cones, scones with jam and clotted cream (of course), and an assortment of French pastries, which we couldn't even touch, we were so full at that point! It was just too perfect. The setting was beautiful, the service was very impressive, and the food and tea could not have been better. It was just a shame we couldn't eat more! They kept trying to bring us more food, and it was such a shame to have to turn it away.

When we had eaten our fill and and drank at least two teapots full of tea each, we simply returned back to High Holborn so I could study for my exam the next morning and Eli could finally get some much needed sleep. But we knew more adventures awaited us in the following days!

zab's top london destinations

So I am leaving for London in a little more than four months. I was just accepted into summer school at London School of Economics (my dream!) to study Finance, and I'll be living in the city for almost three weeks this August. As my dearest friend Eli keeps reminding me, it's time to start thinking of things to do and see when I'm not in class at LSE!

Of course, I have to see the usual tourist stuff. Though I usually try to keep as far away from overcrowded tourist attractions as possible, how could I possibly say that I lived in London for three weeks but never saw Buckingham Palace or Big Ben? Those are just must-dos.

Here are a few tourist-y destinations:

Buckingham Palace: where I can press my pathetic little face up against the gates and dream of being a real-life princess in a real-life palace with a real-life prince.... or, perhaps even better, dream of finding a pants-less Benedict Cumberbatch wrapped in a sheet and drinking tea...

Downing Street: equally fascinating to me but probably not as visually impressive...

Hyde Park: of course. This park is larger than the entire Principality of Monaco. Quintessentially British. I don't really have a choice. Couldn't miss it if I tried.

King's Cross Station: mostly because of Harry Potter

Big Ben, Westminster Bridge, Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament: I guess I can't really 'go to' Big Ben, it's kind of just something to see... These are all pretty obvious tourist stops, at least to just pass by and get that traditional view of the Thames!

Now we get to the fun stuff...

I'll be living a block or two away from Soho and I plan to spend a significant amount of time there! London's fashion and entertainment district, and previously its prostitution district. Since the 1950's Soho has been the centre of beatnik, rock, and pop culture in London. The Rolling Stones, the Sex Pistols, and Jimi Hendrix have all recorded there! It's home to London's main gay village and lots of shops and bars and clubs.

Ministry of Sound: probably London's most famous, iconic nightclub and ranked by some in the top five in the world. Apparently a must-go for nightlife in London. Also Fabric ('body-sonic' dance floor where bass comes through the floor. enough said. however, I'm not sure about the unisex toilets) and Pacha (Ibiza-based club with a stained glass ceiling and notoriously glamourous crowd).

The Eagle and Child: my nerdiness is coming out but I would be so happy if I could visit the Eagle and Child. This is the four-hundred-year-old pub that the Inklings (JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis!) met at to read and discuss their unfinished manuscripts!!!!! This has been a dream for years, ever since my dad encouraged Eli and I to form our own Inklings club when we were about fifteen....

The owner of my favourite local restaurant, a German native who went to school and lived in London for ten years, told me that I MUST go to high tea at The Dorchester. This gorgeous five-star hotel serves world-famous (it had better be, at £41 a person) afternoon tea of sandwiches, scones, and cakes.  The hotel is absolutely stunning inside.

I still remember my grandmother mentioning Harrod's when I was very young, in particular for their tea. This is London's equivalent of Macy's, and though I've been to many department stores in my life, I don't want to miss out on this one.

Tiffany & Co. on Bond Street. I just want to visit Bond Street (though I won't be able to buy a single thing) and see this absolutely gorgeous, iconic black building (since I've already been to the one in New York!).

Restaurants: Rules (London's oldest restaurant, as classic British as it gets), The Dalaunay (continental cuisine), Le Gavroche (best French), Maison Bertaux (French cafe in Soho)...

Other to-do's: ride in a black cab and on a double-decker bus; find a public call box that even remotely resembles the TARDIS and completely lose it geeking out on the sidewalk; use the Tube and a loo and a lift (which I'm pretty sure I will); and do all those other stupid things that tourists think are fascinating in the UK.