Made it to London

Mostly a travel day today. Caught the train from Bristol to Paddington Station. Then we took the Tube to Embankment, changed to the Northern Line to Chalk Farm and then we walked to our Airbnb.

 

You know you are in the big city when you get live entertainment on the subway. It was a three-man band but as you can see, not everyone is impressed.

 

 We are staying in the Hampstead Heath area, very nice. Fortunately we stopped for a late lunch at the pub before starting the hike (30+ minutes with our full backpacks) to St. Albans Rd. Maybe were really hungry after only having toast for breakfast but this was one of the best meals so far. Norm had a bagel with eggs Benedict and we both had mushroom soup, homemade and probably we got our quota of mushrooms for a month. (Also a tall glass of Five Points ale for N. mmmm.) We ate so fast we forgot a photo. 

As you may remember, our last "home stay" in Bristol (arranged by Norman) had a certain atmosphere, but lacked privacy and cleanliness. Well, today we were greeted with our own private apartment. It has a full bathroom just for us (no sharing with six others, as in Bristol), a bedroom bigger than the country cottage we stayed at in Amsterdam plus a living room and kitchen. Did we mention the 12-foot ceilings?  Yes it costs more but what the heck, we can balance it out against Charlotte's home stay.

 

The master bedroom with real down pillows and duvet. 

 Dining room and living room where we could easily have four more stay over for dinner and sleep on the sofa.

 Nice eh!

The weather here is becoming very windy and stormy. So we did a quick walk around the block to find the bakery where we had tea/coffee and Chelsea buns, so good. Will remember a picture next time. Hit the Tesco for some food and came home to make "dinner", grilled cheese, chips and beer,  Old Crafty Hen Beer. Fairly balanced. Then using the iPad we just watched Sunday night's CBC National. Love technology. 

 Tomorrow we venuture into town, safely.