Our first night in England was spent with Paul's brother Stephen who lives in London. He was kind enough to come meet us at the airport so we didn't have to navigate our way to his home from Heathrow airport. By the way, it was so cool to walk into England for the first time and flash my British passport to the super kind and soft spoken Immigration Officer.. I had to give a "ha-ha" to the people waiting in the other line. It will definitely be nice to use this passport all around the EU.
Within a few hours of touching down, Paul, Stephen and I ate at his local Indian restaurant and I had probably one of the best curries I've ever had. I guess I will have to wait a few months to compare English Indian food to the real deal... Nevertheless, it was hot, spicy, and soo tasty. By the time we finished our dinner it was already Midnight, so we walked back to his shoebox sized London flat and called it a night.. We had planned on getting up the next morning and heading to the Vietnam Embassy to apply for our visas.... until we realized the were 105 pounds each, which came out to way more than what we would have paid in the US. So after doing some research, we found you can get a different visa that you get upon arrival.. We figured that would be the most economical.. If anyone has experience with the Vietnamese Visa upon arrival, I'd love some insight.
Once we ruled out a trip to the embassy, we had time to explore the area around where Steve lives.. I began in the morning by going on a run around his area, where i discovered it was a very diverse place. There were lots of families from different ethnic backgrounds all around his neighborhood; I don't know what I was expecting coming from the "melting pot" of America, but England is probably just as much as a "melting pot" as we are, especially now they are part of the EU. I saw kids skipping off to school in their uniforms with their parents and people heading to work...it was definitely alive with traffic and pedestrians. I had to be careful when crossing the road because after all, they drive on the other side of the street. I enjoy running around places I visit because it helps you get the "feel" of the place and see things you may not otherwise see.
Next we took a nice long walk down to Notting Hill, which is pretty close to Steve's shoebox apartment. I could have taken a picture of Hugh Grant's door from the movie, but instead I took this one because this street had lots of cool shops and some of the best produce I've ever seen. This street was really fun to walk down, and I even made a kitty friend that was laying out in the sun. (Now that we have no animal friends to greet us or be around, Paul and I tend to get really excited when we see cats and try to talk to them..... People probably think we are weirdos... We even tried to face time with our cats at my mom's house, but they were just trying to find where our voices were coming from)
We walked around Notting Hill and stopped off for some gourmet pizza, then we had to head back and get our gigantic bags and prepare to make our way down to Paul's hometown on the south coast, Portsmouth. We have both already decided that we have too much stuff, and are planning to send back a box of things that we don't feel are absolutely essential at this time.. It's one thing to walk your bag from plane-car-destination, but when you have to lug it from plane-bus-subway-walking down the street-destination, you realize how heavy your bag is.... and that mayyyybe you don't need everything after all. This trip may turn me into a minimalist by the time we're done.
No comments:
Post a Comment