- Dublin goodbye
- British airways and Heathrow airport
- The Tube
- Leicester Square and our apartment
- Tutton's Restaurant, Covenant Garden
- Soccer Hooligans
I finally tried an Irish "toastie," after seeing them on breakfast menus these last 3 days. Maybe the most underwhelming experience of my dining here in Ireland. It's a "broke bachelor" recipe - two slices of white Wonder bread, egg and bacon. No butter, no sauce. Pressed on a skillet. Meh.
Goodbye Dublin! I'm not sure there's another city like it, where you can walk 10 steps on the street and hear 10 different languages.
I was concerned about the size of our backpacks as we had a smaller regional British Airways flight to Heathrow and they said they'd be limiting space. But they didn't flag us and we sailed right through. That was the good news. The bad news was that Natalie got airsick on the flight (it was a little rocky).
No customs in Heathrow, so we got right on the Underground system. A 50 minute ride on a subway also didn't do Natalie's motion sickness any favors! During our train ride, a posh little man in a suit, aged around 7, got on by himself. Quintessentially English. I refrained from taking his photo. Then later there was an "incident" in another train car that delayed our ride significantly. We had to switch trains. We had a very crowded ride into our final stop, Leicester Square. At the exit, Spider Man was playing piano.
Along the trip, I was texting our friendly and congenial host Ian, so he was ready to meet us at the retail store located under our flat. Ian gave us the walkthrough and made us feel welcome. His flat is terrific, a quaint two bedroom unit, with a kitchen, living room and 1.5 baths. It was officers quarters during WW2. The only downside (and upside?) is that is RIGHT in the heart of Leicester Square, which brings us to... Soccer Hooligans.
The good news is that tomorrow afternoon, things will be very quiet when all the fans travel to Wembley Stadium and/or watch the game in the pubs. And if Sunderland loses... maybe we'll have a very quiet evening tomorrow? Or maybe they'll burn the city down, I don't know.
While walking along Trafalgar Square and the Strand, we were subjected to smoke bombs from the fans, which made us all cough and sneeze. With all this hubbub, we tried a few places for dinner before we found one to take us in (without a 3 hr wait-list). Tutton's Restaurant in Covenant Garden turned out to be a great find! We started with a baked camembert, chutney and crusty sourdough. Then, I had a chicken breast with sweet potato puree, Yelena had a mushroom risotto, Natalie had seafood linguine and Austin had a smoked haddock and mozzarella fishcake. Terrific stuff!
Afterwards, we braved the hooligans again in order to purchase tomorrow's breakfast snacks at a Tescos, then some Dramamine for Natalie at a pharmacy. Success. Oh, we also found a hidden Moomin store. Now we're back at the flat, listening to all the noise on the street.
Will we sleep at all tonight?
