Slower, With a British Accent

We’ve been in London since we left the cruise ship. This week was a bit slower and a welcome break from the last six weeks of constant movement. We’ve had some fun, eaten some good food, caught up on sleep, and made plans for the summer.

We went back and forth for a long time about what to do during this week we had open in our schedule. Although we had ideas to pack in new destinations, we finally decided on London to simplify things. One thing influencing that decision was actually this specific neighborhood and their library system. Nathan did some research and discovered that the library system in the north Islington area has added electronic pianos with headphones for the use of library patrons. That clinched it and we booked an AirBnB in the Finsbury Park area. It was kind of a last minute decision, but we were happy to just go with the spontaneity.

Although it’s been nice to slow down a little bit, we couldn’t be in one of our favorite cities without taking advantage of the opportunity for a wide variety of food and entertainment. We started right off on our first night with a trip to the Royal Opera House to see the Royal Ballet. It was an all Christopher Wheeldon program, ending with the ballet scene from An American in Paris. We didn’t book our tickets until the same day, so our seats weren’t great (people really need to not lean forward in their seats, you know?) but it was such a great program. We got to see some favorite dancers (Marianela Nuñez and Lauren Cuthbertson) and the orchestra sounded amazing. So fun to finally cross that one off my bucket list!

We went to the Indigo at O2 to see Clearwater Creedence Revival. Wait! Did you catch it? Neither did I until I had already bought the tickets. A CCR tribute band, but we’ve had fun at those kinds of shows before. Again, we were booking last minute, so all the seats were sold out and only standing tickets were available. The music was pretty fun, but we’ve resolved that we no longer have the patience for all the shenanigans and the bad behavior when we’re in the standing crowd. Getting old, I guess!

The next show made up for it though. We knew about this concert before we left Utah, so when we actually committed to being in London this week, we jumped at the chance to see Maxim Vengerov a favorite of Nathan’s dad) with the Royal Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall. He performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto, the same thing we had just listened to on our walk through Helsinki just the week before. The orchestra also performed Don Juan by Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird. What an amazing concert and a stunning venue! We loved it! Another box checked on the bucket list. It’s a real testament to how much is going on in this city—the fact that we have visited multiple times and there are iconic experiences we still haven’t had. The Royal Ballet and The Royal Philharmonic were high on our lists, but it’s taken 20 years of traveling here for us to have those experiences.

We caught some comedy at the SoHo Comedy Factory, which was pretty fun and low stakes at just £5. We saw a movie one afternoon (which definitely costs more than £5). We’ve done a lot of walking and planning and, of course, Nathan has practiced the piano some. It was nice to be able to go to church. We have had some good Mexican food, a decent burger, a good bowl of ramen, some tasty salads, and we even ate in a couple of nights. The weather has been pretty nice, too. Overall, it’s been a great week.

Now we’re going to meet Nathan’s sister, Liz, her husband, Christian, their son, Jared, their daughter, Sarah, and their granddaughter, Poppy in Romania! Jared just finished up his mission there in April, so he’s going to show us around a bit, and then we’re all off to Switzerland for alpine thrills and to visit the Swiss side of the family. More on that adventure in two weeks, as I’m going to take a break from writing while we are busy with the family. Take care and talk to you soon!