Our extended stay in London

I did not update my blog for more than a week mainly because I forgot to bring my camera cord to put new pictures in my blog. Oh, well. I'll put pictures when I'm back home. Speaking of which, we were supposed to fly back tomorrow (Thursday) but it turned out that a visa agency never received Chris' passport that he sent from Amsterdam to the states. Chris gets vacation combined with his visa renewal trip once every three month. It's pretty awesome. His Russian visa is valid only for 90 days after which he has to leave the country (Russia) to get a new visa. We always try to go to the states to see the family etc. This time we felt that such a long trip (12 hour flight) is too much and we decided to go closer to Europe.
Anyway, he cannot go back without a new visa which means that we are "stuck" in London at least for another week.

We are staying in a very nice area called Holland Park.

We like to pretend as if we live here :) So we go to our neighborhood cafes, stores and restaurants. A few nights ago we had an excellent dinner at a local Indian restaurant. We both ordered Chicken Tikka Masala which was outstanding. The local Thai place is also pretty good. So the neighborhood has lots of options if we don't feel like taking a tube and going somewhere else.

The weather is being very nice here with occasional rains that do not bother us much. London being a big city is a great city to be in. It has lots of parks which are easy to get to.
As I said before it's our second trip to London and we have done almost all of touristy things during our first visit. So we are just walking around, going to parks, pubs, movies etc. I'm very excited about tomorrow as Chris bought me/us tickets for the Dirty Dancing musical!!!!! It's my old favorite movie and I cannot believe that tomorrow I will see it alive :)) Yeah!!!
So far we have been to Hyde park, Kensington park, National History Museum, Victoria and Albert museum and National Gallery. Unfortunately, Kensington Palace was closed for installation of some new exhibition and was supposed to open the next day after we leave. Now when we are staying longer it would be great to go and see it. Another thing we want to do is to go to a zoo.
I also did some shopping and bought a very nice purse which was a gift from Chris to me for Women's day. I really love it.

As far as my pregnancy I think it's going well. Most of the time I'm not excited about food. Tomatoes and cucumbers are still my favorite :) Latest passion is oranges and apple juice. Hopefully, everything goes well and we'll have good news when I go to a doctor back in Russia. By the way, a crazy thing happened a few days ago. My brother and my MIL told me that they had a dream about us having a boy! Imagine on the same day! It's pretty crazy. They do not even know yet that I'm pregnant. The only people who know is us and my parents as they are doctors. My Dad is in fact a gynecologist that's why I told him before our trip.
Anyway, we are still in London and love it here!

Remembering London and planning again

Blogging is being kind of fun. I wish I wrote more posts. I complained that I did not have work, so this week and next week I'm doing freelance translation and I'm very excited to be busy at least for a few days again. And I'm still good at what I'm doing, so I'm happy.

I finally filled out my UK visa application. 106 questions!? Crazy, right? The most uncomfortable questions are about finance: How much do you spend on living each month? Do you receive money from your family including yours spouse? If yes, how much and how often. I understand why they need it but sometimes it's just too much. Even US Immigration did not ask me such questions :)

Oh, well..not a big deal. Our next trip is in March. We will add a new country to our list and go back to the country we've been to in Feb 2007. The new is Netherlands-Amsterdam, old - UK London. C. has bought the tickets already. Woohoo! We have hotels already picked out, no reservation yet. In London we'll stay in the same hotel as in 2007. The hotel is all right, pretty typical. We mostly liked the area, Kensington I believe is the name. We have great memories about London. The good thing is that we did most of the touristy stuff last time, this time we'll do a little more and just walk around and pretend as if we live there.


There is a very nice Indian restaurant not far from the hotel, they serve GREAT food! We just cannot wait to go there again. In 2007 we went to the Trafalgar Square, British museum, Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Kensington Palace, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, parks, bridges, saw Big Ben, Mamma Mia show, rode on a double-decker bus (yes!), took a flight on the London Eye, took a boat tour, were in the London Dungeon, walked a LOT and went to bunch of pubs!!! Of course, I had a picture taken with the British telephone booth! It's a must, right? :))


Actually, now when I wrote all these, I'm shocked by how much we did. Because we are definitely not crazy tourists who constantly walk and run around trying to see as much old churches and buildings as possible. We like to do one or two activities and enjoy the rest of the day. Sometimes we joke about it saying that we have to earn it :).

What I liked the most on our first London trip? I liked the area we lived in, British museum was very interesting and surprisingly free to visit. I loved the Kensington Palace where Princess Diana lived, they display a few of her dresses she used to wear. It was very interesting. Tower Bridge is very impressing and beautiful during the day and at night. We took a tour inside it. St. Paul's Cathedral was worth seeing. We could not resist and do the usual stupid thing of climbing up to its top. I know that bird's eye view is supposed to be amazing, but in real life it's OK :)) But we still occasionally do it for the sake of exercise and to confirm that it sucks. It's all fun, of course! What else did I like? London Eye was pretty cool! It's just better to buy tickets online to avoid huge lines and waste of time. My favorite part of the trip was a surprise from C.: tickets to Mamma Mia show. It was the best live show I've ever seen!!!!!!!!!! I'm still in love with Abba songs and I still remember the performance, who did what when they sang this song or that. Honestly, it was difficult for me to accept the Mamma Mia movie with all those actors. You know what I mean? For me, the real characters are those I saw in London in the Mamma Mia show. My favorite were the Mom and the architect was very cute ;)

There was not anything that I disliked about London. I'd rather call it a little disappointed in the Tower of London. There was not that much to see there and the presentation is all right. Big Ben was not as Big and huge as I thought it is. Still it was great to see it!

SO BIG question is what are we going to do this time? I haven't made my list yet, but I have a few things in mind. I wanna go to the National Gallery, Hyde Park, see another show or two, try cucumber tea sandwiches :) C. is very excited about the Pub Crawl :)) I'm sure I'll add a few more things to the list but they will all be fun.

So I guess, that's it about our past and future London trip. It was fun to remember all we did and now I'm even more excited about going there again!!