Weekend in London

For photos, click here.

Well, we had a successful trip to London. I'm calling it a success because:

• I didn't get sick once (thanks to the nausea medicine I broke down and asked my doctor for).
• Out of three nights in the hotel, Kort slept all the way through one night, did OK another night, and was up only 3 hours our first night (Andy is a saint--he took him in the hallway and did the famous Papa-bounce for about an hour to get him back to sleep).
• Kort was relatively behaved at all the restaurants we patronized (he's not so into sitting in his high chair at home these days).
• We ate Japanese food-twice!
• We had pretty good weather and saw some London sites.
• I bought some maternity-clothes.
• Kort was great on the flight over (but a little high-strung on the flight home).

Really, it was a great getaway, and it reminded us that we need to get out of our little corner of NE Scotland regularly. It was fun to be in such a thriving city, with so many people from so many places, so much to do, and so many choices of places to eat.

After taking the tube from Heathrow to our hotel on Friday afternoon, we wandered around Regents Park and the Marylebone area. It was fun to be back in this part of town, as we rented a flat here in 2003 (I think) for Christmas with mom, Blake, Garrett, Lauryn and my Grandfather. We found this great London restaurant chain, Giraffe, which is a normal adult restaurant with wine, beer, and good food, but, it's also super kid-friendly with balloons and crayons.

Saturday we headed down to Westminster Abbey and took the audio tour of the building (yes, Kort was with us! With lots of gingerbread cookies and a nap in the stroller, we were able to last over an hour there.). Then we headed to the River Thames. We planned to go up in the London Eye, but the line was long and we were all a little too antsy, so we opted for a play in the park before dinner out at Benihana. I highly recommend this chain for young kids. Kort was completely distracted by the other people at our table and the chef cooking in front of us. He was great!

On Sunday we spent much of the day at the London Zoo and did a bit of shopping in the Kensington area. Monday we toured St. Paul's cathedral before we headed out of town. So, considering we were in the hotel for naps every afternoon and back again for bed around 7:30, we did a lot!

Next trip, though, we're either going with a family member/babysitter or going on our own...