The Sawyer Stories

Let’s start with a quick overall impression of London. Of all the places we’ve visited, this feels the most like DC. It’s not just the return to English, but the overall energy matches home. Of course one of the major differences is which side of the road they drive one. As pedestrians, this means, which way you look when crossing the street. There has been a great Sawyer debate on if the rules apply also to which side of the sidewalk you walk on. We asked our tour guide today and he said there are no rules. People just walk where they like. See. I told you it was like DC. 

Highlights from day 21:

• Today’s tour was our way to fit in all the must-see spots in a few hours. We had a black cab tour where a lovely guide drove us from spot to spot sharing London history and connecting it to each location. 
  

• One of the first stops was a great view overlooking the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. There is a very cool sundial that is surrounding by important events in London’s history. Overview: fires, rat plagues, and beheadings. You know what they don’t consider significant enough to mention? The American Revolution or the American colonies at all. Interesting.
  

• We loved learning about the history and marveling at the architecture. Coming out of Rome, it was interesting to see the original boundary wall built by the Roman’s and then added onto as London grew. 
  

• Today was the first day we had a bit of rain. This made a cab tour even nicer! Of course Liam loved riding backward. Remember how I’ve named the greatness of private tours for family photos? Well today I learned not everyone is a photographer. We got some rather interesting shots today. Here’s my fav. I assuming he’s leaning into the stories of beheadings by only capturing our heads. 
  

• Fun fact, I ran into students from my school in front of Westminster Abbey! What a small world we live in. 
  

• After our tour and a small rest, we ventured out for lunch. We are staying in Southwark area and had walked by Borough Market a few times. Upon research, it seemed like a grander Union Market and there were a handful of vegan vendors. We walked over and were instantly inundated with people. As in, we can only move in one direction because there are so many people. Truthfully I’m not sure how anyone was shopping in there. Our new goal was just to escape. 
  

• We spent a bit of our afternoon touring the sites close to our hotel. We walked by The Globe Theater. It is the only building in the city that has approval to be all wood with a thatched roof (with a lot of fire safety systems installed). We also walked on the Millennium Bridge (seen being destroyed by Death Eaters in Harry Potter 6).
  

• We ate a light lunch because we had a fancy night ahead of us! Tonight we took Liam to his first Michelin star restaurant, Gauthier. This is an all vegan French restaurant. We’ve not had much French food because it is traditionally very not vegan. 
• Momentary backtrack, Michael wanted to leave for our 5:00 reservations 20 min earlier than we needed to (insert Amber eye roll). I was not quick to get ready, and we left 5 min later than he would have preferred. We called an Uber and then proceeded to sit in standstill traffic for 20 min, putting us right at the restaurant door a minute late. Oops! Thanks Michael for your persistent punctuality and patience 🙂 
• Alright, the dinner. It was an oh so fancy 7-course summer tasting menu. I love how each course builds on the last and how the staff explains each dish to you before eating. You can feel the love and intentionality in everything from the presentation to the plating to, of course, the taste. We were super proud of Liam. He composed himself well in a fancier than normal setting. I will say he learned French food is not his favorite, but he graciously ate each course and I believe enjoyed the experience.

• We ended with the a dessert where they had written Happy Birthday in chocolate. We laughed because they brought it out and asked whose birthday it was. We all blankly stared before remembering we had marked this was a celebratory dinner for Michael’s birthday!

• We then ended our night back at West End for Back to the Future the musical! Back to the Future is one of Michael’s favorite movies both because it’s just a great film and because of the music. We had heard great things about the show’s special effects. They.did.not.disappoint. This musical was jaw dropping. So well done and they pulled off impossible stage scenes seamlessly. If you know the movie, then you know the characters of Marty and Doc are iconic. The casting for the show was so spot-on and the humor throughout made this one of the best shows we’ve seen. It was definitely the best special effects, and that pains me to say after our deep love of Cursed Child. Of course you can’t take photos during the show, but the screens before and after made us laugh.
  

• I’m glad Liam got to see 2 shows: one classic and one new. Both very different but incredible. 
• We shook off the post show excitement with walking around the city before finally taking the train back to our hotel. Tomorrow was originally left unscheduled so we could make last minute choices for our last day of vacation. I wonder what we chose to do?