Pretending to be tourists

This weekend, Leo and I did a ton of walking - taking in the sights, observing the people, and eating the local cuisine...well not all of it was "local" but it was all good. Saturday we attempted to find Temple Church, which I think is so hard to get to in order to keep all of the Da Vinci Code fanatics away. Once we finally got to the church, we were disappointed to find that it was closed due to scaffolding being taken down. So we headed west on the Thames until we found another, bigger, more ornate church - Westminster Abbey - passing Big Ben on the way (which Leo and I had both thought was actually on Tower Bridge, and the bridge was the Tower of London - at least we are starting to figure things out).Once we became overwhelmed with the Abbey, we headed for home-base, stopping along the way for Leo to purchase two essential items - an umbrella and a ukulele. Unfortunately, I encouraged the ukulele purchase, not realizing that his playing the instrument would be more grating than his constant harping that he wanted to purchase one. At least having a ukulele lying around will give me something to entertain myself with, since I'm still not working yet. For dinner we decided on sushi, which in New York was a staple for us, but here seems a tad more difficult to come by. The place we went to, Pham Sushi, was wonderful - just like a New York sushi place - very fresh and filling, and about as expensive as a good sushi place in New York. Only negative is our new apartment is just a bit too far out of their delivery area.

Today, we took a tour around our new neighborhood - timing how long it takes to get to our place from the tube, checking out bus stops, and food/drink stores. Only 5 days left until we move in! We also checked out the flower market, just north of our new place, on the way to getting a traditional Sunday roast at the Royal Oak, which was awesome. For those of you not familiar with the Sunday Roast, it usually includes a huge plate of a roasted meat, served with vegetables and Yorkshire pudding, all covered in gravy. The roast with a pint of beer on a Sunday afternoon is my favorite new tradition.