Two Weeks with the Moms

I have been planning for this visit from my mom (Joanne) and Joe's mom (Janis) since we stepped off the plane in September and, really, since before that too. I wanted to make the most of their two-week visit, and (to me) that meant finding a way to show them both tourist London and the real life Joe and I live here. Plus I had four months of catching up to do with my mom, which meant working in regular activities like shopping, running errands, watching movies, and cooking. Janis, on the other hand, wanted to spend some of her vacation reading and relaxing. The challenge was finding the balance between my own fear that they would be bored, lonely, and hungry and their desire to spend time with us and see London without packing every day with dawn-to-dusk activities. As you may notice from this itinerary, I was so worried that they would starve that my plan of attack for the whole trip was "Eat ALL the food!"

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
				Fly from San Diego to London	Arrive in London at noon. :) Travel from the airport to AirBnB flat. Get settled in.  Nando’s for lunch.  Jamie Oliver stew for dinner.	Visit UCL campus,  T. K. Maxx in Charing Cross.  Southbank Christmas market. Real Food Market for lunch. Marks & Spencer grocery stop. Dinner at Strada.
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
Day trip to County Kent:  Leeds Castle Canterbury Cathedral Dover.  Meet Joe for dinner @ Wahaca.	Down time day. Thai lunch. Grocery shopping for Christmas day. Meet Joe after work for drinks at BrewDog. Christmas Lights tour Dinner @ Zizzi	Kensington High Street Whole Foods fantasy shopping day. Christmas Eve: Festive Menu @ the Flask	American pancake breakfast with mimosas. Open stockings. Walk at Waterlow park. Duck dinner and bread pudding.	Sleep in.  Dinner in Chinatown.  Night at the theatre.	Burberry in Regent Street. Make Bolognese sauce for dinner at home. Downton Abbey Christmas special.	London Bridge walk Borough Market lunch Walk through St. James park to Buckingham Palace High tea @ Park Lane Hotel Dinner @ Carob Tree
29	30	31	1	2	3	4
Bath day trip.	Arancini Factory (restaurant) in Kentish Town Dinner at home and Sherlock!	Pearls exhibit @ the V&A Jamie Oliver Recipease cooking class NYE festivities at BrewDog	London Eye Westminster Abbey Blackfriars pub (should have been Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese...)	Leave London and head to home to San Diego :(

There is no way I could force everything we did over the past two weeks into just one post, so there will be a few of these over the next weeks (I do have to write a paper for school in between after all).

Love Actually moment at the Arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport

Getting Settled

Joe and I live in north London in an area that feels like a small village, so there aren't any hotels nearby. We're at least 40 minutes to central London on public transportation, so it made more sense to have our moms rent a flat local to us than take a room at a hotel far away. They found a place in Kentish Town through AirBnB that was a perfect compromise (as far as I'm concerned). 

Living in a flat allowed them to experience several facets of our life here that wouldn't be possible in a hotel: grocery shopping, cooking in a London flat-sized kitchen, breakfast without a restaurant, figuring out the local bus and tube system, and dealing with confusing/frustrating things like four different keys to get in the front door, extremely narrow flights of stairs, dark alleys at night, weird laundry machines and settings, and the sirens that come with living on the high street. 

the adventure of making coffee

While they came to appreciate all the character of their London home once they'd been here a while, it's safe to say that all of these quirks freaked them both out a bit upon arrival. The arduous task of travel is usually rewarded by the known pattern of checking into a hotel, where there are familiar white linens, an easy-to-use key card, and a concierge downstairs for any concerns. This routine is comforting, no matter how strange the city. Kentish Town is fine, though a bit dingy, but if you've pictured the central London luxury of Mayfair, it's kind of a shock to the system.

entering your flat from this alley -
not that inviting on first glance

and this is the first of 3 flights of steep, narrow stairs
to climb with your suitcase

After they'd calmed down a bit and had a nap, we brought them up to Highgate and had dinner (remember the stew?) at our little flat (half the size of theirs, btw). There they received their Welcome Bag, with all kinds of London and British Christmas essentials: Oyster cards and tube maps, mini mince pies, a bottle of mulled red wine, four flavors of flapjacks, tickets for a Christmas lights tour of the city, and mini Union Jack stocking ornaments (1 of 3) to keep as mementos of our shared UK Christmas.

Welcome to London, Mums! Now let's get you out and about!