What are you going to do now, Ipecac?

I'm going to Disney World!

Carol and I are empty-nesters and this is our first real trip alone since Ben went off to college (he's a Junior now!). We're doing a couple of days at Universal Studios, including their Halloween Horror Nights. I'm super excited about seeing the half of the Harry Potter world we haven't seen, and the TEN haunted houses at their Halloween event. And then, Disney World!

I've been planning out the details for a few months now and have all our reservations and Fastpasses set up. Since September is a low attendance month, our dining plan is free! That means one sit down meal, one counter service meal, and two snacks per day. Plus drinks (alcohol). Yes, free drinks. All our reservations are for restaurants we've never tried before and we're pretty excited about that, especially the incredibly hard to get into, Be Our Guest restaurant where we're having breakfast one day.

We're also going to ride the new Avatar rides at Animal Kingdom, see the new Toy Story Land at Hollywood Studios, and all our usual favorites. Low attendance means we'll probably get to ride a lot.

We're staying at Disney's Yacht Club for the first time. The coolest thing about the hotel is that it's a short walk to EPCOT's back entrance and a short boat ride to Hollywood Studios. There's also what's considered the best hotel pool at WDW, Stormalong Bay.

Our schedule is to leave this Saturday afternoon (Sept. 15), and ::record scratch::

Yes, we were supposed to be flying out of DC on Saturday, when Hurricane Florence is supposed to be parked over North Carolina, directly between DC and Orlando. So we jumped through a bunch of hoops today and rescheduled our departure for tomorrow night, getting us ahead of the storm. We'll spend a bunch of money on additional days with the rental car and hotels, but it's pretty clear that the Saturday flight will be cancelled due to the storm. So we pushed the date up. Now we have to decide what to do in Florida for a couple of extra days. I'm thinking maybe we'll vote.

I would like to point out at this time that Disney is hella expensive these days, even with a free meal plan, and Carol and I are privileged to be able to afford it. I find it sad that most people can't afford it, because it's a wonderful place.

Hilariously, once you reach a certain price point, Disney suddenly becomes much cheaper. We were originally going to stay for five days but we found a couple of extra days. We called to find out how much those two extra days would cost us. This included Park Hopper passes to go into any park at will, and the dining plan. The cost was $11 per day for each of us. Yes, $44 for two people to go to any and all Disney parks, with food, for two days. Naturally, we took the two extra days.

New blog posts will probably be scarce for a couple of weeks. Follow my Instagram (tasteofipecac)  to see pictures as I post them, or check out the box on the right of my blog.

Oh, and I haven't decided if I really want to see President Soon-to-be-Indicted in the Hall of Presidents. I think the urge to boo and throw things will be pretty hard to fight.

Keep things honest while I'm gone.

Our Home in London

Carol is an excellent trip planner.

For our trip to Europe, she booked us into three rooms. The first was in the Saint Germain area in Paris on Thursday, our first night. The room was a little odd with a tiny toilet closet separate from the tiny bathroom, but the room itself was reasonably spacious. Had our schedule allowed, it would have been wonderful to spend more time in that room in that area.

The second room, located outside Paris near Disneyland, was for our second and third nights. This was the most "American" of the three rooms and had the usual two double beds that you would find in an American hotel. Getting there on Friday night allowed us to take the bus into the Downtown Disney area and check out the park entrance and the amenities there before we went to the park on Saturday morning.

The third room was our home for the following week when we returned to London on Sunday night. The hotel was The Jenkins, located very near the transit hub of King's Cross, and also just a short walk from Rachel's flat. To say the room was small was to give it too much credit.  Here it is in panorama mode:

Click on the picture to make it actual size.

The picture was taken from within the doorway. Those are three twin beds. The bathroom was proportionally tiny and had no working towel rack. The wardrobe to the left was the only storage but for a tiny bed-stand next to my bed. We put a bunch of our stuff in the window bay.

To my discredit, once we arrived at what I called "the closet", I kind of lost it. I had envisioned spending a week in a charming English hotel room with actual room to, you know, walk around. I douchily vented for a bit and finally calmed down enough to realize it wasn't a big deal. (In my defense, we had gone non-stop for three days and I was likely still a bit jetlagged and exhausted, but that's no excuse.) Fortunately, I recovered, and the worst moments of our vacation were behind us. And aside from its excellent location, the hotel itself had pretty good free wi-fi and a very nice free breakfast.

For a short time this was our home and we came to enjoy it.

Like I said, Carol is an excellent trip planner.

Look Left

One of the fun things we discovered about London is that apparently everyone is confused about the whole "drive on the left side of the road" thing. Long a joke staple of American sitcoms, being confused by the different driving practices of England wasn't something I was particularly worried about when visiting. I wasn't going to be driving, certainly, and even if I had, I was pretty sure I could manage.

I was naive.

Throughout London, we saw on the street on almost every intersection a (rather crudely done) sign instructing the pedestrian to "Look left" "Look right" or "Look both ways". These warnings were ubiquitous as well as very, very necessary. On several occasions I was almost hit by not paying attention to them.

I came up with two theories for this phenomena. Either (1) so many confused tourists had been hit by cars at intersections that the authorities instituted the warnings to stop the carnage, or (2) the "drive on the left" practice (and the many one-way streets) confuses even Londoners. I still haven't decided which theory I like better.

Always look left.

European Food Porn

Contrary to the stereotype of bad food in England, we had a lot of very good food there. Of course, London is a huge, international city, so there are as many cuisines available as you'd find anywhere. Below, are the best meals we had, in no particular order. (click pictures to enlarge)

First up, is the traditional fish and chips from Rock & Sole Plaice, established in 1871(!). The fish I chose was cod, and it was excellent. We all especially loved the tartar sauce which was probably the best we'd ever tasted.

Next is a half butternut, half salami and rocket pizza from Homeslice Pizza. We also got a whole lamb shoulder pizza. Very good.

Below are two huge crepes I had from My Old Dutch, a London pancake house. The top was my dinner, the signature, My Old Dutch, which had bacon, chicken and ham as well as mushrooms and cheese. The second was my desert, the pear cinnamon with ice cream. Huge, but the crepe underneath was thin and light.

One of the reasons we went to Greenwich was to have traditional English meat pies. Below is the minced beef pie with cherry pie from Goddards at Greenwich. I'd love to go back and try some of their other pies too.

On one of our last days, we went to Bill's for a traditional English afternoon tea. It was a little strange because we each only got one large mug of tea which was gone long before the food arrived. However, the food was awesome. Finger sandwiches, cakes, scones, clotted cream. Fantastic.

Finally, below are our meals from the best restaurant we visited, which, hilariously wasn't in England. This was the second night of our trip, right near our hotel in Paris. We walked past a cute little bistro with the ubiquitous sidewalk tables the night before on our way to our hotel in Saint Germain and saw people at one table eating a HUGE cheese plate. So when we were looking for something the next evening, that cheese plate drew us back. This was Le Comptoir du Relais and only later we learned that it's a very highly regarded restaurant.

The first is my raw salmon. Second is a smaller version of the cheese plate that drew us there. The last is a foie gras with chicken. All were incredible.

This meal was on the day we walked 14 miles through Paris. It was a memorable meal to follow a great day.

London (and Paris) List

We were in Europe for 11 days, from April 10 to 21. Here's the official list of everything we toured/visited/experienced. There were some sights that we saw but didn't enter like Buckingham Palace, Parliament and Big Ben, but we toured almost everything else below.

In no particular order . . .

LONDON
The British Museum
King's Cross station
the Tower of London
Tower Bridge
The Globe Theatre
The Royal Albert Hall
Kew Gardens
the London Zoo
the London Eye
Kensington Palace
the Prime Meridian at Greenwich Observatory
Camden Market
the Churchill War Rooms
Buckingham Palace
Leicester Square
Piccadilly Circus
Westminster Abbey
Trafalgar Square
Thames River cruise
Tate Modern
Harrod's
Big Ben (Queen Elizabeth Tower)
Parliament
Lord John Russell Pub
the British Music Experience
the Royal Navy Academy
H.M.S. Belfast

We had afternoon tea, fish & chips, pints in a local pub, rode the Underground (a lot), took the Chunnel train back and forth to Paris, and rode a double decker bus.

PARIS
the Eiffel Tower
the Arc de Triumphe
the Champs Elyssee
la place de la Concorde
the Louvre
St. Germain
Notre Dame
Mont Martre
Sacre Coeur
the Moulin Rouge
the Paris Metro
Paris Disneyland

It was an incredible (and busy) trip.

London Farewell

On our last night in London we went out to eat with Rachel and then rode the London Eye. Tomorrow we fly out in the morning and arrive eight hours later in DC. Because of the time shift, it will only be three hours later, which will be a big help in getting ready for work and school on Tuesday. 

Here's a picture I took from the Eye. 

London nearing the end

Yesterday and today were kind of a return to nature for us. Yesterday, we went to the London Zoo and among the other animals, we saw this little guy:

This is their oldest baby penguin born this year. Soon he'll hang out with these guys. 

The zoo is famous for their penguins and it's easy to see why. They were delightful. 

Today we went to the vast and beautiful Kew Gardens. Lots of grassy meadows, flowers, relaxing benches, towering trees and a few wandering animals. What a fantastic place. 

Tomorrow is our last full day in London. Monday morning, we fly home. 

More London Days

From yesterday. First up, the Royal Albert Hall. Then Trafalgar Square. 

London Days

Carol and Rachel continue their relentless drive to get us to every single attraction in London. I've been wearing my Fitbit every day and my daily steps from Sunday to today have been 27,000: 17,000: 23,500: and 26,000 adding up to about 42 miles of walking. 

Here are a couple of pictures I took today. The first is the Globe Theatre which we toured this morning. Built in the same way as the original Globe in the 17th century (except for fire prevention tech) it was fascinating to visit. We got to watch them rehearsing Titus Andronicus. 

The second is the grounds of the Greenwich Observatory where we saw the Prime Meridian. 

Back in London

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days in France and back in London. 

Paris Baby!

We're on our last day in Paris. So far we've seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triumphe, the Champs Elysse, and walked nearly fifteen miles through the city. Yesterday we spent the day at Disneyland Paris. 

London Baby!

We arrived safely (2AM Maryland time) and have spent the last 11 hours running around London (and napping for 3 hours on Rachel's couches). We are now waiting for the Chunnel train to Paris.

Have not seen Ricahrd Dawkins, Richard Branson, JK Rowling, or a single alien invasion. Disappointed.