Day 1 - London Baby

Day 1 - London Baby

It's been a while! I don't know how post-y I'll be but at least every now and then! On the Picadilly line en route to the hotel at the moment (yes the last stop makes me laugh because I'm 5) Plan today is to leave the bags at the hotel, get some food, then walk around

After checking in might try to sleep a bit as my uncle invited us to dinner at the Royal Automobile Club (which looks as fancy as it sounds, had to take adult pants and a real button up shirt just to meet the dress code)

Bonus from the plane, it's spooky season

Nice aesthetic, almost there, swapping over to the district line

The hotel is cute, the bakery we went to was not the greatest though I think... Now we have like 3 hours to kill before check-in... What to do

We walked around Kensington market through the park which was cute, apparently last time Farah went it was during fall foliage and sunny which made it even better but I think overcast with slight drizzles is the true London experience

Then we stopped by an adorable pub and had some decent fish and chips because we felt we had to, liked it a lot more than the croissant, we were very much crashing towards the end of the meal as it was hard to sleep a lot on the plane

Then walked through another park on the way back, very nice parks near where we are... Really think other cities need more of them.

Random neat view

Got back to the hotel and I'll post some pics tomorrow but it's very much London sized which is to say tiny. Most claustrophobic shower I think I've ever had. We tried to sleep but the room across had some maintenance issue and sound proofing is new world technology...

Now just getting ready to go tour the Commonwealth offices where my uncle works and then dinner, trying to iron on the mini ironing board on top of the bed was a challenge. I think the dinner place is a bit anti photos but I'll see what we can do... I do look forward to sleeping.

Operations report for previous day at the Marlborough House and Royal Automobile Club as one does 👑💅

First was the tube + walk through another park, which again should be mandated in every city

Got to the place and it had two security guards, one an older British chap and I had to use Bene Gesserit training for to keep my facial features relaxed because his accent was incomprehensible to the point of comedy, the other was more helpful and told us to wait at reception

She also ended up escorting there because if we got lost they'd getting in trouble, also mumbled about how he should have given us a pass ahead of time, which fair, the reception room had a portrait of the late great

Then waited a bit and he came down as some meetings were ending, seems like there's a summit to prepare for a meeting of the 56 presidents of the Commonwealth

He then introduced us to a bunch of people there and had is take pictures with one who turned out to be the Commonwealth Secretary-General! There were also the envoys of various countries, even said hi to the Canadian one

Then we got the tour of the seat of the Commonwealth, Marlborough House which as the name implies was originally built for the dukes of the same name before becoming a royal residence

Then at some point various African countries wanted to leave because screw Britain, and she was like "we'll break off the Commonwealth from the Foreign affairs office into its own thing and donate this palace" (not my pic attached)

He even took some forbidden photos of us

His office is insane too here's the door from the inside

Then we were going to the dinner, but he said the room he'd wanted to book was full so we had to go to another one that would require a suit jacket which I didn't have. He popped into a random office and asked some to borrow one who gladly gave it though

He casually mentioned oh yeah this guy was a director at CNN for a while and a bunch of other roles hat seemed far beneath peasants like us. Also got some shoes from my uncle as I didn't bring formal ones, just slacks and a button up.

Then we got to the Royal Automobile Club and got a mini tour, was nice but based on what I'd heard it had seemed more unapproachable. The lineup to change into sport-y clothes from squash or swimming being full of people in suits was a *sign* maybe it's a bit different than the Y

Then we went to eat, had a small tasting menu that was honestly "fine" but not like amazing, surprisingly the meat course was my favorite even though I usually find them a bit boring

And a dessert, but the sweetest part (see what I there) were his stories, truly the statesman of the family. From stopping an assassination to civil wars, the Commonwealth does surprisingly more than I expected. He is a very good story teller and has done so much

Finally we went home (funnily enough my uncle lives like a couple blocks from where we are staying completely coincidentally) and I crashed at like 11 and slept for like 11 hours head plugs on, eye mask, sleepmaxxing