Everyday Life in London

We have been in London for exactly 2 months today -- can you believe it?! I woke up this morning and realized that besides Josh and Johanna, our first set of visitors, no one has seen our cute neighborhood in London. So I decided to take the afternoon and "give you a tour" of where we live and spend most of our time. 

Okay, I admit, my intentions were mostly good... I did need a break from homework, since that's all we've been doing lately! :)

This is home for us in London, our flat complex, called Cartwright Gardens. Although our flat is TINY [or, if there's a word smaller than "tiny" insert that word here], they do a really great job of keeping it clean and updated.

As you can see, the complex is in the shape of a crescent, and right in front of our complex there are actually 3 or 4 tennis courts, which is cool, but doesn't really serve a purpose for us in any way. I am by far the WORST tennis player in the entire world -- Jordan will vouch for this! There are probably infants who are better tennis players than I am.

Moving along... here is the entrance to Jordan's law school, University College London. One of the best parts about our location is that Jordan only has a 5 minute walk, if that, to school every day. Although Jord might not agree with this, we recently found out that his school, UCL, is ranked 8th for the top schools in the world! Pretty cool!!

We spend quite a bit of time wandering up and down this street near our house. There are dozens of hole-in-the-wall shops and restaurants along it, and we walk down it to get to our grocery store.

I have been wanting to take pictures of this church ever since we got here, but have just never got around to it. It's crazy because you walk by these amazing buildings every single day in London, and I hate to say it, but you kind of start to get used to them and forget to notice how incredible they are.

I couldn't get a good picture of it because the doors were open, but this church actually has huge, bright red doors, which is kind of random.

We walk through this cute alleyway to work out each morning, and Jordan also takes this route to school. At night they have Christmas lights strung between the trees -- so cute! There are also little restaurants lining both sides, and picnic tables in the middle of the alley.

Now to the busy side of our neighborhood... we are just down the street from Euston Road, which is a main road into and out of the city. Needless to say, it is always crowded and loud!

The castle-like building from previous posts is located along this street, as well as the famous British Library and a lot of mainstream shops and restaurants. 

We are located between 3 major tube stations, but usually use 2 of them most often. This is the larger of the two, called King's Cross St. Pancras Station, where one of the big train stations in London is located as well. When we first got here, Jordan made the mistake of calling it "King's Cross St. Pancreas" -- yes, as in the human organ. :) 

This is the other tube stop we use, called Russell Square. We like this one because it's so much less crowded!

I couldn't resist posting our most frequented Starbucks. :) Alright, alright... MY most frequented Starbucks. It really does get me in trouble though, seeing that it's literally around the corner from our flat. It's so much easier to justify a latte when it's that close! :)

The China House is one of our favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants we go to for lunch. You really can't beat a 2-course authentic Chinese lunch for £4.50 a person! 

Moving right along... there are a TON of pubs near our house, but we of course have a few favorites by now. We really enjoy the pub scene here, as it is much different than going to a bar back home. The pubs are a lot more relaxed, cultural, and more focused on food and drinks, rather than just drinks. :) 

Even though neither of us like Guinness, it is extremely popular over here!

I took pictures of our 3 favorite pubs near our house. This one, called O'Neill's, is an Irish pub, and is by far our favorite pub to eat at. They have an entire menu of entrees for £3.95 -- and they are not small portions either! Jordan's favorite here is the smoked cheddar and bacon burger and mine is the sausage and mashed potatoes plate. 

By the way, I love how it's totally socially acceptable to eat sausages for any and every meal here. And mashed potatoes. I swear I am not making this up -- it's on the menu!

The next one is more of a hole-in-the-wall that we stumbled across one night called the Skinners Arms. This is our favorite pub to just grab a drink and hang out together at -- it's much more quiet and chill than a lot of the other pubs we've been to, and it has a great neighborhood atmosphere. 

The last pub is actually the very closest to our house; it's called Mabel's Tavern. We've only been here a couple times, but it is probably our favorite pub to watch soccer games at since it has a big T.V. and is so close to our house. 

Last, but not least, I had to post a picture of our second home... the grocery store. :) The grocery store we go to is called Waitrose, and I'm not kidding when I call this our second home -- we are here at least 2-3 times a week! We've decided that our trips to the grocery store are much more frequent here due to the lack of space in our cupboards combined with the smaller portions they sell. And we're big eaters... what can I say?

This concludes the tour. :) I hope you got somewhat of a feel for our "everyday life" in London. To see more pictures from our neighborhood, click here.

P.S. We saw Slumdog Millionaire last weekend, and absolutely LOVED it. We watch a lot of movies, and we both agreed this is the best movie we have seen in years! So go watch it if you haven't seen it -- it's worth it!