Week Thirty-Five | Team Cigary Takes London

I woke up Monday morning bright and early to see our friends off to the airport. 10 days flew by in an instant, but our memories will last a lifetime.

Surprisingly, our final goodbye wasn't as dramatic as expected. Between mapping out train schedules and sharing one bathroom in the early morning hours, there wasn't enough time to build up the emotional tension. Eh, I guess the epic cry Erika and I had last week will have to do...

EK and I love a good sob session. It's something we've always enjoyed together and I love that about our relationship. What is the point of having girlfriends if you can't have those raw, deep emotional conversations and just cry-it-out every once in a while? Ahhh, just what the doctor ordered.

Erika and I keep up with each other, but between her busy work schedule and the time difference, it's hard to really connect on a personal level. Having her here for 10 days was exactly what we needed to reconnect and all the 'girl talk' was necessary and therapeutic.

True friendships are all about transparency. In my opinion, if you can not bare your soul to someone you call a true friend or your "best"  friend, it is not a true friendship. Yes, there are many different levels of friendship, but I am always skeptical of people who claim they have 15 best friends. I'm sorry, but my skeletons are reserved for only a select few and that's the way I like it.

I love you EK! Can't wait to see you again! xx

Oh, and we love you too, Jesse! ;-) NO SERIOUSLY, we do! 

Alright, so I'm a little behind writing this, but oh well, it's taking me slightly longer to get my shit together this week and this "computer-like" device is nearly keeling over on me. I guess this post will actually be a combination of the end of Week 34 and the beginning of Week 35, but who's counting... I guess just me.

Erika and Jesse arrived in London Friday, May 23rd around noon. I eagerly awaited them at the tube station, embraced them and took them back to the flat to freshen up; we spared zero time before we were off exploring London.

We caught the 56 bus and headed out for St. Paul's Cathedral. Being such an iconic London building, I figured it would be a great place to start.

Of course, Jesse, the animal whisperer, makes a local friend immediately!

From St. Paul's we worked our way over the Millennium bridge and down the Thames River to Westminster, where we marveled at the London Eye and Big Ben.

Jesse was feeling a bit outnumbered, bless, so around 6:00 we worked our way back to the flat to meet up with James and get ready to go out!

I'd been raving about my guest's arrival to all my expat friends for the past few weeks, so we all met up at the Dalston Street Feast to get to know each other and enjoy some street food and drinks.

I thought it would be a really comfortable way to introduce everyone to each other, and it was! YAY! Friends loving friends!

The night started to dwindle around midnight, so everyone said their goodbyes and went their separate ways... buttt theee partyyy didn't end for the Team Charlotte, we created our own 'Party Bus' and we rode that bad boy all the way home! Am I right, or am I right, Charlotte peeps? LOL!

The next morning James, Jesse, Erika and I headed over to the Borough Market for lunch. The weather was iffy, but we popped in and out of cover (aka pubs) when necessary.

After lunch, we walked over the Tower Bridge and around the Tower of London. Again, another iconic London monument that everyone loves, but truly, it never gets old!

CLICK HERE! >> For pictures of the Tower Bridge

At this point, it was well into the afternoon and everyone was ready for some down time, so we went back to Islington to watch the Champions League Final before having dinner at a local Indian restaurant called Masala Zone.

Sunday was a big day for us (read: me) because we had plans for Afternoon Tea at the Mandeville Hotel. I've been looking forward to this for some time, so obviously it was the focus of our (read: my) day. Our reservation was at 4:00 PM, so we leisurely explored Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus to pass the time.

You can read about our Afternoon Tea experience << here, but in short, once we got settled into our tea, we really enjoyed ourselves! 

After our two-hour-long tea, we went back to Islington to stay local and keep it low key. The boys went out to a pub for some solo guy time and Erika and I stayed in my bed my office and had some solo girl time (AKA drank wine and had said epic cry.)

When the boys got home, we all livened up, cooked steaks and just relaxed from our three days of high intensity sightseeing. But honestly, it is probably one of my fondest memories of our time together because it's exactly what we would be doing in Charlotte if we were still there… You know, just kickin' it, just like old times.

Heyyy! The key phrase was: freeeeee flowinggggg proseccooooo. Whaddya expect? :)

The next couple days Erika and Jesse went out on their own while James worked and I got back into my typical routine: Oliver, blog, cleaning, etc...

Erika and Jesse were making a trip over to Abbey Road on Wednesday, so I decided to tag along since it's been something I've been meaning to see. We started in Notting Hill so they could see all the colorful houses and then we caught the tube up to the infamous recording studio of the Beatles.

CLICK HERE! >> For pictures from Abbey Road. (Sorry, pictures will be posted at a later date.)

After we saw Abbey Road, we took a bus to Covent Garden where we had a burger and a pint together before I jetted off to take care of Oliver. Ya'll, GUESS WHAT?! I FOUND NACHO CHEESE! They sell it at the Shake Shack in Covent Garden! What an amazing find! WOOHOO! 

(Some might find this gross, but I don't care. You can not find nacho cheese or queso in this country, so it's pretty huge in my book.)

Everyone reconvened early that evening to prepare for our 8:40 AM flight out of Stansted Airport in the morning. We all just ate whatever we found at the grocery store and packed our bags leisurely. James eventually came home with all of our papers and boarding passes for the trip and we all went to bed anxious for our Roman Holiday in the morning!

...Get ready for Team Cigary and Team Starnes take Rome!

Updates? Updatesss? oh yeah. UPDATES:

I am finally meeting the BIG man on Thursday! For dinner. . . Focus: Manners. No belching. Think before you speak... Pray for me. 

James will also be there, but I don't know if that will make me more or less nervous...

. . . 

I am back detoxing. Surprisingly, I didn't gain any weight back from the excessive carb-loading that was going on in Rome... I am actually looking forward to getting back on the Dukan Diet and getting back into some normalcy.

. . .

James' precious Audi finally sold! Thank you, Rick for all your help! Bye, bye Baby Blue/Bluebird/Blue, Whatever! You will be missed!

. . . 

We have two "regular" weeks in London before we head back to the States for my grandmother's funeral at Arlington. Under the circumstances, I'm not happy to be flying home, but it will be nice to see all of my extended family again.

. . .

Anddddd thennnnn we fly back to London the same day (June 17th) our 3rd set of guests fly to London. Yeah, I know, we're cutting it a bit close...

BUTTTTTTT we are SO EXCITED to have TEAM CARPENTER with us for 7 days!!! James has known Mike since grade school and they were college roommates, and I've known Mike and Lisa since my college days, so I know we are all going to have a blast catching up and hanging out in LONDONTOWN!

Well, I tink tats about it… Check back later for pictures from Tower Bridge and Abbey Road!

**Thank you Erika for letting me use many of your beautiful pictures for this post! xx