Visitor two: Mr. Matt

Two days after my parents left, Matt arrived! Hurrah!

I took a week off work so we could hang out the whole time. It's very slow right now because we just had our screening, so I don't think anyone missed me. I certainly didn't get any flack about taking the time away, which is always nice.

So anyway, the highlights:

Thursday night we went out for a tipple with all the peeps from work. Tons of people came out which was really awesome and I think Matt was really happy to meet everyone and vice versa. We went to the standard Hop Poles, which is where we go just about every Tuesday (the normal tipple night). Then Matt, Jenni, Tim and I moved onto Distillers, just a couple blocks away, after everyone else had gone home for the evening.

Friday was gorgeous when we woke up and we headed out to the London Zoo. Matt found it in my Time Out - I didn't know where it was or anything about it. It's a fantastic zoo! A little pricey but the exhibits and habitats are so wonderful, it was well worth it. There are a lot of enclosures that you can walk through, ones with butterflies, birds, monkeys, these crazy rabbit-deer creatures I can't remember the names of, and even one with sloths...

If any of you check out Matt's artblog regularly, he actually did a frighteningly similar picture of a sloth weeks ago - kudos for accuracy m'dear.

The next day we did a big bus tour day to Windsor Castle, Bath (or as Trudy our tour guide insisted, Baaaaaaath) and Stonehenge.

Windsor was gorgeous, but quick. We barely got to see all the regular tourist stuff before it was time to get back on the bus. Certainly no time to stop and really study all the amazing paintings and relics on display. The queen was apparently in residence the day we were there because it was Easter weekend. And we got super lucky because I guess that Friday was the only day the whole week that the castle was open to visitors. They have some spectacular Da Vinci sketches on display. It was just a bummer that it was so insanely crowded we were kind of pushed along past things whether we were ready to move on or not. The State Apartments were like no apartment I've ever seen. These are the rooms that are open to the public and they are lavish beyond belief. Gorgeous tapestries, paintings by the greats, entire rooms decorated with swords and armor. Very much a royal castle. We did catch a little of the changing of the guard - the odd part was when the guard band played "When the Saints Go Marching In" - it just seemed a little too Mardi Gras for the occasion. Anyway, it's gorgeous but you could easily spend a whole day there, just taking the time to stop and really admire the State Apartments as they should be.

Baaaaath was next, but while we were on our way there (it was about a 2hr drive from Windsor) it started snowing like nobody's business. Very very luckily the snow stopped about 15 minutes before we got to Bath, but that gives you a feel for the temperature outside. We went to see the Roman baths which were built around a natural hot spring which is apparently radioactive so no one is allowed to touch the water in the Roman baths. But it's really informative and, again, the history is just amazing. The town looks cute and I would definitely go back for a weekend just to relax and walk around. There's a modern day spa Thermae there, that I would LOVE to go to for a day.

Last up, Stonehenge. From the picture it looks like a gorgeous, sunny day...


but then if you look at how bundled up we are, that tells the real story. Cold, windy, and cold.


It was still awesome to see, though, and I'm so glad it was part of our tour. I just wish we could get close to the big rocks.

Sunday was Easter, so after Matt found all the little eggs I'd hid for him, well...we didn't do much. We'd been outside in the cold a lot the day before and it was snowing again on Sunday so we just relaxed and watched TV inside for most of the day. But then dinner...oh dinner. It was a phenomenal meal at Maze, one of Chef Ramsay's restaurants. It's tapas style (but not Spanish) so they recommend 3-5 dishes per person. Every single one we ordered was so amazingly tasty. So we left very full and very happy. See, here's the happy couple:


Monday we went to the Tate Modern in the afternoon. The giant spider is gone now (sadly) but the crack is still there. We went through all the public galleries and those took up the whole afternoon. It's a really wonderful museum, I noticed new favorites in the same galleries I went through before. Because it was Easter Monday, which is a bank holiday here, it was really crowded. I'm guessing museums and tourist spots were the bulk of what was open that day, so it wasn't too surprising really. After that we made our way up north to see H.Lord. Matt got a tour of her new place and then we walked over to Crouch End and pubbed it. Here are the two cuties drinking some "Old Rosey", an apparently delicious cider that I still need to try...


Sadly the next day Matt had to get back on the plane and return to that awful sunny warm LA weather. It was really great to have him here and hopefully he had enough fun to want to come back again before my time is up.