London Part Two: City still charming, people still…not.

View from Tate Modern.

View from Tate Modern.

Being catastrophically jet-lagged (Rob woke up at 4:30am!), we started our first real day in London pretty early. Following a quick breakfast at our hostel, Clink 78, we headed to Kings Cross/St. Pancras station to catch the tube.

Since I’ve already had a brief, tourist site-seeing packed visit to London, I handed Rob a map of the area and made him circle things that interested him. The few things on my list (places I didn’t have time to see the first time around) were the Tate Museums (Britain and Modern), some cool restaurants I’d read about, and a must-see – Big Ben!

Our diet was void of fish and chips (not intentionally), but we found reasonably priced grub. In town, we hit Hummus Bros., a new restuarant serving yummy hummus bowls, wraps, salads, and delicious ginger-mint lemonade, for lunch. Much later that evening, we hunted for Mildred’s, a place I had read about near Piccadilly Circus. We had fantastic (vegan) food. Mildred’s was a perfect cozy escape from the bitter cold of London.

We had a good day, despite the shock-inducing cold. I haven’t been in real “winter” since my last Minnesota winter in 2011! It was easy enough getting around the town via the Tube, but whenever we asked anyone for directions, recommendations, anything, we got grumpy, short answers with nothing short of a grimace. Needless to say, Rob got the same impression of most Londoners as I did.