London and Cambridge, UK

Dear Friends:

Last week, I spent some time in the United Kingdom - Cambridge and London, to be specific.  For the rest of the U.S., it was the Thanksgiving holiday.  For me, I spent time away from my family, and without any hint of turkey ; )  My team at work scheduled an "offsite" during the holiday - which isn't a holiday for the UK.  I tried to get them to move the dates, but it didn't work.  I'm over it now...

I arrived in London at 6am and traveled directly to the event location in Cambridge.  We held the meetings at Homerton College, adjacent to Cambridge University:

The two days of meetings went really well.  I delivered presentations on each day.  By the time I presented on this first day, I had been awake for 30 hours straight.  I almost fell asleep during the speaker before me ; )  I caught a second wind as I stood in front of the group...and it went well.

The entire team went to dinner on the first evening, to a delightful French restaurant.  My favorite part was the tomato and mozzarella salad....it was not only beautiful to look at, but was quite tasty!

The downtown part of Cambridge is usually a lot of fun.  It has a real charm to it, even in the winter.  As it was the beginning of the holiday season, they had already begun to decorate shopping areas of the town center.  It was really pretty:

We finished the meetings on Thanksgiving day.  For dinner, the closest I could get to a turkey feast was a bit of peri-peri chicken at Nando's (one of my favorites in the UK):

While we're on the subject of food (which, honestly, is a majority of my blog posts), I have to share the English breakfast experience.  For those that have traveled to the UK, you'll understand what I mean.  The plate below does not look appetizing...at all.  However, I rather enjoy it.  The buffet at the hotel included sausages (very important in the UK), as well as roasted tomatoes (the only color on the plate), and mushrooms.  One item that is very popular - but I'm not a fan of - are cooked beans.  I have tried them before...I will simply leave more for the rest of the British:

After a day in the Cambridge office, I decided to head to London, so I would be closer to the airport for my flight the next day.  At the train station, they had a Mark's & Spencer - which is a great chain of both department stores and small food stores throughout the UK.  While there, I found one of my favorite brands of cookies - the "All Butter" collection.  The top selection for me, are the Cranberry & Orange Cookies.  Yummy!  I had a wonderful train ride to London, while munching on a few of these:

I'm really, really glad I decided to spend my last evening in London.  Just as Cambridge was starting to decorate for the holidays, London shopping was in full decoration mode.  On Regent Street, you'll find a lot of the big shopping brands.  They had some of the most delightful decorations, strung across the streets for blocks and blocks.  Even though it was raining, it just felt magical...

Something that I hadn't expected to see...Black Friday sales at most of the stores.  The American tradition of insane shopping right after Thanksgiving has apparently been exported to the UK.  I feel sad that this part of our culture has been shared.  Oh, well...

I ran into the first international Five Guys burger place.  Apparently, there are almost three dozen locations in the UK!

Along with the street decorations, many of the stores had creative and delightful window displays.  There is a store called "Liberty" where you'll find high-end fashion and an amazing custom fabric line.  I've taken my wife there before and it's gorgeous.  Their windows reflected the creative part of the store:

Nearby, was Carnaby Street.  This is a famous shopping district in London, filled with small boutiques and restaurants (it was really popular in the 60's).  They went all-out for decorations:

Back on Regent Street, I headed directly to one of my favorite toy stores in the world.  Hamley's didn't disappoint - the window displays were incredible!

Inside, it was a combination of beauty, creativity, and chaos.  Lots of people visit this store, and the decorations were whimsical and incredible to look at:

Back on the street, I headed toward Picadilly Circus - a huge tourist destination that I knew would be interesting.  The merchants along the way also had some cool decorations:

I then headed toward Leicester Square, nearby.  The view from Picadilly towards Leicester was really cool.  You can see a bright ferris wheel in the distance:

Even London's Chinatown was beautiful to look at.  I like walking along these streets, as you get such an array of food aromas that surround you:

I continued to just keep walking around, determined to find new places that I haven't visited before.  My last stop for the evening, was Kingly Court.  This is a fun indoor shopping and restaurant area that is situated between Carnaby Street and the West End.  It was jammed with people having dinner and drinks.  I'll definitely have to come back to this place next time:

That's it for my quick trip to the UK.  While I didn't like that I had to miss Thanksgiving with my family, at least I was able to see London at its finest!

Thanks for reading!