I haven’t seen my eldest cousin Amy in probably 25 years, since the 2nd to last time I was in Panama visiting family. Her, her husband, and their daughter moved from Panama to the UK about 20 years ago. I was planning on taking the 2 hour train up to see them in Birmingham but unfortunately the rail workers announced earlier this week that they were going to go on strike on Saturday. There would be a high likelihood that I wouldn’t find a train up or I’d be stranded trying to come back down in the evening and would miss the flight the next morning. Guess we’ll just have to come back to London then 🙂

Our plan B was to visit the British museum and see some of the the stole- I mean curated artifacts in the museum. First though, there was this dish I saw on Reddit in London that I knew I had to have when I came to visit. Chris told me that it’s in Borough Market, a fresh food market which dates back to the 1100’s.

Really amazing seeing all the different variety of dishes but I only had a limited stomach capacity which I’m sure is hard to believe if you’ve seen my Instagram. After winding through the maze of food stalls, I finally found what I was looking for; melted raclette cheese from Kappacasein Dairy. Basically they take half a wheel of cheese, put it under a broiler to melt the top layer, then scrape it on top of boiled potatoes. That’s it and it was delicious.

I saw a few people walking around the market wearing Minnesota Vikings gear and thought that was a weird coincidence seeing other Minnesotans around. Apparently the Vikings are playing in London this weekend!

We’re not really museum buffs and it was easy to get overwhelmed with all of the stuff in the museum, plus it was really packed considering it was a Saturday afternoon. Highlights were that we saw mummies, samurai armor from the 1700s, and this cool clock from 1805 that had a rolling ball that would zig zag on an inclined plane taking 30 seconds to get from one side to the other which ran the clock.

We walked around the main floor looking for the Rosetta stone, I guess it was being stored away or something? However, they did point us to a replica in a different part of the museum. I don’t think this would help me with my Japanese homework though…

I still hadn’t had my UK pub experience yet. We needed a break off our feet anyway so we stopped into the first pub we came across after leaving the museum and got a hard cider and steak and mushroom pie which was delicious with the red wine gravy smothered all over it. This was a nice vibe but I couldn’t help feel like it was lacking a group of people to enjoy it with. Joanna’s a great travel companion but it’s always nice to have more people join in on the fun too.

After a little bit of shopping, the last thing on the agenda was to close out our trip with dinner. I suggested an Ethiopian restaurant across the street from where we were staying. I’ve only had it once in DC but it would be Joanna’s first time. We walked into the restaurant and saw the “cash only” sign so I left Joanna to figure out what we should order while I ran a few blocks down to the ATM.

I got back to the restaurant and found Joanna eating food from a group of strangers. They all made eye contact with me and burst out laughing and yelled “ANDREW!”. While I was gone, Joanna was sitting alone at a table looking at the menu. Alex approached her asking if she was Malaysian by any chance. They got to talking and eventually invited her to their table because they had accidentally ordered too much food and thought it was a shame to waste it.

Meeting Alex, Kenson, Yinny, and Dave was the exact thing that I wanted out of this trip, connecting with people from London and making new friends. After a little bit of talking I found out that Dave went to Carlson at the U of M graduating in finance in 2007 which means he overlapped when I was there for 2 years. We actually have a few of the same friends too, such a small world! He’s from Wisconsin, lives in Malaysia, dating Yinny and just arrived in London the night before to meet her family.

Alex and Kenson are sibling in laws. Alex is currently back in school in London for forensic science, she and Joanna bonded over teeth. Kenson is visiting in London to visit his wife’s family and they live in Malaysia full time but he travels a lot and put me to shame with all of the amazing adventures he’s been on. For example, in 2012 he did the Mongol Rally for 2.5 months where he got a junker car and drove from London to Mongolia with a friend for charity. He was telling me that one of his family members was an extra in Crazy Rich Asians but I suspect he’s also a crazy rich Asian IRL because he was married at the location they filmed the grandma’s house in Malaysia.

The food they shared with us was fantastic, I don’t even know what they ordered but it was all good, but to be honest the company was so much better. When we were all full they invited us out to a nearby bar for drinks and then to ANOTHER bar after that. I think that meant they thought we were cool too?

5 drinks later and bar close meant it was time to go home and pack. We unfortunately had to say goodbye to our new friends but they told us to let them know next time we’re in London or Malyasia. Dave said he could go for Quang’s next time he’s in Minneapolis.

Clothes got quickly packed in our bags when we got back to the apartment. I scheduled an Uber to pick us up at 5am to take us to the airport so we only got about 2 hours of sleep. I woke up still feeling drunk but started experiencing a new sensation of an oncoming hangover in real time. Usually it meets me like a sledgehammer when I wake up but I guess I beat it this time.

I do have to say meeting this group was a GREAT way to close out our time in London and for the trip in general. We had a few missed connections this time around but we made some new ones instead. Hopefully out trip home is uneventful and doesn’t contain anything worth blogging about. With that, I’ll close a long overdue international trip and chapter in my travel blog. I’m planning on heading to Hong Kong in November for a week to visit my grandma who is 104 years old so I’ll likely blog for that trip. Thanks for following along!

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