It’s always fun to be a tourist in your own town, I think. It’s the rare person that takes advantage of all of his city’s cultural activities and visits the tourist spots and the like - especially when you live in somewhere with as much to do as London. Well, we have friends from the States in town this week, my husband’s taken the week off, and we’re slogging around with our friends, seeing it all.

Yesterday, we went to St. Paul’s and climbed the 530 steps to the top, where we had a pretty fabulous view of the city below. It’s a long climb. If you don’t like tiny little spiral staircases, don’t do it. It also gets quite low and narrow in spaces. However, if you can get through all of that, it’s absolutely worth it. It was raining a little when we were up there, but honestly that felt great. After 530 steps, you’re ready for a little cool down.

After St. Paul’s, we wandered over to the Tate Modern. The restaurant on the 7th floor is hideously expensive, if tasty. The service was sort of enh, though, so I’m not sure that I’d recommend it. There’s a Strindberg exhibit at the Tate, which cracked us all up. Just the day before we’d been giggling over Strindberg & Helium (my friend was wearing a Helium tee-shirt at the time, even) so the we wandered around the gallery going “Miseryyyyy!” much to our amusement, and everyone else’s annoyance, no doubt. The exhibition itself was pretty cool. Strindberg was a wacky guy.

We all went home for a rest when the Tate closed to prepare ourselves for our 9:15 evening meal. The evening meal was an event. An enormous event. The four of us trekked over to Gordon Ramsay’s on Hospital Road for an orgy of food consisting of seven courses, three bottles of wine, some vintage port and armagnac, and four hours. The service was impeccable, the sommelier was approachable and savvy, the food was amazing. I was sort of expecting to be disappointed because of the hype - it is a Gordon Ramsay restaurant - but I wasn’t. Not at all. Well… maybe a little at the end when the mini-cab they called us charged us twice what the black cab that dropped us off charged. But nevermind.

This morning I’m vaguely hungover, vaguely full, and vaguely feeling like I put on a couple kilo. Was it worth it? Oh. Yes.

Notes:
• This Strindberg exhibition will be at the Tate until 15May.
• The warm foie gras option is better than the cold one and the sea bass is way better than the halibut option on the tasting menu at Gordon Ramsay’s.
• If you go to Gordon Ramsay’s, make sure you go with at least two other people so you can get the Tart Tatin, which was quite possibly the most divine thing I’ve ever eaten. (drool drool drool)
• HEEELIUMMMMMM!

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1. Another anniversary: The Boston Tea Party
2. The Rules for Eating Bait
3. The day Mr Bean came to town
4. January? Bleh.
5. Live Budget Coverage