Our first two days in London were characterized by drizzle, rain, and more drizzle and two very good Harry Potter and the Cursed Child shows.
We are staying at the Kensington Hilton, which isn't near anything particularly interesting (other than a shopping center), but is well located on the Central Tube line so that we can get to everywhere we want to go. Our first day we had to pick up our Harry Potter tickets early, then went back to the hotel to fully unpack and dry off and then headed out to the show (more on that below). The second day we went to the National Gallery (we sort of did the Rick Steves' "see the best of the best through the ages" tour, though we did find two very nice Vermeers on our own plus some JMW Turners we didn't know were there), then tried to get into the Churchill War Rooms, but it was already booked full for the day at 1pm -- it was a holiday (Good Friday) so lots of extra people, both tourists and locals -- and then went to the Tate Modern (this was a google maps screwup -- I was trying to get to the Tate Britain), where there were so many people we just left again. We had dinner near the theatre (see below) and went off to part 2 of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
We really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It has fantastic special effects. Lots of fire, where I can't imagine how they got permission from the fire marshals to have that level of realism in the theatre (fire places, burning beds, torches, wands that shoot fire, all of which we are pretty sure were real flames), lots of flying or flying-like activity and much more that I can't tell you about without spoilers. The cast was superb. You can tell that JK Rowling was involved in the production personally, as every character fit their description from the books perfectly. I don't want to give things away, but it's over all a pretty dark story about teenagers and fathers who don't get along, a need to save the world, but screwing up while doing so, and lots of "cameo appearances" by most of the salient characters of the Harry Potter world (including all/most of the old bad guys, some reformed bad guys and some new bad guys). My personal favorite character was Moaning Myrtle. I'm sure it would depend on who plays the character, but she was fantastic in this production.
For food, I have been trying to "eat local" in the sense of eating traditional foods of the area (as I did in Brussels and to some extent in Germany). On Thursday, when we first arrived, we found a lovely pub right next to the theatre, the Cambridge, where we went for a late lunch. I had a chicken, leek and brie pie with a puff pastry crust, which was vaguely similar to the vol au vent I had in Brussels, though the Brussels version was better. Jay had a club sandwich (very different from a US one, with thick bread and roasted/poached chicken). Jay decided we should eat there again before the second performance (when certain people find something they like, they aren't willing to try something new, in case it might not be as good :-), where I had fish and scampi and chips. The batter fried cod was superb, the chips were OK, the breaded scampi/shrimp were mediocre, and the mushy peas were "interesting". I also had a very good butternut squash soup. On Friday, we had coffee at the National Gallery, where I decided to sample a Bakewell tart. This is an almond tart with jam and marzipan in the middle. Very sweet. At that point, I felt like I had sampled most of the essential British foods, all of which were fatening. And then on Saturday (which I'll cover in the next post), we went to Oxford, where we ate at the Eagle and Child (the pub where Tolkien and C. S. Lewis used to gather), which turns out to nowadays be part of the same chain as the Cambridge, and had exactly the same menu. This time I went for a vege soup (pretty mediocre) and a cherry tomato tart with small salad (excellent). I'm done with "eating British", and am looking for other kinds of food. On the other hand, tomorrow night we eat "modern British food" at a high end restaurant, where I have high hopes. Let's hope that they serve something different from fish and chips or meat pie.
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