London (Friday) - Our journey out of the country started out simply enough. The flight was long and generally uncomfortable. But the worst part was the looming dread of having been awake late at night and then needing to proceed with the next day as normal. It was a frustrating experience as we were simply not able to sleep much due to being upright. There were noisy babies in the cabin.

We arrived at London amongst downpour. We managed to get from the airport to our hotel, completely soaked and scrambling to get ourselves enough together to be able to face the rest of the day. We were able to drop off our luggage at the hotel and, and make it to some coffee and pastries at a nearby coffee shop (GAIL’S) and before heading to the British Museum. At Gail’s we tried a selection of pastires including an avocado chickpea bun, sultana scone, and ham & cheese croissant. The ham & cheese croissant was particularly delightful because is had a lot of crispy bits of cheese and a bechamel at the bottom.

Once at the museum, we were scarcely able to make it through various exhibits while still being completely exhausted.We left to go to Dishoom’s for Indian food, which was incredibly popular. The food there was delicious, including the vegetable samosa’s, garlic naan, chicken tiki-masala, and spicy lamb chops. The overall takeaway was the quality of spices used and how they made the dish absolutely delightful. Good Indian food has this was of using spices like cumin and cinnamon to make it feel like you’re getting a big bear hug of flavor. Not too dissimilar from an apple pie, as Camille pointed out.

Leaving Dishoom we were finally able to get back to our hotel, board our room, and take a nap. Afterwards we managed to go back out and walk around in Soho. We found the Chinatown area and tried Bun’s from Bun house, which were cheap and delicious. We attempted to make it out to Aldgate’s East station for the Culpepper pub to eat dinner, but when we got there it seemed that there were not any seats available and no one was eating food. Alas, we instead decided to take the 40 minute tube ride home and call it a night.